Despite being the hottest June on record, California cities and towns used 27.3% less water during June 2015 than they did during the same month in California’s regulatory baseline year of 2013. Under California’s emergency water conservation regulation, state municipal areas must reduce water use by at least 25% from 2013 levels.

According to the California Water Boards (CWB), the water saved in June, 59.4 billion gallons, was six times more than the 9.6 billion gallons of water saved during June of the previous year. Almost 40 percent of urban water utilities reduced water use by 30 percent or more compared to 2013. Ninety six percent had water reductions of at least 10 percent or greater.

Water utilities with significant numbers of users and the greatest savings included Los Angeles County PWW District 40 (207,000 users, 42% savings), Sacramento C-AWC District (201,000, 38%), and Alameda County Water District (344,000, 36%).

In its communications, CWB recommends basic easy-to-implement conservation measures to the public, like taking shorter showers and eliminating lawns or reducing turf irrigation. However with respect to trees, their official position is “. . . we need to be clear that trees should be watered” and they provide guidance for how to accomplish that without wasting water.