On Wednesday, Gov. Jerry Brown announced there will be mandatory water cutbacks in the drought-stricken state for the first time in history.
While previous efforts at rationing water have been initiated at the city and district levels, this is the first time that rationing has been enforced statewide.
The orders come the same day Brown joined officials at a snowpack measure in the Sierra Nevada mountains that revealed levels are are at an all-time recorded low, at just 6 percent of the long-term average for this time of year. The previous low was 25 percent, set in 1977 and again in 2014.
Images Brown’s office released with his announcement show the shocking difference in snowpack measured in April of previous years.
Satellite images captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show how much California’s snowpack shrunk between February 2014 and this past January, which was the driest on record.
The mandatory cutbacks come a little over a year after Brown asked Californians to voluntarily reduce their water use by 20 percent. Maps from the National Drought Mitigation Center show the increasingly dry conditions the state is facing as it suffers through its fourth year of drought.
Residents will also be able to take advantage of a new temporary, statewide consumer rebate program that rewards them for replacing appliances with more water-efficient ones. All new residences and developments will be prohibited from irrigating with potable water unless they use water-efficient drip irrigation systems.
Brown also called for increased enforcement of these water restrictions. He’s requiring local water agencies to implement conservation pricing and agricultural water users to report additional water use activity to state regulators.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
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