Water conservation during a record-hot February dropped to 12 percent for a nine-month cumulative savings of 23.9 percent, short of the mandated 25 percent goal set by the governor last year, state water officials announced Monday.
“Twenty-four percent savings shows enormous effort and a recognition that everyone’s effort matters,” said State Water Resources Control Board Chair Felicia Marcus. “Californians rose to the occasion, reducing irrigation, fixing leaks, taking shorter showers, and saving our precious water resources in all sorts of ways.”
The percentage of water saved continues to decline, slipping from 18.4 percent in December and 17.1 percent in January, as compared to the same months in 2013. (February figures are the latest released by the state).
February also marked the last month in a nine-month drought emergency plan kicked off by Gov. Jerry Brown in April of last year that began June 1. In February, the board extended the conservation plan through October, saying the state is heading into a fifth year of drought.
While El Nino promised record-breaking rainfall, that was fulfilled primarily in Northern California. Southern California saw about half as much rain as in a normal year last winter, when measured in downtown Los Angeles. Hence, the drought remains, especially in Southern California.
“It was more of a moderate March than the miracle March we hoped for, but we’re grateful for every raindrop and every snowflake, and we are still hoping for more April showers. We are in better shape than last year, but are still below average in most of California. We need to keep up our efforts to conserve the water we’ve gotten,” Marcus said in a prepared statement Monday.
A near 100 percent snowpack on April 1 in the northern Sierra Nevada combined with overflowing reservoirs in Northern California may mean more water moving down the State Water Project, which has buoyed some agencies. The state Department of Water Resources announced it was upping its water allocation from 5 percent in 2014 to 45 percent.
However, many Southern California water boards, companies and cities are worried that residents will get the message the drought is over and conserve less — or not at all — during the upcoming hot, dry months.
“The problem I see is Southern California has got to continue conserving. But how do you get their attention when you see the green lawns coming back?” asked Bob Kuhn, a member of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in eastern Los Angeles County and the San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority.
Three Valleys, which oversees water districts and companies from Glendora to Pomona, said water managers are concerned about more years of drought and as a reaction, will bank any extra water imported from Northern California.
“We are going to put that water back into the ground, not necessarily serve it to the people. So if we do have another three or four years of drought, we have something to draw on,” Kuhn said. “Individual homeowners will not see much relief.”
