Jerry Brown called off California’s drought emergency a year ago, we Californians seem to have gotten a little lazy when it comes to water conservation.
On April 7, 2017, the day Brown issued an executive order calling off the drought emergency, the Sierra snowpack was 164 percent of average.
Since May 2015, the State Water Resources Control Board, an agency that emerged during the drought as California water cop, had been requiring every city and water district to cut its water use by a certain amount.
Take a city like Palmdale, where water use rose 5 percent after the drought was called off compared to the same period in 2016.
Palmdale allowed people to water their lawns more often, and backed off on enforcement.
“And if the state says the drought is over, and if customers don’t see a change in the rules, that kind of undermines the credibility of next time we really need them to save water.” Other cities, like Redlands, didn’t change any of its water rules, but officials suspect their customers started to slack off because they’re hearing mixed messages about the need to conserve.
And that was feeding back into more political action, and more media coverage.” But since Brown called off the drought, media coverage has also dried up.
“If people were collecting shower water to flush their toilets, I think they should take a break,” she said.
What about in my city?
Santa Monica’s new water neutrality ordinance, passed three months after Gov.