California Drought Update: Gov. Jerry Brown Imposes First-Ever Water Restriction

By Staff Reporter - 01 Apr '15 17:56PM

California Gov. Jerry Brown announced on Wednesday new mandatory conservation measures in order to conserve water making it the first restriction in history.

The snow water equivalent of the state's snow cover, which is a measure of the water content contained in the snowpack, is just 5 percent of average snow water equivalent typically seen on April 1, according to the state's Department of Water Resources.

Brown made the announcement following the latest snowpack readings from the Sierra Nevada.

"Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow," Brown said. "This historic drought demands unprecedented action."

While the new measures spare farmers, that's small consolation, says Chris Scheuring, a water attorney for the California Farm Bureau Federation.

"The drought long ago came crashing down on agriculture's head," says Scheuring, whose family farm last year got no water allocated to it by its area district. "Looking ahead to the coming decades, water is our existential threat. The state is growing, there are more and more environmental restrictions, and there are changes to hydrology and climate. I've got a pessimistic view of things. The folks in Los Angeles likely won't run out of water, but ag could end up in retreat."

The new measure directs the State Water Resources Control Board to cut water usage by 25% statewide, which the governor's office says would amount to about 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months.

This would be equivalent to the water currently in Lake Oroville, one of the state's main reservoirs.