As California skids back into drought after last year’s deluge, with no significant rainfall since late January, state water management officials met Tuesday to consider making drought-era water restrictions permanent.
While the meeting came with strong objection from representatives from water districts and other groups, the State Water Resources Control Board opted to postpone voting on the resolution, holding a workshop to hear additional public comment on the proposed regulations.
While ostensibly, the issue at hand was prohibiting things like lawn-water runoff, watering during or shortly after a rainfall, washing down sidewalks with a hose, or using a hose without an automatic shut-off nozzle to wash cars, many speakers voiced concerns that the rules overreached, threatening long-held water rights.
Some merely suggested tweaks to the resolution, such as allowing cities to make their own rules concerning whether restaurants should serve water only on demand, or making use of recycled water exempt from the rules.
Others, like Jackson Minasian, a lawyer for Stanford Vina Ranch Irrigation Co., condemned the resolution in its entirety, warning it could be a slippery slope to take away important water rights, harming agriculture and infringing on the basic human right to water.
"Erratic individuals can occupy great positions of power in government, and you had better believe they will occupy your chair someday," Minasian said. "Their view of what is 'waste and unreasonable use' will be radically different than yours."
He pointed out that the measures are expected to save about 12,000 acre-feet per year, or about the contents of a large stock pond. Since the board is mainly "sending a message" with the restrictions, there are other ways to do so without the potential for harm.
According to a draft resolution, the restrictions are intended as part of a comprehensive action plan “for making conservation a way of life, increasing regional water self-reliance and expanding storage capacity, among other actions.”
The proposed rules would prohibit the use of ornamental fountains without recycling systems and require hotels and motels to ask guests to consider whether they need their bed linens and towels washed daily. Violators could be fined $500.
In response to the concerns, staff counsel David Rose said the resolution was crafted to only apply to the most discretionary uses of water and the most obvious criteria of waste and unreasonable use, such as washing down sidewalks and watering lawns in a rainstorm.
Conserving water by prohibiting things that are “not reasonable and useful in the first place” and fostering “an ethos of conservation” are the objectives, and the resolution has been crafted for that alone, Rose said.
“This has no impact on water rights,” he said. “These uses have never been part of it right in the first place.”