Fine the water-wasters

Residents in this part of the North State have clearly taken it upon themselves to conserve water during this time of intense drought. Numbers from California Water Service Co. indicate Chico and many other nearby municipal water users are meeting or exceeding the 20 percent reduction target set by Gov. Jerry Brown at the beginning of the year, when he declared a drought emergency.

However, as we learned this week in Associate Editor Meredith Graham’s news story, local wells around the region are going dry (see “When wells run dry,” page 8). In other words, we must do more to reduce the impacts on the source of our local drinking supply—the Tuscan aquifer. Everyone, whether a user of municipal or well water, is reliant on this increasingly depleted aquifer. Each of us needs to do our part to ensure local residents, including the agricultural community, have enough water for our homes and farmland to make it through this dry spell.

Cal Water deserves credit for its longstanding water-conservation campaign that includes providing residents with water-saving plumbing fixtures at no charge. But we haven’t seen the county or local municipalities stepping up to help inform the public about the need for conservation.

On Tuesday, the State Water Resources Control Board, in an unprecedented move, approved regulations that allow cities and water agencies to impose fines on outdoor water-wasters. Among them is a fine of up to $500 per day. The new rules were implemented amid news that the state’s overall water consumption has risen by 1 percent over the past three years.

Locally, however, Cal Water has no process for implementing fines and doesn’t plan to establish one. That’s why we suggest local county and municipal agencies, which are able to enforce the state water board’s new regulations, team up with Cal Water to do so. The most egregious water-wasters should be fined, regardless of whether we’re already meeting the governor’s conservation target.