California’s Mandatory Water Conservation Suspended

Average rains in the past few days and just the right amount of snow in the past winter season were enough factors to make the California government lift their state wide call for mandatory water conservation on Wednesday.

Fox News reports that in 2015, a state wide water conservation order was released by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown with the goal of saving at least 20% of the California average water consumption.

The order was said to be successful for the Californians were able to save enough to give 6.5 million people a one whole year supply of water.

However, Jerry Brown appealed to the public on May 9 to make water conservation a life long term program. He ordered water regulators to implement drought protection measures especially on water waste generating facilities such as lawn and landscape irrigation where a large amount of water are not actually consumed but wasted, as per Reuters.

But with the five-year drought slightly being eased by the most recent amount of rainfall; hundreds of water districts all across California are now mandated to set their own water preservation goals for their place of assignment.

The districts will now be responsible for setting water conservation goals until January and will be the ones responsible for implementing them, calculating results and reporting the latter to the state.

The Water Resources Control Board however reminds Californians that the lifting of the mandatory water conservation rule which will take effect on June 1 does not actually end the conservation but requires for the continual preservation of water on regions where there are anticipated shortages of supply.

The board also suggests that restaurants located on potentially water restrained areas to serve water only upon request.

"We don't want to cry wolf. We also don't want to put our head in the sand," said Felicia Marcus, state water resources control board chairperson. "This compromise allows us to keep our eyes wide open," she added, according to The Guardian.

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