With the third straight year of drought conditions in Southern California, the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego are imposing new water restrictions on their residents that started this past week. Residents could see new and increased fines in order to mitigate a water shortage that seems to be a harbinger of what is to come on the global stage.
In Los Angeles, the goal is to cut water usage by 15%, and the incentive put in place by the government is to increase the cost of water. New regulations state that watering lawns will only be allowed on Mondays and Thursdays, which is in addition to rules maintaining the watering of gardens be done between the hours of 9 am and 4 pm. Fines for these transgressions can reach as high as $600.
San Diego is putting similar rules in place, but there, watering the garden will be allowed three days a week, but only for 10 minutes at a time. However, San Diego will make you pay more heavily for violating its rules, and fines could legitimately be handed out for around $1,000.
The Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has declared a state of emergency, as spring and summer 2008 produced 76% less rainfall than the average, and things have only become worse since. Southern California is currently kept as saturated as possible via aqueducts and pipelines that bring water south from the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the Colorado River. Regardless of how effective the new fines and regulations are, it is becoming apparent that Southern California will inevitably regress back into the desert it was 300 years ago.