SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. (KRON) – On Wednesday, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency in Mendocino and Sonoma counties and announced a larger effort to deal with drought conditions statewide.
This comes a day after Marin County became the first Bay Area county to impose mandatory water use restrictions.
While Marin County has implemented mandatory water use restrictions, it’s important to note that Marin is different from most of the rest of the Bay Area in that they get most of their water from rainfall in the county and are not connected to the state’s larger water supply system.
Since this past winter has been so dry, Marin had to implement restrictions but most of the Bay Area may avoid such restrictions.
After two dry winters, California’s water supply is under strain but so far, most water districts in the Bay are not planning any drastic water use restrictions like the ones that were in place during previous dry years.
In San Francisco, SFPUC says the city’s reservoirs, which includes Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite, are at an average of 82 percent of maximum, ich should be enough to last the summer.
Although, the SFPUC always encourages people to conserve water so far no there are no plans to implement mandatory restrictions.
In the South Bay, the Santa Clara Valley Water District has called for a 20 percent voluntary reduction in water use but the district believes that they have enough water to meet demand at least for this year.
In the East Bay, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves 1.4 million customers says their reservoirs are at 80 percent full.
So far, they have not announced any plans to ask customers to cut back on water use.
The governor also says the state may take further action to deal with the drought in the weeks ahead. We don’t know yet if that action will impact what local water districts are doing.