San Francisco officials imposed water rationing restrictions for residents and businesses on Tuesday as California continued to struggle through one of its worst droughts in history.
The East Bay Municipal Utility District and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission both levied the water restrictions after Gov. Jerry Brown asked citizens around the state to reduce their water consumption by 20 percent,
according to KPIX-TV.
The television station reported that East Bay voted to prohibit using potable water for decorative ponds or fountains, washing cars or boats with a hose without a shutoff nozzle, washing sidewalks or driveways with potable water, irrigating lawns or gardens with potable water more than two days a week and flushing sewers or hydrants with potable water.
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San Francisco ordered those using ornamental landscapes or turf with potable water to reduce water usage by at least 10 percent, reported KPIX-TV. The utility said water customers will receive allocations that are 10 percent under their 2013 usage.
California's Water Resources Control Board ordered emergency regulations to reduce outdoor urban water use on Aug. 1,
according to San Francisco utility officials.
Californians can be hit with $500 fines during the rationing period for washing down driveways and sidewalks except when needed for health and safety purposes, watering outdoor landscapes in a manner that causes excess runoff, using a hose, without a shut-off nozzle, for any purpose, and using drinking water in fountains or decorative water features unless the water recirculates.
"(San Francisco) already has the authority to enforce the city's water efficient irrigation ordinance, including the authority to issue citations," said a statement on the utilities website. "Our focus will be first on informing and educating the public about efficient water use. We would issue citations and fines only as a last resort and only to those who have been warned multiple times."
"The reason why we moved to mandatory regulations, relatively modest mandatory regulations at the state level, is that we were looking at large urban agencies that were very proud of the work they've done, and rightly so, at looking at having a year or two of and thinking there was no problem," Felicia Marcus of the State Water Resources Control Board,
told KGO-TV.
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