If the drought plaguing the Golden State continues, all Californians will have to change their habits, from taking shorter showers, to turning taps off while shaving or brushing teeth and making better use of water, Gov. Jerry Brown told the region’s water officials Thursday.
“Everyone is going to have to get used to using water as efficiently and as responsibly as possible,” Brown said. “There are limited resources and every day the drought goes on, we will have to tighten down. The easiest water to get is that we don’t use.”
As the state struggles to deal with dry conditions from Sacramento to Redlands, Brown met Thursday with water managers from across Southern California to urge statewide cooperation in making sure there is enough water for everyone.
Brown met with Metropolitan Water District officials, the umbrella agency that provides water to 26 cities and water districts in Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.
“Make no mistake,” Brown said at the beginning of the session. “This drought is a big wake-up call and reminds us we do depend on natural systems. It is not just going to the store and buying something.”
Last week, Brown asked Californians to voluntarily reduce water use by 20 percent, and he’s said mandatory programs will be put into effect if needed.
It’s a message echoed by local water agencies, inland water officials said.
Despite depleted lakes and reservoirs, state water experts and officials say there’s enough stored water in Southern California underground reservoirs and aquifers to last another year, without the need for mandatory conservation measures.
But that’s only if significant rain returns before then. Whether the heavy rains will come is uncertain.
“Southern California, right now for this year, is in fairly good shape. Groundwater basins are fairly full,” said Jay Lund, director of the Center for Watershed Studies at UC Davis. “It has good arrangements with some of its neighbors to share water during a drought. Southern California is likely to be OK. It’s a matter of whether this drought will go on for many years.”
The last time a three-year drought occurred was in 2009, when mandatory measures were put in place. The wet year of 2010 was followed by the past few years of relative dryness.
Despite water agencies having enough supply to last until 2015, all officials are echoing Brown, calling on residents to practice conservation measures.
“Right now (conservation) is voluntary,” said Joe Grindstaff, general manager of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, a water wholesaler for the region. “We are in a shortage situation, and we’re asking everybody in the state to conserve an additional 20 percent. That’s a prudent thing to do. For everybody, that would be significant.”
Bob Tincher, manager of water resources for the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, a water wholesaler in the region, also hoped people begin to use less water.
The water agencies are starting to talk with each other and preparing to make it through the dry period,” Tincher said. “We have stored water, so we’re in pretty good shape for the short term. The question is how long might this go on. That’s unpredictable. The water agencies will keep an eye on the weather, and if it continues to be dry, you could see more detailed requests from water agencies to cut back. In the mean time, we just ask customers to be really efficient with their use of water as we’ve always asked them to.”
The Chino Basin Water Conservation District, which oversees several catch basins in the western Inland Valley, is also in the business of educating the public on water conservation, and the use of more sustainable landscaping and appliances.
“If you look at our current condition, this drought may continue for many years, and we in Southern California have been very spoiled with cost and availability of water,” said Eunice Ulloa, general manager of the Chino Basin Water Conservation District. “We have lawns and big expanses of grass. We must wean off of that.”
Earlier this month, Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Montclair, voted to support a bill that would reauthorize the Bureau of Reclamation’s Emergency Drought Relief Act. The law helps mitigate drought damage only after a governor issues a drought declaration prior to the Secretary of the Interior determining whether assistance is necessary.
“The California delegation in Congress is very much in tune to the drought situation,” McLeod said. “We’re happy that the governor did issue that declaration, but we’re waiting for the Secretary of the Interior to determine whether assistance is merited.”
Brown said he talked about the state’s situation with President Obama this week, and he promised to help as much as he could to assist California through the drought.
“We are working in the short term to get funding from the president and in the long term a set of investments that will enable us to continue to grow and have a high quality of life,” Brown said.