Bathing is becoming a luxury as California's four-year drought drags on and water restrictions get stricter and stricter. Yesterday, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation told its inmates it's shut off open-air showers in its prison yards as it tries to cut back on water by 25 percent. The showers will still work in the cellblocks and prisoners can also "take sponge baths by the sinks in their cells," reports the LA Times, but it's enough of an indignity that lawyers for inmates have added the shut-off to a class action lawsuit.
Also this week, state parks officials ordered showers at 38 state beaches, "many of them in Southern California," to be shut off starting July 15 (next Wednesday). The new rules will only cover the outdoor showers, not indoor campground showers, and is supposed to save up to 18 million gallons a year while making car rides home slightly more uncomfortable than they used to be.
UPDATE: The Beach Showers Will Stay On in Los Angeles
· Got sand? Drought prompts California state beaches to shut off outdoor showers [LAT]
· The Terrifying Stats on Just How Dry Los Angeles Has Been the Past Few Years [Curbed LA]
· Mapping SoCal's Mandatory Water Cutbacks Big and Small [Curbed LA]
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