Concern over California’s ongoing drought prompted the state’s Energy Commission Tuesday to require new toilets and faucets sold there to conserve water. The emergency action mandates that all faucets, toilets and urinals be low-flush or low-flow if sold after January 1st of next year. There are currently 30 million operational toilets in California.

The rule does not help the immediate crisis but will help achieve lower water usage in the coming year. Much more to the current point, Governor Jerry Brown imposed the first-ever mandatory water restrictions in the state less than a week ago, intended at slicing usage by 25 percent. Although almost two-thirds of water in California is used for agriculture, Brown’s initiatives focus mainly on urban areas.

A simple thing action that is helpful – and does not require government intervention – is to place bricks in toilet tanks. Bricks generally lower water consumption by one-half gallon per flush. One estimate says that if bricks were used statewide 6 billion gallons of water would be conserved in just the first 90 days. That amount is cited as providing enough drinking water to 32 million people to drink for a year. The current population of California is approximately 39 million people.

The action from the commission sets efficiency standards for appliances that are much more rigorous than the voluntary specifications outlined by the WaterSense conservation program of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Specifically, each flush of urinals sold in California in 2016 and later must use one pint of water. The present standard is one gallon while WaterSense’s approval goes on any urinal that uses half a gallon or less.

Estimates from the commission say the new directive will save 10 billion gallons of water in the first year alone. In addition to the 30 million working toilets in the state, there were also over 45 million faucets and 1 million urinals. Every day in the United States, 4.8 billion gallons of water are flushed through toilets.