Jerry Brown orders mandatory water reductions amid California drought

With California slogging into its fourth year of withering drought, Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday ordered mandatory water reductions of 25 percent in cities and towns across the state.  The administration said it was the first time a governor has ever ordered the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions, with implications for everyone from farmers to city-dwellers and their lawns.  The order came as Brown and state water officials traveled east of Sacramento to measure snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. Brown stood in a dry meadow on the day of year the snowpack typically peaks.  Read More