SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Californians will be asked to further cut back on their water use, state officials said Monday as they warned water scarcity will shape the future of the drought-stricken state.
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But those cut backs would come from cities and local water districts, not the state, with members of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration saying allowing local retailers to set conservation needs is the best approach in a state of nearly 40 million people where water needs vary.
“We live in a state that has many different hydrological zones, many different water usage scenarios and that one size fits all doesn’t really work in California,” said Jared Blumenfeld, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Blumenfeld spoke to reporters after Newsom, a Democrat, issued an executive order outlining new actions aimed to reducing water use on the heels of a historically dry January through March. The governor has previously called on all Californians to reduce their water use by 15% compared to 2020, but it’s not a mandate and so far total savings sit at 6%.
Like much of the U.S. West, California is experiencing severe or extreme drought across most of its land. Though it rained Monday on both ends of the state, state officials offered a sobering assessment of the state’s water picture.
“How we protect this precious resource has to be baked into everything we do,” Blumenfeld said. “Our lives here in California are really going to be shaped by water scarcity going forward.”
Roughly 385 cities and other local water districts have to submit drought response plans to the state detailing six levels of conservation actions based on water scarcity. As less water becomes available, the local water districts adopt more aggressive controls that establish how and when people can use water. Those suppliers serve more than 36 million people, or more than 90% of the state’s residents.
Newsom’s executive order directs the State Water Resources Control Board to consider requiring those local suppliers to move to the second step of their conservation plans, which assumes water scarcity of 20%. About 140 cities and retailers are already operating at that level.
Level two restrictions vary based on the local district’s needs, but typically restrict when people can use water for outdoor purposes or include incentives for people to install more efficient appliances or landscapes. In Sacramento, for example, level two limits watering of public spaces like parks and cemeteries, orders people to turn off decorative water features like fountains and increases patrols for water waters. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power would restrict outdoor watering, increase outreach to heavy water users and provide more rebates and incentives for water conservation.
“As important as conservation is to preserving our precious water supplies, we must emphasize that conservation cannot be our only response to the ‘boom and bust’ water cycles that are intensifying with climate change,” said Jim Peifer of the Regional Water Authority, an organization representing 20 water suppliers in the Sacramento area, in a statement.
….and what did the a$$holes do with the 2.4 billion dollars the sheeple voted a few years ago for improving our water supply? Wasn’t that supposed to get us more storage and higher dam heights? Not a peep out of Sacto. They just sit on the funds, but have plenty of our money to fritter away on liberal causes.
But then if you keep pulling the “D” lever, this is what you will get. No wonder peoples/businesses are fleeing.
LOVE your comment!!! You hit the nail on the head by friend.
The D lever and D airhead “solutions” always lead to only one thing: DESTRUCTION.
Don’t agree? Show me ONE example.
With decades now of no infrastructure improvements in water control and responsible use of dams to control the outflow of water that has been mandated by Jerry Brown and his successor to benefit an invasive fish species and divert/restrict water from productive farm use the problem is now reaching an impasse. If the water had been controlled through proper management and used for the growing of food as it was in the past more water would have drained down to the aquifer system and be available for use as opposed to the agenda the Left put into place. Weather has changed constantly all through the years and 7 year dry spells are common and will continue to occur. Voters are being manipulated and actually believe the bs they are fed day in and day out.
Instead of giving freebies to buy votes, why don’t you build reservoirs to store the water that runs to the ocean every winter?
Can’t you get it through your heads that If you do something good for our state, people will vote for you?
Two comments above… what to add to the truth?
The State emptied a dam in San Jose area, for safety upgrades. It still has not been completed.
So why have not the drive by media not asked why is incompetency not being exposed and Slick and the rest in Sac. held accountable?
So get rid of all of these damned vineyards popping up around California. They are massive water users. Local water tables are being depleted while farm companies grow wine (non essential) and ship it out of the country. Basically barreling up our water and sending it to China and others.
The above comments say everything we need to know, the shortage and damage is self inflicted by incompetent politicians and bureaucrats. Not an ounce of common sense between them and yet these same people get reelected by Liberal Democrats and outright Lefties year after year.
It makes you wonder if something in this otherwise wonderful state is causing this kind of permanent brain damage.
So nobody in California gobermnt knows about desalinization? Amazing how dumb Democrats really are these daze!?
Another democrat fail that evolves to crisis levels by design. They never let a crisis go to waste in their drive
for total power and control.