By Jayden Tran | Staff Writer

   California is experiencing major water shortages due to the lack of available fresh water in reservoirs. Millions of residents should expect to cut back on their water usage to make up for the lack of water.

   The Sierra Nevada mountains, which supply 30 percent of California’s water in a normal year, lacked enough snowfall to adequately provide enough water for the populous state. 

   According to a CNN report, “By April, at the end of this year’s wet season, California’s snowpack was only 4% of normal. By May there was no snow at all.”

   The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of California is asking all Southern Californians to cut their water usage by 35 percent. At the same time, the MWD is demanding residents and businesses in some counties to limit their outdoor watering to once a week. 

   These restrictions will be implemented next Wednesday across approximately 80 cities in Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Bernardino counties. The limitations reflect how dire many scientists find California’s drought to be, being the harshest restrictions imposed in the state. 

   “The town of Healdsburg in Sonoma County has already banned all yard irrigation,” according to the New York Times. “Los Angeles’s primary water agency is prohibiting watering on certain days of the week. East Bay officials on Tuesday called for a 10 percent reduction in water use and outlawed watering lawns between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. to reduce evaporation.”

   Officials limited sprinkler use for millions of households to once a week, hoping to relax the water demand spurred on by the now coming Summer. 

   On a hot day, a 1000 square foot lawn needs approximately 120 gallons of water per day to keep it green. This amount is not sustainable for residents of Southern California in the midst of dwindling reservoirs.

   “We have not had the supply to meet the normal demands that we have, and now we need to prioritize between watering our lawns and having water for our children and our grandchildren and livelihood and health,” stated MWD General Manager Adel Hagekhalil in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. “With this historic drought getting worse, we cannot afford green lawns.”

   Many point toward climate change as the accelerating factor to the reason why California is facing its most considerable drought yet. Most of California’s reservoirs are less than 50 percent of their historical average

   “We knew climate change would stress our water supply, and we’ve been preparing for it, but we did not know it would happen this fast,” said Gloria Gray, chairwoman of the MWD’s board of directors on the Los Angeles Times. “This means we are attempting to adapt to climate change in real-time, and that is not easy. It is a challenge, unlike anything Metropolitan has ever faced.”