L.A. water use plummets during hot summer amid calls to conserve during drought
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LOS ANGELES — California’s drought has reached critical levels, with more than 60 percent of the state now in the worst stage, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week.
But water restrictions for the Los Angeles region have been lifted, and farmers in the region say that’s a good thing.
In the wake of two historic storms that passed through the region, officials in Los Angeles and elsewhere around the state are calling on their residents to take simple measures to conserve and protect water.
Residents in L.A. can get a free water bottle when they fill up their own home water pump at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said Tom Veeneman, acting assistant director.
For more than a year, residents can also recycle water bottles and save water with simple measures such as boiling, boiling for 10 minutes, flushing and pouring it into the toilet instead of letting it run down the drain, Veeneman said.
He said the city has about 8,000 water-reuse stations around the area.
The two storms last month left the region’s rivers, creeks and lakes dangerously low.
The California Department of Water Resources says more than 1.3 billion gallons of water was lost last month. The water loss during the August storms was more than double the average during the past decade, the agency says.
Last week, the agency issued a statement saying officials in the region are working to restore and maintain the region’s water supply. Some reservoirs are full and some are at less than half capacity.
“Our region had to deal with two unprecedented storms that were fueled by intense thunderstorms,” said DWR spokeswoman Julie Johnson. “We are committed to quickly restoring and maintaining the water supply.”
In early September, the storms hit the region hard, causing more than 3,500 water-related outages. The outages included 4,300 water
