California’s Drought Is So Bad, They’re Shutting Off Showers for Surfers
By Todd Woody
Getting out of the water at my local surf break in Pacifica, a beach town just south of San Francisco, I went to rinse off my wet suit and surfboard at the oceanfront showers, only to find this sign: “Due to the drought the available shower heads are reduced. Please limit shower time.”
Yes, you can laugh that California’s epic drought is even hitting people who spend their time in the water. Or that, finally, urban dwellers are feeling the pinch of an environmental catastrophe that has devastated the state’s farms and ranches.
Yet the move by Pacifica to shut off showers at popular surf spots is a sign that coastal cities, where the bulk of California’s population resides, are belatedly getting serious about saving water. And a new report from the California Water Resources Control Board shows that such efforts are making a difference.
For instance, the North Coast County Water District, which serves Pacifica’s 39,000 residents, has cut its water consumption 26 percent in August compared with the previous year. That means on average, each Pacifica resident used about 2,434 gallons of water in August, compared with 3,283 gallons in August 2013.
That helped California cut statewide water consumption by 11.5 percent in August, up from 7.5 percent in July, and 4 percent in June compared to the previous year, according to the report.
That still falls short of Gov. Jerry Brown’s call for a 20 percent cut in consumption. And big cities like Los Angeles aren’t exactly drying up. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported that water use dropped by just less than 1 percent in August, while in San Diego water consumption inched up by nearly 1 percent. (San Franciscans are water misers in comparison, reducing consumption by 8.4 percent in August over the previous year.)
Still, water use in Southern California as a whole fell 7.8 percent in August, compared with 1.6 percent in July. Southland residents have filed applications to rip out 3.8 million square feet of their water-sucking lawns in exchange for rebates. Businesses, meanwhile, have applied for rebates to retire 7.5 million square feet of turf, the water board said.
On Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued an executive order requiring L.A. to cut water use 20 percent by 2017 and slash imported water 50 percent by 2024. He ordered city departments to reduce lawn watering and take other measures to cut consumption and said if Angelenos don’t voluntarily cut water use, then additional mandatory restrictions would be imposed on watering lawns, washing cars, and—gasp—filling swimming pools.
“Many more California communities are taking the drought seriously and making water conservation a priority—and residents are responding,” Felicia Marcus, chair of the state water board, said in a statement. “Increasing urban water conservation is definitely a good thing. The trend is terrific. However, while we can hope for rain, we can’t count on it, so we must keep going. Every gallon saved today postpones the need for more drastic, difficult, and expensive action should the drought continue into next year.”
