Conservation has helped




 

 

Californians came just shy of meeting Gov. Jerry Brown’s 25 percent water conservation mandate for the nine months since mandatory urban conservation began, the State Water Resources Control board reported April 4.

Statewide cumulative savings from June 2015 to February 2016 totaled 24 percent compared with the same months in 2013.

“Twenty-four percent savings shows enormous effort and a recognition that everyone’s effort matters,” board chair Felicia Marcus said. “Californians rose to the occasion, reducing irrigation, fixing leaks, taking shorter showers and saving our precious water resources in all sorts of ways.”

Statewide, the conservation rate dropped from 17 percent in January to 12 percent in February, likely because February 2016 was one of the warmest and driest Februaries since the drought began. In addition, residents generally use less water for outdoor irrigation in the winter months, so there is less opportunity for high volume savings.

On a related front, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District customers, whose savings reached more than 30 percent, are asked to halt all outdoor irrigation through April 11 due to repairs on Metropolitan Water District feeder lines into the region.

The shutdown has no connection to the drought, but LVMWD wants irrigation halted this weekend because it won’t be receiving its normal allotment of water from Metropolitan, the area’s wholesale provider.

Acorn staff report


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *