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It’s easy to criticize California water conservation. It’s a lot harder to offer solutions
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It’s easy to criticize California water conservation. It’s a lot harder to offer solutions
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Guest Commentary written by
Mark Gold
Dr. Mark Gold is the director of water scarcity solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Re: “California regulators want to spend billions to reduce a fraction of water usage“
A recent criticism of the State Water Resources Control Board’s proposed regulations for urban water conservation was wildly misplaced. Urban water is valuable because it must be treated to the highest standards, delivered to millions of locations and available daily.
The proposed conservation regulations will achieve greater water savings than the city of Los Angeles uses annually.
Granted, California and other states have failed to apply contemporary standards to their antiquated water rights systems. But the need to tackle such reforms does not diminish the need for greater urban water efficiency.
Indeed, belittling the value of urban water efficiency is often a deflection from those with no concept, no plan, no consensus and no intention of actually challenging agricultural water use reform.
We must quickly finish the five year, legislatively mandated effort to make conservation a California way of life.
How can California boost its water supply?
From capturing stormwater runoff to transforming agriculture, here are some ways for drought-prone California to get more water.