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JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): California officials are putting mandatory restrictions on water use in place as a result of that state’s ongoing drought. Several Western states, including Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico, have large regions suffering a severe to extreme drought.
But California’s problem has lasted longer than most, and now the state says it’s time to ramp up conservation.
Dried-up lakebeds and water shortages have become depressingly familiar sights across California, and state water regulators moved Tuesday to impose new conservation rules.
State Water Board chair Felicia Marcus:
FELICIA MARCUS, Chairwoman, State Water Resources Control Board: We're focusing on outdoor irrigation because that’s a place where people tend to, even without realizing it, they over water. It really behooves all of us to figure out how to use the water that we do have as wisely as we can.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Starting August 1, the new rules could mean daily fines of up to $500 for people who waste water on lawns and car washing. California is now in the third year of its worst drought since the 1970s.
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