The directive comes more than a year after Brown asked for a 20% voluntary cut in water use that most parts of the state have failed to attain, even as one of the most severe modern droughts drags into a fourth year. It also came on the day that water officials measured the lowest April 1 snowpack in more than 60 years of record-keeping in the Sierra Nevada. 
 
 
 
 Wearing hiking shoes and a windbreaker in an area that normally requires cross-country skis this time of year, Brown announced the executive order in a Sierra Nevada meadow that provided a dramatic illustration of the state's parched conditions. 
 
 
 
 "We're standing on dry grass," Brown said. "We should be standing on five feet of snow." 
 
 
 
 Emphasizing that the drought could persist, Brown said Californians must change their water habits. "It's a different world," he said. "We have to act differently." 
 
 
 
 The order focused on urban life even though agriculture accounts for roughly three quarters of Californians' water usage. Cities have to stop watering the median strips that run down the middle of roads. The state will partner with local agencies to remove 50 million square feet of grass — the equivalent of about 1,150 football fields — and replace it with drought-tolerant landscaping. 
 
 
 
 State agencies will create a temporary rebate program to encourage homeowners to replace water-guzzling appliances with high-efficiency ones. Golf courses, campuses and cemeteries must cut their water use. New developments will have to install drip or microspray systems if they irrigate with drinking water. Water agencies will discourage water waste with higher rates and fees. 
 
 
 
 The order aims to reduce the amount of water used statewide in urban areas in 2013 by 25%. 
 
 
 
 Some critics of Brown's order said it didn't do enough to address agricultural uses. Adam Scow, director of Food & Water Watch California, called the order disappointing. 
 
 
 
 "The governor must save our groundwater from depletion by directing the state water board to protect groundwater as a public resource," Scow said in a statement. 
 
 
 
 Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board, said the measure isn't about "finger-pointing"…"It's about everybody having to step up in these tough times." 
 
 
 
 The water board will release draft regulations in mid-April to implement the order. It plans to approve the regulations in early May. 
 
 
 
 Marcus said local agencies will receive targets for cutting water use based on how well they've done so far 
 
 
 
 Local agencies that have been slow to conserve since then will feel the order's effects most dramatically, Marcus said. 
 
 
 
 "You're rewarding the early adopters ... and you're saying to the laggers, 'You have to make a change,'" she said. 
 
 
 
 Most of the burden of enforcement will fall on local agencies. 
 
 
 
 If they don't follow the governor's order, the state can fine them as much as $10,000 a day. 
 
 
 
 Many Southern California agencies are already taking steps called for in Brown's order. For instance, under a turf rebate program administered by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, spokesman Bob Muir said homeowners are planning to remove almost 89 million square feet of turf, the equivalent of more than 59,000 frontyards. It's unclear whether Brown's mandate for 50 million square feet of lawn replacement includes work already done by local agencies. Similarly, Los Angeles already has a tiered water-rate structure to encourage conservation. 
 
 
 
 Although Southern California water managers said it might be tough for some cities to meet the 25% target, they welcomed Brown's action. 
 
 
 
 "It's the right time. It's a proper directive," said Rob Hunter, general manager of the Municipal Water District of Orange County. 
 
 
 
 Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti praised the executive order, noting that last year he called for a 20% cut in the city's water use by 2017. 
 
 
 
 In Long Beach, Water Department General Manager Kevin Wattier said the order would have the biggest effect on water districts that use much more water per capita than Long Beach and Los Angeles. 
 
 
 
 "The governor understands we don't have time to allow any voluntary measures to work," said Mark Gold of UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. "This is such a growing crisis that mandatory conservation was absolutely necessary." 
 
 
 
 Lester Snow, executive director of the California Water Foundation and former state secretary of natural resources, said even more restrictions may be necessary in the future, such as banning all outdoor water use. "We're probably going to need more action before we're through the summer," he said. 
 
 
 
 Brown issued his order at Phillips Station, about 90 miles east of Sacramento, where state workers conducted a manual snow survey as part of statewide readings that revealed that the water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack was only about 5% of the average for April 1. That is the lowest for the date in records going back to 1950. 
 
 
 
 The Sierra snowpack accounts for about 30% of the state's water supply, and although major reservoir storage is better than it was last year, there will be little snowmelt to replenish reservoirs this spring. 
 
 
 
 Nurit Katz, UCLA's Chief Sustainability Officer and co-chair of a UC system-wide water task force, said every campus has created a water action plan focused on reducing consumption. UCLA is installing artificial turf on its intramural field, retrofitting fixtures such as toilets and developing a smart water filtration system. 
 
 
 
 Combined with other efforts, the campus expects to save millions of gallons of water each year, she said. 
 
 
 
 Brown's order requires agricultural districts in depleted groundwater basins to share data on groundwater use with the state. 
 
 
 
 "The agricultural community is already being hit very hard," Marcus said. 
 
 
 
 For the second year in a row, Central Valley growers without senior water rights are likely to get no supplies from the valley's big federal irrigation project. Last year farmers idled about 500,000 acres for lack of water, and this year they may be forced to leave even more cropland unplanted. 
 
 
 
 "Some people want to say, 'What about the farmers?' And farmers want to say, 'What about those people watering their lawns?'" Brown said. "We all have something to do, and we can all do a little better." ||||| Sprinklers water the grass at Gleneagles Golf Course on April 2, 2015 in San Francisco, California. Significant cuts in use will be imposed on cemeteries, golf courses and facilities with large landscapes. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) 
 
 On Wednesday, California Gov. Jerry Brown took the unprecedented step of forcing urban water agencies to reduce their water use by 25 percent. Cities and towns are now prohibited from using more than three-quarters the amount of water they used in 2013. This will save an estimated 1.5 million acre-feet, or nearly 500 billion gallons of water, between now and February. 
 
 But what about farmers? In 2010, irrigated agriculture consumed four times as much water as urban users. The state could easily save the same amount of water if it required farms to increase water efficiency by about 5 percent. 
 
 But it’s not. 
 
 Of course, California is a huge farming state. If the Midwest is the nation’s breadbasket, California is our sprinkler garden. It produces two-thirds of our fruits and nuts. California makes more money off agriculture than any other state in the nation. In 2013, farmers sold almost $50 billion of food. 
 
 All of which sounds staggering until you realize that California is a $2 trillion economy. As many have pointed out, all the calls for urban water conservation seem puzzling. Is it worth squeezing the cities when farms consume 80 percent of the water that people use in California, while they generate only 2 percent of its economic activity? 
 
 Take a look at these charts from the state water plan: 
 
 There are political dimensions to this. The agricultural lobby is powerful and would resist a regime of forced water reductions. They argue that it’s illogical for a farmer to fallow his fields just so people in L.A. can have a green patch in front of their homes. Agriculture means jobs, and it supports a whole industry of processing and packing plants. (Though, to be fair, lawn care maintenance is also its own industry.) 
 
 Brown made the point on Wednesday that agriculture has borne the brunt of California’s drought, which is in its fourth year. There’s truth to this. Economists estimate that in 2014, the drought cost farmers about $2.2 billion through lost crops and increased water costs. They believe that the impact of the drought on the agricultural sector eliminated 17,100 jobs from the state economy. 
 
 Some have suffered much more than others. “The fact is that not all farmers are created equal in terms of their water supplies,” said Nancy Vogel, spokesperson for the California Department of Water Resources. “Some are largely unaffected by the droughts and others are suffering and scrambling because they have precarious access to water.” 
 
 California has a complex system of water rights, which evolved from a system of first dibs instituted by its early settlers. In the Western states, where surface water can be scarce, early miners and farmers would dig channels to divert water from far-away streams. Often, the streams weren’t even on their property. 
 
 [The strange history of water rights in the West] 
 
 The custom was this: If you dug a diversion — say, to irrigate a field — you were entitled to whatever water you carried off. You established a right to that water. It would be illegal for someone to go upstream of you and divert all the water onto her property. In the West, the people who got there first get their water first. 
 
 During droughts, the state water board starts to cut off people with more junior water rights. The board issues notices telling them to stop drawing water in order more senior rights holders to drink their fill. This happened last summer, and the board has already issued a warning for people to expect curtailments again this year. 
 
 Many of the senior water rights, established over a century ago, are held by farmers. This helps enable the industry to thrive. But many farmers don’t have the luxury of a near certain water supply. They have to figure out where they will get their water from, and the only certainty there is that it will cost them dearly. 
 
 The government is the largest water supplier. California’s State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project store rain and runoff in reservoirs instead of letting it flow away. These systems sell to both farmers and towns, who buy water delivery contracts. But in dry years, these contracts, too, dry up. 
 
 So farmers drill wells if they can, or buy water from wholesalers or elsewhere on the private market. If that gets too expensive, they let their fields go fallow. Over 400,000 acres, about 6 percent of cropland, was left unused because of the drought last year. The same or more is expected to lie fallow this year. 
 
 From the perspective of many farmers, they have already been forced to use less water—and they look upon the big-pocketed cities with frustration. City water agencies tend to be better equipped to ensure that their water portfolios are lush. If their delivery contracts fall through, they can afford to drill deeper wells, or buy water off of people with senior water rights. 
 
 That’s what cities like L.A. are doing — the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California plans to spend $71 million buying water rights from farmers upstate, bidding the prices way up in the process. Other cities are spending millions to open water desalination plants. 
 
 In recent decades, farmers and cities have both made strides in reducing their water use. Already, the agricultural industry has embraced techniques like drip irrigation. Farmers are using about the same amount of water as they did in 1960s, but they have doubled the amount of money they get. 
 
 The argument for focusing urban conservation may come down to practical concerns. It takes time and investment to make farms more efficient, and the state has already put money into encouraging farmers to buy efficiency upgrades. During drought emergencies, water use can be curtailed faster by simply telling people not to water their lawns. 
 
 Besides, the cities are growing. Unless wasteful practices (like grass lawns) can be untaught now, urban users will start to consume more and more of the state’s water. This is the motive for the governor’s initiative to convert 50 million square feet of lawn into desert landscape. California’s conservation order is more than a drought-year quick fix; it’s an investment in the state’s future — which will always include agriculture, but increasingly looks like an urban destiny too. ||||| Bloomberg News 
 
 California’s worsening drought is raising the stakes for a $15 billion plan endorsed by Governor Jerry Brown to build two 30-mile (48-kilometer) water tunnels under an ecologically sensitive river delta east of San Francisco Bay. 
 
 The tunnels, each as wide as a two-lane interstate highway, would ship water more reliably from northern California to thirsty farms and cities in the south. They would also bolster the ecosystem of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which is on the verge of collapse from feeding water to 25 million people and 750,000 acres (304,000 hectares) of farmland. 
 
 The drought, which officials say could be one of the worst in California’s history, is forcing farmers in the fertile central valley region to fallow thousands of acres of fields and has left 17 rural towns so low on drinking water that the state may need to start trucking in supplies. The tunnels are the biggest part of a $25 billion Bay Delta Conservation Plan. 
 
 Reservoirs are at about 60 percent of average, according to state water data, and falling as rainfall remains at record low levels. Mountain snowpack is about 12 percent of normal for this time of year. Brown is urging the state’s 38 million residents to conserve and warning that mandatory restrictions are possible. 
 
 “This isn’t a coming crisis,” Mark Cowin, director of the Water Resources Department, the state’s largest supplier, said last week. “This isn’t an evolving crisis. This is a current crisis.” 
 
 Biggest Rain 
 
 The San Francisco Bay area got the biggest rainfall of 2014 yesterday with 0.85 inch (2.2 centimeters) at San Francisco International Airport as of 4 p.m. local time, according to the National Weather Service. More precipitation is possible later in the week. Forecasters said it would take far more rain to end the drought. 
 
 California, the top U.S. agricultural producer at $44.7 billion, needs water to produce everything from milk, beef and wine to some of the nation’s largest fruit and vegetable crops. Lost revenue this year from farming and related businesses such as trucking and processing could reach $5 billion, according to estimates by the California Farm Water Coalition. 
 
 The tunnels would permit the state to begin pumping water directly from the Sacramento River at the northern end of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect endangered smelt, salmon and other fish being killed by the existing water pumping system in the southern delta. 
 
 Fish Kills 
 
 The tunnels would move as much as 9,000 cubic feet (255 cubic meters) of water per second. The state now is forced to curtail flows to a fraction of that because of the fish kills. 
 
 In his State of the State speech last month, Brown urged support for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which includes the tunnels, saying it should be part of a broader effort to protect the state from droughts in the future. 
 
 “Among all our uncertainties, weather is one of the most basic,” he said. “We can’t control it. We can only live with it, and now we have to live with a very serious drought of uncertain duration.” 
 
 Proponents say the tunnels would also better protect the state’s water supply from earthquakes, which could collapse levees along the delta and flood the area with saltwater. 
 
 The plan would spend an additional $10 billion over 50 years to restore almost 150,000 acres of wetlands and other wildlife habitat and to shore up hundreds of miles of levees. Water customers would pay for the tunnels through higher monthly bills. Taxpayers would have to cover some of the cost of the restoration. 
 
 ‘Flawed Assumptions’ 
 
 Opponents to the tunnels say they won’t ease droughts and may take too much water out of the delta for farmers and green lawns in Los Angeles. 
 
 “The governor’s tunnels are based on flawed and outdated assumptions that there is ‘surplus’ water to export,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director Restore the Delta, a group that opposes the plan. “We have had three dry years in a row and the governor admits the tunnels won’t add one drop of water to our drought-plagued state.” 
 
 Public comment on the proposal is being taken through April. Federal approval is pending. Brown would need to sign off on the final plan before construction could begin in 2017. 
 
 The tunnels would funnel water to existing canals of the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project, which deliver water to southern and central parts of the state. 
 
 Serving Households 
 
 About two-thirds of Californians get at least part of their water through the State Water Project. Besides serving households and businesses, the system irrigates crops in the San Joaquin Valley near the center of the state -- the world’s most productive agricultural region. 
 
 It was Brown’s father, the late former governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, who championed the State Water Project, asking voters in 1960 to approve $1.75 billion of bonds to begin construction. Today, the system includes 34 reservoirs, lakes and storage facilities, 20 pumping stations, five hydroelectric power plants and more than 700 miles of aqueducts and pipes, making it one of the largest public-owned and operated water systems in the nation. 
 
 State water department officials said Jan. 31 the deepening drought means they won’t be able to deliver any of the 4 million acre-feet of water sought by local agencies from the State Water Project. An acre-foot is the volume needed to cover an acre of land one foot deep with water. 
 
 ‘Unprecedented’ 
 
 Enough water will continue to flow to maintain public health and safety, the department said. The state is curbing delivery so that a small amount can be held in shrinking reservoirs to keep salt water from seeping into the delta and damaging the water supply. 
 
 California gets most of its rain in December, January and February. Los Angeles, which normally gets almost 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain a year, got less than 4 inches in 2013, according to the National Weather Service. San Francisco, where 22 inches is typical, got 6. 
 
 “We are in an unprecedented and very serious situation,” Brown said Jan. 17, when he declared a statewide drought emergency. 
 
 To contact the reporter on this story: Michael B. Marois in Sacramento at mmarois@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Merelman at smerelman@bloomberg.net
– California Gov. Jerry Brown made history today, but not in a way he's happy about: He ordered the state's first-ever mandatory water restrictions amid a brutal drought, reports CBS Local. A slew of new rules will aim to curb water use by 25% over nine months. "It's a different world," said Brown. "We have to act differently." He emphasized the point by making the announcement from the Sierra Nevada on bare ground—at a spot that normally would be covered in several feet of snow this time of year. This year's Sierra snowpack is about 5% of the state average, the lowest since record-keeping began in 1950, meaning it won't be able to provide needed runoff in the spring and summer, reports the Los Angeles Times. Among other things, the state will team with local governments to replace 50 million square feet of lawn with more drought-tolerant landscaping; golf courses and cemeteries will have to scrimp on watering; and residents and farmers will be encouraged through rebates, new pricing models, and penalties to install more efficient systems. If it all works, the savings would amount to 1.5 million acre-feet of water by the end of the year. “This is sort of unchartered territory,” says a spokesperson for the state Department of Water Resources. It's "dismal."