It’s likely Central Coast residents will see a permanent ban on hosing off driveways and overwatering lawns. This week state officials released a draft plan for long-term water conservation, responding to Governor Jerry Brown’s May 2016 executive order to indefinitely extend the temporary drought restrictions of the past five years.
California’s Department of Water Resources and four other agencies have come up with a framework to make that happen.
“This plan is about harnessing the creativity and innovation that Californians have shown during the driest years in state history and making water conservation a way of life in the years ahead,” said Mark Cowin, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “This plan will help make permanent changes to water use so California is better prepared for whatever the future brings.”
Mark Hutchinson is the deputy director of San Luis Obispo County Public Works. He says the new plan won’t affect area residents that much.
“In the systems that the county runs, and actually all the municipal systems, those restrictions are already in place,” Hutchinson said. “The bans they are talking about are in the category of what the state terms as water waste and they’ve talked a long time about making those permanent.”
SLO Public Works says county residents have complied very well with water restrictions and conservation efforts over the past few years of the drought.
"We've had very few reports of somebody concerned about someone else hosing things down inappropriately and whatnot," Hutchinson said. "We've seen some pretty high conservation numbers across the communities in San Luis county, because obviously we are at the center of the drought and most people, I think, are aware of that."
The draft plan factors in all the different microclimates across the state, citing as an example that “communities in hotter and drier climate zones will receive irrigation allowances that reflect evaporation levels.”
More importantly for farmers, the plan calls for requiring farmland water suppliers to develop with more efficient water-saving methods.
The California Department of Water Resources is taking public comment on the draft plan through December 19th.