Drought conservation mandate continues

Late Tuesday evening, the State Water Resources Control Board decided to extend Governor Jerry Brown’s emergency water conservation regulations. The extension, however, has some revisions, which should ease some burden on water suppliers.

The revised regulations would consider certain factors such as:

• Water use in varying parts of the state
• Hotter-than-average climate
• Population growth
• Investments in new local, drought resilient water resources, like wastewater reuse and desalination

“After four years of extreme drought, there is still a need for Californians to keep up their stellar conservation practices,” said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. “This updated regulation acknowledges that need, while making adjustments in response to feedback from water suppliers and others. If we continue to receive a lot of rain and snow in February and March, we may scale back the requirements further, drop them, or move to another approach.”

The new regulation adjustments, which will go through October 2016, are expected to bump Californian’s conservation numbers to 20 percent.

“This regulation should still allow this state to save more than 1 million acre-feet of water through October 2016 – which is enough water to serve an average of two million California families,” Marcus added.