On Tuesday, the staff of the State Water Resources Control Board recommended that the rules the agency put in place last summer relaxing strict mandates from 2015 should continue at least through May, when they can be re-evaluated after the winter rainy season is over. 

The bottom line: Communities across California that dropped strict watering rules, fines and other penalties this fall will not have to reimpose them, and areas that kept rules in place due to tight supplies are likely to keep them in the short term, although in some cases they may drop drought rules if they can demonstrate that recent rains filled their reservoirs and brought their local conditions back to normal.

“This winter has been tremendous so far, and we are getting more storms coming in,” said Max Gomberg, climate and conservation manager for the state water board. “But California is a big state, and while the recovery has been great, there are still pockets of the state that are dealing with significant drought impacts.”

The state water board is scheduled to discuss the proposal Wednesday at a public workshop in Sacramento, with a final vote set for Feb. 7 by the board.

Water agencies, however, said it has rained and snowed so much that the state’s emergency regulations should be allowed to expire, and each local water agency left to handle its own affairs.

“The public can readily see that conditions have changed dramatically. Continuing the message that we are in a drought emergency strains credibility at this point,” said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, a group representing 430 water providers statewide.

Last week, the U.S. Drought Monitor, a publication issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, concluded that 42 percent of California is no longer in a drought, based on rainfall, snow pack, reservoir levels, soil moisture, groundwater and other factors. Nearly all of the north, from the Bay Area to the Oregon border, is no longer in a drought, the agencies said. But Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley have received far less rain, and are still struggling with low reservoir levels and depleted groundwater.

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