Cities like Beverly Hills that haven’t made substantial cuts will be forced to reduce their water use by 36%, or face stiff penalties.
A golf course and a desert in Palm Springs, as seen on April 3.
Chris Carlson / AP
California's State Water Resources Control Board adopted a tiered system Tuesday that requires up to 36% reductions from the biggest water users. The cities in the highest tier were singled out after failing to make significant cuts over the previous year.
The cuts will be required from suppliers, which can provide water to all or just part of a city. But communities required to make the largest cuts include Beverly Hills, Bakersfield, and Indio, near Palm Springs.
There are eight other tiers, each of which require lesser cuts. Cities falling into the lowest tier, which requires reductions of 8%, include Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Compton.
A car sits in dried and cracked earth of what was the bottom of the Almaden Reservoir in San Jose, California.
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
More than 50 people spoke at Tuesday's meeting, according to the San Jose Mercury News, with many criticizing the new restrictions.
“This will force me to be in a position to choose between meeting my conservation standard and taking care of public safety and public health,” said Marc Marcantonio, general manager of the Yorba Linda Water District in Orange County, the Mercury News reported.
However, board members moved ahead with the restrictions anyway, saying they were achievable.
“It's not an easy trade off,” board staff member Max Gomberg said, the Mercury News reported. “But this is a sort of desperate-times approach that's being taken here.”
In a statement, board chair Felicia Marcus called the new restrictions “the responsible thing to do.”
“This is the drought of the century, with greater impact than anything our parents and grandparents experienced, and we have to act accordingly,” she said.
In April, officials from several high-usage water districts spoke with BuzzFeed News about the difficulty of making cuts. They pointed to hot climates and big yards as factors leading residents to consume as much as hundreds of gallons of water a day.
California Approves Unprecedented Mandatory Water Restrictions Amid Drought
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