State ignores conservation goal; water use goes up

March water use up 18.9% compared to March 2020; Newsom sought 15% cut

Drought? Californians apparently don’t care.

Last July, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency and asked Californians to cut urban water use 15% compared to 2020 levels.

But in March, residents instead cranked up the taps, increasing urban water use a staggering 18.9% statewide compared to March 2020 — with even higher levels in Southern California than Northern California, new data released Tuesday shows.

Water experts said Tuesday it might be disaster fatigue, an unusually dry spring, or the lack of statewide mandatory conservation standards. But they say the trend is troubling as the drought heads into the hot summer months, with no guarantees it will end next winter or the one after that.

“We just came off the driest January, February and March in recorded history,” said Jeffrey Mount, a professor emeritus at UC Davis and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s water center. “It was a jaw-droppingly dry three months. People started turning on their sprinklers early. That’s where the water went. To their lawns. Pure and simple.”

Cumulatively, Californians have barely moved the needle on conservation since Newsom declared the drought emergency, even as the state heads into its third year of severe drought with reservoirs at low levels. From July through March, households and businesses reduced urban water use statewide by just 3.7% compared to the same time period in 2020, the State Water Resources Control Board said Tuesday.

“Have we hit drought fatigue?” Mount said. “That is worrisome. But people are exhausted. There’s a level of social and cultural exhaustion that we are experiencing. Letting your lawn go brown is pretty far down the list when you are focusing on COVID and Ukraine and other things.”

State officials sought to put the best face on the numbers.

Joaquin Esquivel, chairman of the state water board, said he expects a turnaround in the coming months as the message sinks in, more local conservation rules — including fines — begin to take effect, and California reverts to a more typical weather pattern than occurred in spring.

“It’s regrettably not too much of a surprise,” he said.

In recent weeks, some major water agencies have begun to take more steps. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced Tuesday that it will allow customers to water lawns just twice a week, and for 8 minutes. The East Bay Municipal Utility District put in place three-daya-week rules, along with an 8% water surcharge, and policies that by this summer will result in the names of its biggest water users being made public.

The Santa Clara Valley Water District is considering plans to hire “water cops” for the first time in its history to write tickets of up to $500 for people who are wasting water.

Meanwhile, the state water board has scheduled a May 24 vote to require local agencies to increase conservation, including a ban on watering lawns at office parks and industrial sites.

The lack of conservation is becoming a growing political embarrassment for Newsom, whose call for 15% conservation so far has been voluntary.

During California’s last drought, from 2012 to 2016, former Gov. Jerry Brown at first issued a voluntary call for conservation. But when Californians failed to meet his targets and the drought worsened, Brown issued a 25% mandatory urban water use rule, with targets and fines for agencies that failed to meet them. Some water agencies complained, because they make less money when they sell less water, unless they raise water rates. But Brown achieved the conservation target.

Newsom instead chose a local approach, with each agency having flexibility to set their own rules.

At an appearance April 18 at Oroville Dam in Butte County, Newsom said the state has many different local conditions. Some places have more water than others, he said.

“We are working with our partners at the local level to make determinations based on hydrology and the reality in local parts of the state,” Newsom said. “It’s not a one-size fits all.”

Newsom added that he did not expect there to be statewide “draconian” rules this year.

After the last drought, some water agencies, particularly in Southern California, complained loudly to Brown’s office and then Newsom’s, that they were being penalized even though they had invested millions of dollars in new local supplies. Many of those agencies are failing to meet Newsom’s 15% conservation target.

Overall water use in the Bay Area was up 2.5% in March compared to March 2020. But in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, it was up 26.9%.

Some water experts say if more reductions aren’t achieved, Newsom may have to get tough, like Brown, and threaten local water agencies with fines if they don’t meet conservation targets.

“We saw those were effective,” said Heather Cooley, research director for the Pacific Institute, a non-profit water research organization in Oakland.

On Tuesday, Newsom administration officials said that that governor will be adding more money to the state budget Friday to fund drought messaging campaigns, help small water agencies that are running low on water, and programs to pay people to remove lawns or buy water-efficient appliances. Newsom has said he will not announce new general fund spending to build more reservoirs.