Nearly all of California is experiencing severe, extreme or exceptional drought. Very little rain fell in January, February and March, when the state typically receives half its annual precipitation. As a result, the state is facing its driest ever start to the year, with one recent study calling the current drought the worst in 1,200 years.
Governor Gavin Newsom last week called on Californians to reduce their consumption, saying, "Every water agency across the state needs to take more aggressive actions" to save water.
The Metropolitan Water District is a wholesaler with 26 member agencies covering nearly 80 cities and communities in the state. Those smaller agencies are tasked with enforcing water conservation plans and charge stiff fines if localities go over their allocations.
Local agencies that fail to meet the state's reduction goals are fined up to $2,000 per acre-foot of water. An acre-foot is about 326,00 gallons. The district will monitor water usage, and if the restrictions don't work it could order a total ban on outdoor watering in the affected areas as soon as September.
Harvesting stormwater runoff from rooftop in an urban area can be used to increase water supplies by as much as 190,000 acre-feet per year, of which nearly 145,000 acre-feet could be gained when rainwater capture systems are installed in our neighborhoods.
As a result, harvesting rainwater represents the greatest stormwater-based opportunity to increase water supplies. In areas overlying groundwater basins used for municipal water supply the University of California Santa Barbara analysis found between 365,000 and 440,000 acre-feet of runoff could be captured and stored for use each year.
Over the years I've notice that when residents have there own water supply their more aware of water use.