Governor Newsom lifted all but about 33 of the more than 80 emergency drought orders he issued since last spring. April 5, 2023
By Dan Hounsell, Editor-in-Chief
Institutional and commercial entities across the country have taken strides large and small over the past several decades to reduce water use in plumbing, HVAC, and irrigation systems. Their goals generally relate to sustainability and cost control. For California facilities, additional motivation came from the state governor, who imposed water restrictions in response to statewide droughts.
Now a major change in weather has prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom to lift some of the restrictions.
After being swamped by an onslaught of storms that swamped cities, saturated fields and blanketed the Sierra Nevada in near-record-breaking snow cover, Californians are being relieved of a host of drought restrictions imposed during a historic dry spell last year, according to The New York Times.
Newsom lifted all but about 33 of the more than 80 drought emergency orders he had issued since last spring. The past three years have been the driest in California history. Last spring, state water agencies reported that California’s largest reservoirs were at half their historical averages and that snow cover was just 14 percent of average. The government’s official drought-tracking service found that more than 90 percent of the state was affected by severe or extreme drought, according to the US Drought Monitor.
Since then, however, a dozen powerful atmospheric flows have swept through California, and Los Angeles has recorded more than two feet of rain, about 200 percent of normal since the current season began in October. Similar amounts of rain have fallen in San Francisco, Sacramento, Fresno and other cities.
Now, only about a third of the state experienced a drought, and only about 8.5 percent were in a severe or worse drought. Large reservoirs are so full that water is being released from some of them to make way for the inevitable thaw of a whopping snowpack that’s nearly three times the average size for this time of year, said Mike Anderson, the state climatologist.
Dan Hounsell is Senior Editor of Facility Market. He has over 30 years of experience writing about plant maintenance, engineering and management.
Next
