LOS ANGELES _ Californians' water conservation slipped for the third consecutive month in August, regulators said Wednesday, expressing alarm that relaxed drought rules may be causing residents to fall back into wasteful habits.
People in the state's cities and towns cut their water use by just 17.7 percent in August, compared with the same month in 2013, staff members of the state Water Resources Control Board said. By comparison, urban Californians had reduced their consumption by 27 percent in August of 2015, beating the target of a 25 percent reduction.
"We're at yellow alert," water resources board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus said. "I'm not ready to go to red alert until we see the details."
Regulators lifted mandatory conservation for the vast majority of the state's water suppliers beginning in June. That month, water savings fell sharply to 21.5 percent, and conservation has continued to flag each month since.
Water board members have repeatedly defended their decision to ease the rules, saying that while a 25 percent statewide reduction in urban water use was necessary in an emergency, such top-down demands could not continue indefinitely.
Marcus said that some agencies were still conserving water well. But she acknowledged that others had "taken a turn away from where the rest of us are."
"There are some communities back over 500 gallons (per person) per day," she said. "I'm not going to say, 'What's the story there?' But that's a question. ... Did they stop messaging, or what's happening?"
