California governor orders mandatory water restrictions

Gov. Jerry Brown, center, talks Mark Cowin, left, Director of the California Department of Water Resources and Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program for the DWR, on a snow barren meadow where the snow survey is held near Echo Summit, Calif., Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Gehrke said this was the first time since he has been conducting the survey that he found no snow at this location at this time of the year. Brown and Cowin attended this snow survey to see the conditions for themselves and later Brown announced that he signed an executive order requiring the state water board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) Gov. Jerry Brown, center, talks Mark Cowin, left, Director of the California Department of Water Resources and Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program for the DWR, on a snow barren meadow where the snow survey is held near Echo Summit, Calif., Wednesday, April 1, 2015. Gehrke said this was the first time since he has been conducting the survey that he found no snow at this location at this time of the year. Brown and Cowin attended this snow survey to see the conditions for themselves and later Brown announced that he signed an executive order requiring the state water board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

By Associated Press April 1, 2015 4 min read

ECHO LAKE, Calif. (AP) – California Gov. Jerry Brown ordered officials Wednesday to impose statewide mandatory water restrictions for the first time in history as surveyors found the lowest snow level in the Sierra Nevada snowpack in 65 years of record-keeping.

Standing in dry, brown grass at a site that he said normally would be snow-covered this time of year, Brown announced he had signed an executive order requiring the State Water Resources Control Board to implement measures in cities and towns to cut the state’s overall water usage by 25 percent compared with 2013 levels.

The move will affect residents, businesses, farmers and other users.

“We’re in a historic drought and that demands unprecedented action,” Brown said at a news conference at Echo Summit in the Sierra Nevada, where state water officials found no snow on the ground for the first time in their manual survey of the snowpack. “We have to pull together and save water in every way we can.”

Brown’s order follows previous cutbacks imposed by the water board. It will require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to significantly cut water use; direct local governments to replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought-tolerant landscaping; and create a temporary rebate program for consumers who replace old water-sucking appliances with more efficient ones.