A little rain won’t end California’s drought. Neither will fines for hosing down driveways

The latest sign of the severity of California’s drought is an indicator that literally can’t get worse: The State Water Project expects to provide urban and agricultural water users with approximately 0% of what they requested from the network of reservoirs and other water infrastructure. It’s the first time the project, anchored by startlingly empty Lake Oroville, kicked off the water year by offering just about nothing.

Not to worry: California officials have taken stock of this unprecedented state of affairs — and decided it might be time to stop using our dwindling water supplies to hose off driveways.

To be fair, that and other proposed rules against egregious wastes of water are only part of California’s response to the drought. But they are emblematic of a conservation policy that has consistently lagged the depth of the crisis.

The regulations, which could take effect early in the new year, would impose fines for using potable water for purposes as questionable as washing pavement or buildings, filling decorative fountains or ponds that don’t recirculate, or irrigating lawns and landscapes to the extent of creating substantial runoff. The rules would have little effect in Sacramento and several other cities that already have similar restrictions in place from previous droughts.

In contrast to the mandatory statewide conservation measures then-Gov. Jerry Brown imposed during the previous drought, which ended in 2017, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has relied on voluntary conservation goals that residents have roundly ignored. While the governor urged users to reduce water consumption by 15%, the latest available data showed Californians used just 3.9% less water in September than they did a year earlier, conserving less than they had in August. Sacramento area residents saved even less, using 2% less water than in 2020.

On the agricultural front, state water officials are requiring three San Joaquin Valley water districts to improve their plans to protect groundwater supplies “in light of the historic and variable climate conditions we are experiencing” and amid furious pumping to replace disappearing supplies in anticipation of new legal restrictions. They also warned that urban users could face mandatory conservation next year given another dry winter.

But there’s no need to wait for evidence to support more urgent measures. With Lake Oroville more than two-thirds empty, salmon and other species facing dire environmental conditions, and officials considering relaxing Delta water quality standards, the State Water Project predicted that it could provide only minimal supplies for health and safety unless the situation improves. The starting 0% allocation follows a year when the project provided just 5% of what was requested.

Despite the historic storm that hit Northern California in late October and the return of moderately damp weather this week, neither the intervening month nor long-term forecasts promise the sort of abundance of rain and snow that would end the drought.

The entirety of California has been under drought conditions for nearly seven months, according to the latest report of the U.S. Drought Monitor. Eighty percent of the state, including the Sacramento region, continues to suffer from extreme drought, the second-driest classification, or worse.

Mounting evidence suggests that this is less an ephemeral circumstance than a long-term consequence of the altered climate. A recently published study by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory predicts that the Sierra Nevada snowpack, the foundation of the state’s water supplies, could vanish for years at a time starting in the 2040s.

Grappling with that reality implicates policies across the board from managing groundwater and reservoirs to protecting the rural communities and sensitive environments most at risk of the worst consequences of water scarcity. It’s time to relegate voluntary conservation, along with watering driveways, to the past.