The drought emergency in Lathrop is now officially over.

For now, at least.

On Monday, the Lathrop City Council adopted a resolution that called an end to the drought emergency inside of Lathrop’s city limits and discontinues the watering restrictions that were put into place to comply with state mandates for water use reductions during the height of the drought.

Thanks to a year of heavy precipitation that led to near-record snowfall in the Sierra, California’s reservoirs have received a much-needed recharge – with many filling to capacity even as a massive amount of snow has yet to melt in the higher elevations.

The abundance of water means that residents will no longer have to abide by the watering restrictions that were put into place last year in an attempt to cut back the City of Lathrop’s water usage by 20 percent. During particularly heavy drought years the city has provided the State of California with its monthly water reductions progress, and in the face of a changing climate the city has joined with other neighboring municipalities to have discussions about how to preserve water from the groundwater basin shared by communities in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.

Some of those steps are outlined in the city’s Water Shortage Contingency Plan.

But while some of the more restrictive tiers of that plan will be taken off of the table for this summer, city staff stressed that the move does not mean that residents will be able to waste water – stressing that the city will still be enforcing the elements of its municipal code that deal with water waste.

The boom-bust cycle of California’s water has become more pronounced in recent years – with several years of extreme or even exceptional drought being wiped out with one particularly wet winter season.

As a result of the massive amounts of water that still has to be managed and the high level of water on California’s rivers, some segments of rivers like the San Joaquin remain closed to boating and recreation as a precaution. Those using open waterways are encouraged to use extreme caution as the massive amounts of water that has flowed through already this year can shift sandbars and submerged obstacles – resulting in hazards that didn’t exist before.

To contact Bulletin reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.