Poll: Growing majority calls drought ‘extremely serious’
By Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News
After four years of relentless drought, more Californians are worried about water shortages than ever, despite El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean that are boosting hopes for a wet winter.
A Field Poll released Tuesday showed that 76 percent of registered California voters now call the state’s water situation “extremely serious,” up from 66 percent in May and 60 percent in April 2014.
During one of the state’s other historic droughts, in 1977, when rainfall totals were similarly low, just 51 percent called the situation “extremely serious,” although that drought only lasted two years.