The News Review:

- Cities face 20% cuts in water use
- Lawmakers seek billions to expand improve California’s water supply
- utdoor ban for Western Municipal Water District customers starts …
- Door tags let residents play water cops
- Report: Companies should disclose water use

Cities face 20% cuts in water use
San Francisco Chronicle
tmpl –> Despite heavy rainstorms this month state officials say California’s water supply remains critically low because of three dry winters in a row restrictions on water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and a population that has grown by 9 million since the last drought in 1991. In making the declaration Schwarzenegger said the state must prepare for several more years with little rain. Experts predict this year’s runoff – the critical spring melt from Sierra Nevada snow – will be 57 percent of normal. “This drought is having a devastating impact on our people our communities our economy and our environment – making today’s action absolutely necessary” Schwarzenegger said. The governor’s proclamation stopped short of invoking mandatory statewide rationing but officials said that option – which would be a first in California history – is available if other tactics fail.

Lawmakers seek billions to expand improve California’s water supply
Los Angeles Times
By Patrick McGreevy February 27 2009Reporting from Sacramento — With California’s budget crisis resolved for the moment state lawmakers Thursday turned their attention to another emergency: a three-year drought that has left key reservoirs at 35% of capacity. Legislators stepped forward with plans to ask voters to borrow as much as $15 billion for projects to expand and improve the state’s water supply. “This is the session to aggressively solve California’s water challenges” Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said Thursday. He added however that the state should spend some of the $7 billion in bonds previously approved for water projects before going back to voters for money needed to complete the work.

utdoor ban for Western Municipal Water District customers starts …
Press-Enterprise
The two agencies supply much of the water in western Riverside County. Western gets almost all of its water from the treatment plant in Riverside. Eastern has additional sources of water. The restrictions will affect about 22500 of Western’s 25000 retail customers. They are in the city of Riverside in the Hillcrest Mission Grove and rangecrest neighborhoods and in the unincorporated areas of Woodcrest Lake Mathews and Lake Hills as well as March Air Reserve Base and Air Force Village West.

Door tags let residents play water cops
San Diego Union Tribune
?Dozens and dozens of my neighbors are active walkers. Those are hundreds of thousands of eyes and ears (countywide) that if outfitted with the proper tools can help our community achieve our conservation goal. ? Pete Weisser a spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources said he didn’t know of any other agency in the state that has tried this approach. It’s difficult to predict how people will react to the tags said Nicholas Christenfeld a psychology professor at the University of California San Diego. ?Americans are deeply ambivalent about shame? he said. ?We are notoriously an individualistic culture where we feel we should be able to do whatever we want. ? Christenfeld said he would probably opt for a direct conversation with a water waster.
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Report: Companies should disclose water use
The Associated Press
now disclose the amount of water they use in financial reports in an attempt to show investors they can confront threats to their water supply according to a study released Thursday by the nonprofit Pacific Institute. But dozens of high-tech companies farms and soda bottlers have lost millions because they didn’t forsee the risks posed by droughts and floods tied to global warming researchers found in a survey of 121 companies in water-intensive industries. Now as markets are reeling investors can’t afford to ignore the crucial role water plays for some of their favorite bluechips and how it could affect their retirement accounts said Anne Stausboll who manages the nation’s largest public pension fund. “Coming out of this economic crisis investors will be looking differently at risk” said Stausboll CE of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. “And water-related risks are imbedded in all of our investments from the companies we invest in to the buildings we own. “CalPERS for example expects to lose money on their investments tied to California’s farming industry which suffered $260 million in crop losses alone last year due to a crippling drought she said. Water scarcity also has caused companies across the world to shut down plants: A few years ago both Pepsi Co.