How is it that California has escaped water restrictions for such a long time?

This is the first state-wide restriction. California has had regional restrictions over the years, but not state wide.

In the late 1970s, Northern California, particularly the Bay Area, was under severe restrictions, but Southern California Water Districts, which get their water from other sources, were not. Later on, Santa Barbara was bone dry, to the point of spray painting the dirt on golf courses green, but everyone else in the state had plenty of water.

The current drought affects everyone, from the Mexican border north to Oregon.

We haven’t. Los Angeles has been doing it forever. Now it’s state wide. It’s getting scary dry and hot here.

San Francisco has restricted water use (on and off but mostly on) when I lived there (1980–1992). Every year that I visit SF since then I hear about water restriction. Glad that I live in Washington State now for many reasons more than always having plenty of water.

Would charging a much higher price for water usage help enforce the restriction? What do residents in California pay now for water? Here in NY, where we have an abundance of clean fresh water we only pay $2.57 per 1000 gallons. That is 4 gallons for $0.01 ! Too cheap!
If it was 10 times the price, I’d start to think about conserving. Is that what CA needs?

@LuckyGuy – that would have some effect, no doubt. But you would get immediate pushback from two different sectors:

- the poor – who would say that they can’t possible afford to pay more for water.

- the wackos who would see this as a new “tax” and take the water district to court.

And California has its share of both poor and wackos.

Actually the poor don’t use that much water. If the price went from 4 gallons per penny to 1 gallons per penny the difference would be minimal for a conservative user. The ones using it to water lawns or wash boats or whatever would be the most impacted.

Will anyone follow the restrictions? What does “restrictions” even mean?

Here is a relevant question from last year. How do you conserve water?

Does anyone know what CA residents are charged for water? I see I asked that last year, too.

I just did a search for rates and found a rate calculator. It is quite complicated. The number varies in each water district. I made up a usage of 500 cubic feet per month and compared it with 600 cubic feet per month leaving everything else the same. The difference was $10.07 per month or converting to the measurement they use here $13.40 per 1000 gallons. 1.3 cents per gallon. 5 times what we pay, but still very cheap.

Interesting. In my suburb of Atlanta, I pay $3.78 per 1000 gallons for up to 5000, and then almost double that for the next 5000. My average month’s usage is about 800 gall.

I’ve been thinking about this.
I suggest a sliding scale based upon usage.
A typical family of 4 uses 5000 gallons per month. The water authority wants to reduce usage by 25% and keep the infrastructure funded.

I suggest keeping the rate the same, $13.40 per 1000 gallon, 1.3 cents per gallon, for the first 4000 gallons.
From 4000 to 8000 gallons per month, the price will be $50 per 1000 gallons or 5 cents per gallon.
Above 8000 gallons per month, the price will be $150 per 1000 gallons or 15 cents per gallon.

Families that conserve will have lower bills. “The poor” would not see their bills increase and would even see a decrease if they reduced usage. “The rich” who use much more than average, would pay much more for it.
The bill should should be simplified or have the water usage rate highlighted so it is not obscured by ~10 other line items that show up on the bill.

Note: Even at the highest rate, 15 cents per gallon is cheap for drinking water.