King Jove
King Of †he Gawds
Newsom says mandatory statewide water restrictions for California may be on the way
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday that he may put mandatory water restrictions in place in as soon as six weeks from now as the state’s historic drought continues to worsen.
The declaration came as the governor and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan inspected recovery efforts at Big Basin Redwoods State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains one year after a massive wildfire burned through the park’s ancient redwoods.
Asked if he was going to require cities to meet mandatory water conservation targets, as former Gov. Jerry Brown did statewide during the last drought from 2012 to 2016, Newsom noted that he already called for 15% voluntary conservation, but that could change soon.
“At the moment, we’re doing voluntary,” the governor said. “But if we enter into another year of drought — and as you know our water season starts Oct. 1 — we will have likely more to say by the end of September as we enter potentially the third year of this current drought.”
California is currently suffering through its worst drought in nearly 50 years. Mandatory water conservation targets would likely mean widespread limits on watering lawns, with fines for violators, along with water allotments for homes and businesses, as occurred during the last drought as a tactic to keep supplies from running out.
Overall, 88% of the state is in extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, NOAA and the University of Nebraska.
After the least rainfall in any two-year period since 1975-77, reservoirs in many places across Northern California have fallen to shockingly low levels.
