Skip to footer

As California drought persists, residents cut water use by 13.5 percent

As snowpack water hit a record low, drought restrictions and mandatory cutbacks encouraged Californians to save water in April.

|
Rich Pedroncelli/AP/File
In this March 27, 2015 file photo, farmer Rudy Mussi watches as his grandson Lorenzo tries to turn a water valve on his almond orchard in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near Stockton, Calif. Moving to meet voluntary water conservation targets, dozens of farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta submitted plans on Monday to the state saying they intend to plant less thirsty crops and leave some fields unplanted amid the relentless California drought, officials said.

| Sacramento, Calif.

Californians responded to the worst snowpack measurement on record and unprecedented drought restrictions by decreasing their water use 13.5 percent in April, regulators said Tuesday.

Southern California cities including Los Angeles and San Diego continued to lag in conservation, cutting just 9 percent.

The data show residents and businesses achieved the savings compared to the same month of 2013.

Gov. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory cutbacks in April as the drought drags on.

The State Water Resources Control Board will start tracking compliance this summer after assigning each community a water use reduction target of as much as 36 percent. The board is also tracking how local agencies crack down on water waste.

Only about a tenth of water departments, 43 out of 395, reported issuing any sort of penalties for water waste.

April was a wakeup call for California when surveyors found the water in the Sierra Nevada snowpack at its lowest level on record. The snowpack provides nearly a third of the state's water.

That data and the lack of urgency regarding conservation among residents prompted the governor to demand mandatory cutbacks to make sure communities have enough water to get through the drought.

While many agencies have enough water to avoid the brunt of the drought, some rural communities have seen wells run dry.

The shift to mandatory conservation followed lackluster savings, with water use slipping just 3 percent in February and 4 percent in March compared to 2013 levels.

Local water departments report how much water their residents and businesses use monthly.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to As California drought persists, residents cut water use by 13.5 percent
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2015/0602/As-California-drought-persists-residents-cut-water-use-by-13.5-percent
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe