With the drought here in California four years in the making, Governor Jerry Brown has enacted limitations and rules that the citizens of California follow (http://bit.ly/U4HBmI). This is the first time that these rules have been implemented.

As students and citizens of the state, we have an obligation to follow these limitations and help our state.

The drought is now so severe that around 66% of the state is in the D3, or extreme drought, category according to the California Drought Monitor (http://bit.ly/1cFJhZQ). That means an estimated 37 million people in california are being affected by the drought, including residents within the surrounding areas of Norwalk, Cerritos, and the entire L.A. county as a whole.

Back in 2010, right before the drought started, Californians were using an upwards of “38 billion gallons per day.” This includes the use of water for agricultural, commercial, and household

Here at the college, we use a lot of water, and not all of it gets reused or recycled. This can be expected with our campus and class size. Not every use of our water can be monitored at all times, so waste is bound to happen.

Take, for example, the pipe that burst in by the dance room two weeks ago. It was left leaking for almost and hour and a half, before being shut off and repaired.

Our sprinkler system, which runs late at night, often hits the sidewalk and lamp posts, sometimes missing the grass completely .

We could follow the system that other community and state colleges have done, and forbid the use of non-reuseable water bottles. Humboldt State University and others have gone a step further have made reuseable water bottles while providing hydration stations for student use, much liked the ones proposed by the ASCC.

These stations help lower the amount of bottled water the school purchases, helping the drought, as some bottle water companies have resorted to other means to acquire water (http://bit.ly/1GHMZSR).

Both students and the school could begin to use certain plants that don’t depend so much on water, such as the few small cacti plants that have been planted by the liberal arts building. Alternatively students and the school could allow the grass on campus to die or yellow. While not the most visually appealing of sacrifices, considering the damage that may be done if we do not cut back on water use, a few less bottles and some yellow grass seem worth it.