Gov. Newsom says mandatory water restrictions could be coming soon

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.

"We brought in that mind set into this drought, and this gives us an advantage over the last drought," he said. "Residential use in the state of California currently is 16% below where we were in 2013 as we go into this next drought. We have also been more effective and efficient in terms of water recycling and storage, and we have made a substantial amount of progress on groundwater strategies."

Many localities already have water restrictions in place.

In the previous drought, mandatory restrictions at the state level were first imposed in April 2015, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed an executive order mandating a 25% reduction in water use, and the restrictions were enforced by fines.