California Gov. Gavin Newsom has already issued an executive order calling on Californians to voluntarily cut their water use, and now the governor says mandatory restrictions could be coming soon.
“At the moment, we’re doing voluntary,” he said at a public appearance Tuesday. “But if we enter into another year of drought — and as you know our water season starts Oct. 1 — we will have likely more to say by the end of September as we enter potentially the third year of this current drought.”
The end of September is roughly two weeks after the recall election scheduled for Sept. 14.
When announcing his initial order calling for a voluntary 15% reduction in water use, the governor went out of his way to say, "I'm not here as the nanny state, I'm not trying to be oppressive," and expressed some optimism mandatory restrictions may not be necessary. He noted that Californians are using less water now than they did prior to the 2013-2016 drought, which was the last time statewide mandatory restrictions were imposed.