The County Role in Water Conservation
By Vito Chiesa
All over California water purveyors are restricting when people can water lawns and other ornamental plantings. That makes sense to me. As the four-year drought intensifies, we just don’t have the luxury of lush green lawns anymore. And people are watering less— either on their own, or to comply with the new restrictions. But I think Counties have a larger role to play in making it even easier to comply.
I am gratified by the way people are responding to this slow-moving natural disaster. Droughts build over a long time, and the impact may not be overtly dramatic. But from fallow fields in the Central Valley, to dead trees in the Sierra Nevada, to empty reservoirs and depleted aquifers, this natural disaster is devastating to California. People have responded pretty well to a consistent drum-beat of messages about conservation, but we can do even more.