Tougher water restrictions could be coming to your neighborhood following California Gov. Gavin Newsom's new executive order, which was issued on Monday as the state moved closer to recording its driest three months ever to start a year.
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Newsom called on local water agencies to implement more aggressive conservation measures, stopping short of statewide cuts. Instead, the governor directed local agencies to move into the second level of their six-tiered contingency plans, which prepare for a water shortage of up to 20 percent.
"It will be, through the (California) State Water Resources Control Board, a requirement that each of these water suppliers put in place a plan that gets them to (Level 2)," Jared Blumenfeld, California Secretary for Environmental Protection, said Monday afternoon in a briefing with reporters.
Some areas, such as in the East Bay, are only at Level 1 now. San Jose, on the other hand, is at Level 3.
The specifics will vary by district as a result, and the order could mean California residents in some areas will have to cut down on the number of days they are allowed to water their lawns. Blumenfeld said it's important to listen to locals.
"We live in a state that has many different hydrological zones, many different water usage scenarios, and the one size fits all doesn't really work in California," he said.
Monday's order also called on the water board to ban irrigation purely decorative grass in industrial parks. Residential lawns used for recreation, school fields, sports fields and parks are exempt from the ban.
Newsom issued the order as California's drought reaches historic levels, Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said. California on Monday was days away from recording its driest three months to start a year since it became a state, which Crowfoot said came "on the heels of the driest two water years in the state's precipitation records."
"The regional drought that we're experiencing across much of the American West is very bad and getting worse," Crowfoot said.
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