Southern Californians continue to use, and waste, water at an alarming rate.
The Mercury News reports that for the seventh time in the last eight months, the amount of water saved by urban Californians has declined, according to new data from the State Water Resources Control Board.
California’s water use, after five years of conserving, is now back to where it was before the drought began.
While residents of the nine Bay Area counties continued their conservation habits — cutting water use 6.9 percent in January, compared with January 2013, the South Coast area, which includes Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange County and San Diego, did the opposite: Residents there used 3.8 percent more water in January than five years ago.
Los Angeles topped them all, using 15.2 percent more compared with five years ago.
Despite rain and snow last week and more in the forecast for next week, much of this winter has been dry. The Sierra snow pack is 38 percent of normal for the year.
Currently, 47 percent of California is still classified as being in some form of drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a report put out each week by federal scientists.