Yes, I live in CA.

I've listened to this yap all day today.

What REALLY ticks me off is all the "Californians haven't grasped the situation"...well, yes most of us have...get ON agriculture (THE biggest user of all water...something like 80+%), big oil, golf courses and the likes of Brentwood, Beverly Hills and other assorted rich communities.

Me? I live with the poor people. I have no lawn and rarely give any water to my few meager plants...every month or so my car windows are so damned dirty that I rinse them off so I can see to drive. The powers are telling me to take a 5 minute shower.

Well the hell with the 5 minute shower...I take at least a 10 minute shower! But if you are going to harass me, I'll just not flush the toilet all day! And I guess those 3 or so loads of laundry a week will have to stop and I'll have to wear dirty socks and underwear.

I'm ticked off because I don't hear serious things from the state...only shit making it the fault of the little guy.

major changes in agriculture and other business usage will have to be addressed. It's not going to be easy or fun, but had best be started now.

Take your ten minute shower.

The claims that ag hasn't reduced usage primarily stem from the ignorance of urban dwellers about how ag water is delivered.

In urban areas, cutback orders are required because the pipes leading to your home and business deliver an unlimited amount of water. Turn on the spigot and you can get all the water you want. In order to reduce usage, the local water agency or state has to order you to reduce the amount of water you consume.

In irrigated agricultural areas, farmers only get a specific allotment of water, and not one gallon more. Taking more than your allocation is theft and every water agency in California has people staffed with detecting and catching water thieves. The state doesn't need to order farms to reduce water consumption, because the water agencies ALREADY limit the amount of water farmers can consume and can respond to droughts by reducing the size of their allotments. This is nothing new, and has been the norm for as long as we've had canals feeding farms.

The farmers dependent on CVP and federally delivered ag water have seen allocation reductions of 75% to 100% (meaning, those farmers get NO water at all). Farmers who get their water from the regional irrigation districts have seen allocation reductions ranging from 25% to 75%, depending on local availability. On top of that, most irrigation districts have increased the cost of water delivered to farmers by anywhere from 50% to 200%.

The ONLY farmers who have been spared cutbacks are those irrigating their fields using wells, and the state is already starting the process of regulating them too. Because well pumps are unmonitored, the first step to regulating them is collecting data on how many wells are actually in existence, and how much water each of them pumps. The governors executive order started that process, but it will take at least two years to put some sort of regulatory system together that is actually capable of limiting them.

I will not be able to take them seriously. Those are two thinhs that contribute to the water shortage and are totally unnecessary.

plants in pots that I can water with run-off that I get when I wait for hot water.

I water with a hose briefly twice a week. There is a limit as to how much water you can cut back on. At some point they will have to desalinate a lot of water. They should just start now. A couple of cities are doing it. Camarillo for one. Eventually that is what we will have to do.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of HOAs that require that you have to have to have a front lawn. Some even specify the number of square feet and the type of grass. I think you should be able to plant crops in your front yard as well, as long as you maintain it and it isn't unsightly.

Your water source is unlikely the same as the bottled water and fracking sources.

While those are poor uses of precious water, your own water agency can run out of water regardless of what the wasteful users you mentioned do.

with an expired permit no less?

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/13/nestle_is_bottling_water_from_the_heart_of_californias_drought_and_the_forest_service_is_finally_going_to_look_into_it/

In my opinion, water that is pumped and bottled for resale should cost more, a lot more, than water that is pumped into homes and farms. The same goes for fracking.

Yes, the frackers and water bottlers should be restricted and regulated far more heavily.

That said, YOU and your community still need to conserve to preserve your own water supply. I'm sorry to say that there is no divine force making sure that you can use as much water as you like simply because Nestle is getting away with what it has been getting away with.

how the f*ck does california govt think residential water cutbacks will lead to any noticeable savings? We had a similar situation here in decatur illinois just a couple years ago where our water supply (lake decatur) was at historic low levels and with less than 2 weeks of water left and the powers to be still had not called on water restrictions by the 2 largest water consumers (80% of our water): ADM and Tate& Lyle as those businesses issued real threats to relocate from Decatur if water restrictions were imposed.....same thing in California....all lipservice with no plan to scale back the real users of water

The situation was so severe in Decatur that emergency planning of how to truck in water for 200,000 people was failing to come up with a plan and this would have been a national emergency never seen before with a municipality running out of water in America

It's not all one supply. Is this so hard to comprehend?

Yes, 80% of water is used for agriculture in the state and that needs to be dealt with, I agree with that.

NOW, the water from my tap comes from a domestic supply that doesn't supply agriculture. Our supply is affected by the severe drought, so we need to conserve to preserve our supply through these drought years.

It's really simple.

Some people write as if California has one big pool of water that everybody draws from, but that's not the case. So that means even if you're in a district that uses little water, your supplies are likely from reservoirs that are also mostly serving domestic uses. Therefore, you've gotta conserve too, to a lesser extent than the big users, but yes, you too.

How is that going to help us during this drought?

Show us your idea is not just something you thought of in 5 seconds.

We might get some rain today or tomorrow. Would be nice to be able to retain it.

and what storage do you propose building by tomorrow?

Droughts are a part of California. Knowing that, we should start building more storage today. We should have built more storage 20 years ago.

how long do you think it will take to build and if you think that will help us this year?

There are hydrologists who work for the state, I'll let them decide. Our drought problem has short and long term solutions. Building sites for future storage seems to be a sensible long term solution.

Also, would you locate these new reservoirs in areas that would then slow or reduce flow to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta system, already imperiled by flow issues?

What do you think all those mostly empty reservoirs are?

It's still pretty full right now, but it will be a mud puddle by Labor Day. It is eerie and depressing to watch it sink lower and lower.

Our toilets flush with less, our showerheads have flow limiters, our dishwashers are more efficient than ever.

This has all added up and in places where there is little irrigation, water use per capita is relatively low, like in San Francisco where it is just 45 gallons per person per day.

Conservation has saved us more water than we could probably produce by other means.

Surprisingly there a lot of people still clinging to the romance of a nice green lawn in my neighborhood, but I think those days are numbered.

When it rains in the fall, I can store 3600 gallons that will fall on my roof.

the people need to use less water.
(sarcasm)