article: Many Californians are taking extreme measures to conserve water in the face of the state's historic drought. Water-conscious residents have turned to techniques that utilize so-called 'gray water' to help them meet the unprecedented new water-use restrictions imposed by Governor Jerry Brown last week. Those techniques may appear weird to some - like the toilet that doubles as a sink and used washing machine water used to water fruit trees - but these Californians maintain it's the inevitable future of water conservation. Extreme water saver: Robin Weld of Sacramento has installed a hybrid sink-toilet in response to the unprecedented new water-use restrictions imposed by Governor Jerry Brown in the face of the state's historic drought. Clean water comes in through the faucet, is used to wash hands and then flows into the toilet tank to be used to flush . Robin Weld, who lives in parched Sacramento, recently took the step of converting her home's toilet into a toilet-sink. For $100, Weld purchased the sink positive, she told CBS Sacramento. It replaces the tradition lid to her toilet tank with a small hand sink. 'We're washing our hands and then reusing that water,' Weld said. Clean city water comes in through the faucet and then fills the tank instead of simply going to waste. On the next flush, the used hand sink water comes down into the bowl. 'The average person uses the bathroom what at least five times a day so that's five times a day, so that adds up,' she said. And just next door to Weld, her neighbor Chris Brown is using the left over water from his showers, laundry and other tasks to irrigate his yard. First, the 'gray water' goes through a filtration system that Brown had installed as the drought - now in its fifth year - continued to worsen. Gray water: Weld's neighbor Chris Brown collects all the soapy used water from this home's washing machine's, showers and sinks and uses it to irrigate trees and plants in his yard . A/C condensation: South of Weld and Brown, in the affluent LA neighborhood of Brentwood, Scott Mathers, the owner of Hey! Tanks LA, has installed one of his company's 10,000-gallon rainwater tanks under his home as well as a smaller tank to collect gray water. One place he gets water is from the condensate from his home a/c units . 'Every drop of water flows down to this pipe, runs underground now, down to the front yard, and then it's spread,' Brown explained to CBS Sacramento. To the south, a resident of Los Angeles' affluent Brentwood neighborhood is going to even bigger extremes to conserve precious moisture. Scott Mathers, the owner of Hey! Tanks LA, tells CBSLA he's installed one of his company's 10,000-gallon rainwater tanks under his home as well as a smaller tank to collect gray water. One of the sources of the gray water: the condensation from his admittedly large home's air conditioning units. Mathers uses his gray water to, among other things, feed his horses. 'There are so many opportunities to harvest your water on your site,' he says. While they may appear to verge on the fanatical now, these conservationists believe what they are doing is the new normal for the Golden State. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, California’s 2014 Water Year was the third driest in 119 years and the warmest on record, so perpetual wildfire season also appears to be the new normal. Gray water systems like Aqua2use filter a home's soapy water in order to make it usable for plants and lawns . And there’s little relief on the horizon: The National Weather Service’s seasonal drought outlook predicts developing, persisting or intensifying drought conditions for most of the American West through at least the end of June. The Sierra Nevada snowpack is at 5 percent of normal, the lowest since record-keeping began in 1950. With the wet season over and with no major rainfall in the forecast, parched conditions will continue. The Sierra snowpack is a key element of California's water supply. About one-third of the state's water comes from snowpack that melts in the spring and summer, recharging groundwater and replenishing reservoirs. But with hardly any snow recorded during the last survey of the year, there will be little runoff to refill half-empty reservoirs. Many Southern California cities get their drinking water from the Colorado River basin, which supplies water to about 40 million people and 4 million acres of farmland in seven states. Brown's order called for investment in new water technologies and the streamlining of water projects such as desalination plants that turn ocean water into drinking water. Such facilities, however, are expensive to build. Unprecendented: Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered sweeping and unprecedented measures to save water in California . No snow: Surveyors on Wednesday found the lowest snow level in the Sierra Nevada snowpack in 65 years of record-keeping, marking a fourth consecutive year of vanishing snow that California depends on to melt into rivers and replenish reservoirs .
highlights: California is experiencing one of its most extreme droughts in modern history, forcing concerned residents to react with extreme measures .
  Conservation techniques include utilizing so-called 'gray water'--soapy water used once for cleaning and by appliances--for a second use .
  Those uses may include irrigation, flushing a toilet or even feeding livestock .
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