California needing to make water conservation restrictions permanent

California’s drought is coming back. Now it’s time for the state Water Resources Control Board to enforce conservation measures on a permanent basis.

The depth of the state’s 2013-17 drought forced Californians to make big adjustments.

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for the state’s parched conditions.

That meant strict 25 percent conservation orders for cities and towns, along with a long list of prohibitions for ordinary citizens and businesses.

Californians cut back on lawn-watering and attached automatic shut-off nozzles to their hoses.

In some cities, people stopped washing their cars and stopped assuming glasses of water would just show up on their restaurant tables.

But the governor lifted California’s emergency status a year ago after a wet winter — and unfortunately, Californians responded by backsliding into water-wasting habits.

Water conservation metrics slipped statewide. By December 2017, statewide water use was down only 2.8 percent over December 2013.

Unfortunately, California’s return to heavier water use coincided with yet another extremely dry winter.

Large swaths of Southern California, which have recently seen temperatures in the 90s, are already considered by the U.S. Drought Monitor to be back in drought conditions. The Sierra snowpack was at just 22 percent of its historic average last week.

So the question is not if California will need to restrict water use again, it’s when.

Going forward, climate change is expected to heighten California’s boomand-bust rainfall patterns.

These realities are why the state water board is weighing permanent water restrictions.

On Tuesday, the board was scheduled to vote on the permanent regulations.

It postponed the vote after staff proposed a change in response to public comment on irrigation systems using recycled water. (Existing systems may be grandfathered into compliance.) But a delay is not a denial.

“The goal is to get the rules in effect by the summer,” said Max Gomberg, the state Water Resources Control Board’s climate and conservation manager.

“We’re already in the midst of an extremely dry year and that’s going to mean more draw down of reservoirs and groundwater basins.” Gomberg is right.

It won’t be easy for California residents or farmers, but the board should pass these permanent restrictions. Many of them are long overdue.

As water gets more scarce in California, the state will have many concerns to address.

How will we provide equity to the drier, poorer communities of California? How can we balance the needs of the state’s critical agriculture industry with those of urban residents?

These are difficult questions that will require many compromises.

But on the matter of conservation, there should be no more debate: California must embrace it as a way of life.