Cristy Li

California ‘Sign of the Times’ –Image: Waterguy559@Twitter

(Fox News Los Angeles) California Water Cops have OKd more restrictions on lawn watering and are adding new limits on water use by businesses as the drought persists.

The State Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously Tuesday, to extend and expand its emergency drought regs–California residents can not turn their sprinklers on everyday under the new rules, customers must ask for water at restaurants and be given an opportunity to decline fresh sheets and towels at hotels–violators face up to $500 a day in fines but its up to local water Cops to enforce the rules.

Earlier this month,the San Jose Mercury News reported that three of the largest Bay Area water agencies — the Santa Clara Water Valley District, East Bay Municipal Water District and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, that serve some 5.8 million people are considering water rate hikes by as much as 30% this year because they are selling a lot less water as customers are conserving due to the drought.

California water regulators get one coming and going. Should one waste water, they’re subject to fines and should one conserve too much water, they face increased costs due to their conservation.

Last year I wrote here here and here if not for California’s wacky environmentalist policies and want for more overly burdensome and crippling regulations that are driving away business investment and opportunity, legislators in Sacramento over the years, could have invested resources wisely for the future by constructing life-saving desalination plants along the coastline such as Israel’s Sorek Desalination Plant that provides 26,000 cubic meters or 7 million gallons of clean portable water every hour to over 1.5 million people.

While Santa Barbara has finally seen the light and ‘may’ modernize and finally reactivate the Charles E. Meyer Desalination Facility after being mothballed for the past 23 years, much more can be done to utilize the vast natural resources abundant and readily available but unfortunately, still under utilized.