SAN JOSE, Calif. — Despite California’s worsening drought, and Gov. Gavin Newsom warning six weeks ago that major water agencies need to do more to cut water use or face mandatory statewide restrictions, Californians are still missing conservation targets by a large margin, new numbers released Friday show.
Last July, Newsom declared a drought emergency and asked Californian residents to voluntarily cut urban water use by 15% compared to 2020 levels.
But in May, the most recent month for which data are available, residents reduced use just 3.1% statewide compared to May 2020.
And cumulatively since Newsom declared the drought emergency, from last July through May, residents, businesses and government agencies reduced water use statewide by only 2% compared to the same period in 2020, according to the State Water Resources Control Board.
Is a crackdown coming, with mandatory conservation targets for each city, as former Gov. Jerry Brown imposed during California’s last drought? Newsom’s office wasn’t saying on Friday.
“While this is a positive trend in response to the governor’s latest actions and local measures that took effect on June 10,” said Newsom spokeswoman Erin Mellon, “we are still below our statewide goal of 15% reduction in water use. Individuals and California businesses need to step up. We will continue to monitor the state’s conservation numbers, especially the early June numbers as we evaluate if additional changes are necessary.”
On May 23, Newsom convened a meeting of the state’s largest water agencies and told their leaders that the state’s lagging conservation as the drought worsened was a “black eye.” He said his office will monitor the situation over the next 60 days, and he told the agencies to step up outreach and education efforts to communicate the urgency of the crisis to the public.
A few weeks later, the state water board required most cities and water districts to limit outdoor watering to two days a week and ban the irrigation of "non-functional turf," or grass at office parks and industrial sites, but not at schools, parks or golf courses.
After three dry years in a row, on Thursday, 97% of the state was in a severe drought, and 59% in an extreme drought, the third and fourth most severe of five drought categories, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly federal report.
Many major reservoirs are at low levels. On Friday, Shasta Lake, the state’s largest, near Redding, was 39% full and Lake Oroville in Butte County, the second largest, was 47% full.
“We don’t know how long this drought will last,” said James Nachbaur, director of research, planning and performance at the state water board. “It might intensify. It might go on for years. It is prudent to be using water efficiently. The water we save now is water we can use in the future.”
The May numbers represent improved conservation from March and April, when statewide urban water use actually increased 18.9% and 17.6%, compared with the same months in 2020.
The gradual trend toward more conservation comes after modest rain across the state in April — following the driest January, February and March in recorded state history — and increased campaigns by cities and water agencies around the state urging people to conserve while reservoir levels continue to drop and hot summer months loom.
Preliminary numbers for June, submitted by water agencies representing about 30% of California’s population, are showing further conservation, with water savings of 7.7%, water board officials said.
Some water experts said Friday the governor’s approach is falling short.
“It’s pretty clear the voluntary actions aren’t enough,” said Peter Gleick, co-founder and president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, a non-profit water research organization in Oakland. “The numbers are better than last month, but they are still really disappointing.”
One reason for the lackluster conservation is a continued difference between water use in Northern and Southern California.
In May, Bay Area residents cut water use 8.5% compared to May 2020, while residents in the “South Coast” area, which includes Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego, cut water use just 2.2%.
“My impression is that Northern California water agencies are playing up the drought more than Southern California water agencies,” said Jay Lund, co-director of the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.
Some of the difference is because of varying weather conditions. Some is because of differing local drought rules, Lund said. Some is because of agencies’ reluctance to sell less water, which reduces revenue. And part is due to the fact that some have done a better job increasing local water supplies in recent decades than others.
The San Diego County Water Authority, for example, built a $1 billion desalination plant in Carlsbad in 2015 that now provides about 10% of the area’s water. It signed a contract nearly 20 years ago to help farmers in Imperial Valley line canals and take other conservation measures, then purchased the saved water for San Diego residents. The agency also increased the height of San Vicente Dam northeast of San Diego by 117 feet in 2014, doubling the reservoir’s size to store more water in rainy years for dry years.
Gleick said there are cheaper ways to boost supply, and far more cities and water agencies should be doing them.
“There are two pieces,” he said. “Right now we have to improve efficiency and conserve. In the longer term we need to be accelerating wastewater recycling and capturing stormwater. There are billions of gallons of wastewater and stormwater that we throw away. If that was being used now, our reservoirs would be full.”
