Montague, Cal. — California residents will have new water restrictions, including fines, starting August 1, 2014. The rules announced
Tuesday are part of an effort to conserve water in one of the worst droughts in decades, but the drought-stricken community of Montague is one step ahead of the game.
Jennifer Dooley has lived in Montague for 10 yearsand this is the first time she and her family are making serious changes in their daily water habits.
“We are taking shorter showers. We have a new washing machine, that’s a high efficiency washing machine. We only run the dishwasher when it needs to be run,” Dooley said.
In addition to keeping an eye on their water meter, Dooley and her family bought a 300 gallon storage tank to help water the lawn.
Chris Tyhurst isthe supervisor for the city’s water and sewer department andknows the importance of conserving water.
“The district has records for roughly 80 yearsand this is the lowest they’ve ever started,” he said.
Tyhurst said that the city council requested that everyone curtail their water use back in May. They also put some penalties in some place for over watering.
Those penalties start at $15 if a resident uses more than 5,000 gallons of water a month.
And because the city saw it coming residents, like Dooley are rationing.
In a typical June, the city uses roughly 9 million gallons of water but last month, residents in Montague used just a third of that, 3 million gallons.
Some residents are keeping a sense of humor about it.
“If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down,” said one resident.
The Montague City Council’s also stepping up fines later this summer.
In August, high usage single-family homes who use more than 20,000 gallons will face an additional penalty of $100 with higher fines thereafter.
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