Officials in California – facing the state’s driest year on record amid a multi-year drought – have implemented mandatory water consumption limits in a bid to prevent what could be devastating shortages.
The state instituted water usage cuts in April; 400 water supply agencies throughout California were ordered to deliver 25% less water to residential customers this year, following Governor Jerry Brown’s largely unsuccessful attempt to get California residents to voluntarily cut water use by 20% last year. Agriculture use is not included in the mandatory restrictions.
But neither is another huge industry, with the restrictions yet to extend to California’s refining sector, despite its use of hundreds of millions of gallons of water every day. The state is reluctant to force refiners into the processing rate cuts that would surely follow, only creating another new set of problems.
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