By Sara Jerome,

@sarmje

It’s raining in California. Is the drought over?

That’s a complicated question. Voice of San Diego recently answered it like this: “Southern California’s drought emergency is over, but its overall drought may not be. It depends what you mean by ‘drought.’”

Mother Jones provided a two-pronged response:

The downer answer: Asking if California’s water woes are behind us because it rained is a bit like asking if climate change is over because it’s cold outside; short-term gains don’t mean the long-term problem has gone away.

The slightly more optimistic answer: While we’re not in the clear, the rain has made a huge dent in the short term.

Whether the drought is over or not, water providers are reacting in different ways to the rainy weather.

“The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which gathers water for 19 million people in the region, expects it can now begin storing water for future years. In recent years, it had been using up its water reserves,” Voice of San Diego reported.

Still, Deven Upadhyay, Metropolitan’s water resources manager, is not celebrating just yet.

“I’m a little cautious, in that it is a really great start, but we need it to fall through for the rest of the winter,” Upadhyay said, per the report.

Metropolitan is a water supplier for the San Diego County Water Authority, where staff had some optimistic words about current conditions.

“As far as this year, 2017, we’re not in a drought emergency,” said the agency’s water resources manager, Dana Friehauf, per the report. “You could say we’re in a drought-watch, because we’ve always got to look at the long term.”

Some areas of California still face uncertainty.

“In East Porterville or Borrego Springs, there is deep concern about the towns running out of water because their residents can’t pay for new groundwater pumps to get water that is farther beneath the ground than their current wells — distances measured in feet, not miles. The water is just out of reach, but they can’t afford to get it,” the report said.

Opinions vary on whether the rain means California regulators should loosen up water rules. California ended its sweeping, historical water restrictions last year amid signs the drought was easing in what analysts saw as a positive development for water utilities.

“A chorus of urban water districts urged the State Water Resources Control Board [this week] to allow the state’s emergency conservation rules to expire,” The Sacramento Bee reported.

“At a lengthy hearing in Sacramento, representatives of the water districts said the state board is losing credibility by insisting the drought still exists when residents can see how much conditions have eased,” the report said.

Water regulators have givens signs they want to maintain current regulations for a few more months, the report said.

To read more on how utilities are handling drought visit Water Online’s Source Water Scarcity Solutions Center.