Inland Will Bear Big Drought Burden

Hey there, neighbor! How's it going? Sure is nice weather we're having! A little rain beats those 90-degree temps in March, don't you think?

Say, speaking of rain: Did you know we're four years into the worst drought on record? Oh, you did hear something about that. Great! It's pretty big news right now. Maybe you saw the “water emergency” message in surprisingly large type on your recent water bill. Hard to miss, really.

So, how come you're watering your lawn, the sidewalk and part of the street in the middle of the afternoon?

Sorry to sound so patronizing, but it's strange how nonchalant many Californians still appear to be about this drought. Average annual rainfall is way below normal – again. The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies 30 percent of the state's water, is just 6 percent of average this year – the driest in more than a century. And some of the state's largest reservoirs are below 10 percent of capacity.

Even state officials until recently have sent mixed messages. Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order mandating a 25 percent reduction in water usage statewide. Funny, because, just last month, the governor said he thought California was doing “pretty well” conserving water voluntarily.

Under the governor's order, if you water your lawn more than twice a week or during the day, hose down your driveway, or wash your car without a shutoff nozzle on your hose, you will pay through the nose and could even face fines of up to $500 a day. Cities will be required to cut out most landscape irrigation and other water usage, or face $10,000-a-day fines.

If that sounds familiar, it is. Almost all of those measures were enacted under an emergency water declaration last year, but compliance was essentially voluntary.

But voluntary efforts aren't really working. The state Water Resources Board on Tuesday announced Californians had cut their water use by a paltry 2.8 percent in February. Last month's slight reduction is even worse than the 8.8 percent cut in January, which officials reported with the grim foreboding of an oncologist giving his patient the worst possible news.

Those are averages, mind you. The city of Riverside cut consumption by 6.4 percent in February from the same period in 2013, while Riverside's Western Municipal Water District reported a 20 percent increase. The Lake Hemet Municipal Water District reported an astounding 53.9 percent increase. Corona's consumption went up 20.2 percent from the 2013 baseline.

Rialto seems to typify the attitude of grave nonchalance – or nonchalant gravity, take your pick. Water consumption in the city spiked nearly 42 percent since 2013, according to state data. But the West Valley Water District, which includes the part of Rialto where I live, reports a 6.7 percent decline during the same period.

As with most other water agencies around the state, WVWD hasn't felt the need use fines to bring water guzzlers to heel. But that could change now that “voluntary” is “mandatory.”

The other day, our 6-year-old daughter asked my wife why our grass looks yellow while our neighbors' lawns are nice and green.

“Because we follow the rules,” my wife replied. “Like chumps,” I added, under my breath.

Many of my conservative friends are grousing over the state's new mandate. Understandably so. We hate mandates. The people who presume to govern us are quick to turn to state-imposed solutions when it suits them, when more market-based solutions would do.

But there is a risk of being too dismissive or cynical about a bona fide crisis. One popular right-wing website published a story the other day bearing the headline: “Gov Jerry Brown: Californians to be Heavily Fined for Long Showers.”

Good heavens! What is the governor going to do? Send water cops into our homes with stopwatches?

Of course not. If the goal is to cut water consumption by 25 percent by any means necessary, and local water districts are under heavy pressure to deliver results, they're going to target the obvious and the easiest places.

What will that mean for my neighbor down the street? Simple. He can still take a nice, hot shower. But if he's smart, his lawn will look a lot like mine very soon.

This piece originally appeared in Riverside Press Enterprise

This piece originally appeared in Riverside Press Enterprise