Peter Glieck, a founder of the think tank Pacific Institute, is blunt: California leaders made “a big mistake” earlier this year when they removed a requirement to cut water use by 25 percent, says the New York Times. Conservation during June, July and August was lower than during the summer of 2015 and the state is in the fifth year of drought.
Regulators acted because the rainy season was comparatively generous, especially in northern California. The chair of the state Water Resources Control Board, Felicia Marcus, said the state may reimpose mandatory cuts if water conservation continues to decline and if there is a dry winter. “You can see it as people still saving two-thirds of what they were saving in the worst water moment in modern history, or you can worry that people are saving one-third less than last year. It really appears to be a mixed picture,” Marcus told the Times.
The drought, soon to go into its sixth year, “shows no signs of ending,” said the Times. “And a number of environmentalists say this is not a typical cyclical drought that is part of life here, but rather the beginning of a more arid era created by global warming.”