Governor Orders Mandatory Water Reductions

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On April 1, 2015 Governor Brown signed an executive order requiring the State Water Board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut the state's overall water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels. This savings amounts to approximately 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months, or nearly as much as is currently in Lake Oroville.

Despite increasingly stringent regulations imposed on local water agencies by the state, overall water use has fallen by just 10 percent, prompting Brown to order stronger action by the State Water Board.

The Governor’s Executive Order will require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to significantly cut water use. The order mandates that water agencies look at changing rates to encourage saving water.

The order also direct local governments to replace 50 million square feet of lawns with drought-tolerant landscaping and create a temporary rebate program for consumers to replace old appliances with more water efficient ones.

The order requires state action against water agencies in depleted groundwater basins that have not shared data on their groundwater supplies with the state as well as residential communities that ignore updated standards for toilets and faucets and outdoor landscaping.

The order requires permanent monthly reporting of water usage, conservation and enforcement actions by local water suppliers.

According to Felicia Marcus, Chair of the State Water Board, there will be strict enforcement. The state can fine water agencies $10,000 a day if they fail to meet state targets for water conservation. Marcus said the state will be will be working up other measures to go after excessive water users.

Farmers have been exempted from the mandatory conservation requirements. However, farmers will be required to come up with water-management and drought-emergency-management plans. According to the Governor’s press release, "agricultural water users - which have borne much of the brunt of the drought to date, with hundreds of thousands of fallowed acres, significantly reduced water allocations and thousands of farmworkers laid off - will be required to report more water use information to state regulators, increasing the state's ability to enforce against illegal diversions and waste and unreasonable use of water under today's order."

The order also proposes to streamline government response for new infrastructure projects, salinity controls in the Delta, water transfers, and emergency drinking water projects. And it attempts to make California more drought resilient by incentivizing promising new technology that will make California more water efficient through a new program administered by the California Energy Commission.

The State Water Board is expected to release draft regulations to implement the Governor’s Executive Order in the middle of April and approve the regulations in early May.

Article written by Trudi Hughes, California League of Food Processors,  Government Affairs Director

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