In April of last year, during the the annual snowpack survey at the Phillips Station in the Sierra Nevada mountains, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) stood on a dry, brown meadow to address reporters. He had a serious look. For the first time since measurements began in 1942, there was no snow to measure.
“We’re standing on dry grass, and we should be standing in five feet of snow,” Brown said. “We’re in an historic drought, and that demands unprecedented action.”
With that Brown went on to announce the state’s first-ever mandatory water restrictions for potable water users. The water diet was ambitious: a 25 percent reduction compared with 2013 consumption levels statewide. “People should realize we’re in a new era,” Brown said. “The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day, that’s going to be a thing of the past.”
Last summer, the state’s water board had taken the governor’s executive order and crafted a set of rules for water providers that quickly proved successful. By the end of that summer, statewide water consumption dropped by 31 percent, and as months unfolded, conservation goals were largely met.
Now, however, the most recent state figures show that water conservation is declining, although California is moving into its sixth year of a historic drought. In fact, conservation dropped for the third consecutive month in August, the California State Water Resources Control Board said in a press release Wednesday. Statewide, August water savings were 36 percent lower than a year before.
This comes some six months after the water board started to relax water restrictions, dropping some water districts’ conservation standards slightly as a powerful El Niño was expected to bring an unusually wet winter.
But El Niño was weaker than expected, and northern California got rains just slightly above average. Snowpack, California’s most important water reservoir, replenished but only reached short to normal levels. Still, in June the water board updated mandatory conservation targets, allowing most water suppliers to set conservation standards at 0 percent based on a “stress test” that evaluates whether a water district can meet demand for three years.
In August, 343 of the state’s 411 water districts reported having enough water to meet their customers’ demands, the Los Angeles Times reported. “A bit of relaxation is OK,” water board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus said then. “Abandoning water conservation is not.”
Officials have said they will monitor conservation data in the coming months and could bring back mandatory conservation standards next year if the drought persists. If that’s the rationale, then California may be well on its way to forced standards.
In the meantime, people in places like Malibu and Coachella are back to using a disproportionate amount of water — on average 300 gallons a day — compared to an average of 84 gallons in areas like Los Angeles.