Yes, us water gobblers have to be more like the southwest and western dwellers, and not use water like it's an endless supply. We must seem like pigs in our usage to people out your way, eh?
Ha, our county government? I wonder if they will ever get a plan together, probably not much interest will be garnered.

Next week I'm having half of my lawn removed. It's being replaced with wood chip mulch and stone paths.I may plant some ornamental grasses in Spring.
My city will give me a water rebate for removing lawn. With what I'm taking out, I should get about $500 in water credits.

There will always be drought here. It is the nature of things. What is not natural is the intense expansion of many cities and towns in the SW. There will be a critical shortage in less than 20 years at this rate. By critical I mean not being able to grant water to everyone. It is simply madness.

Lee AKA Fireraven9
Great woods, you frighten me like cathedrals;
You howl like an organ; and our hearts of misery,
Rooms of eternal mourning where quiver ancient rattles,
Answer the echoes of your from the depths I've come to Thee.
- Charles Baudelaire, Obsession

Here is a link that might be useful: TheNewMexicoChannel.com - News - No Water By 2020?

I'm adding a lot of chopped leaves as top dressing/mulch for the perennial/annual flower beds. I'm also planting tons of industrial-strength perennials . For example, I just put in a couple of polly mallows (Callirhoe involucrata), several Veronicas, an ornamental sage (artemisia - Silver Mound), a couple of different Salvias, and relocated some Ratibida (yellow Mexican Hats) to the back of the bed with the Blue Flax, Moonshine Yarrow and Purple Coneflowers. I planted some cosmos and zinnias this spring, and they were water hogs. The cosmos grew to be five feet tall and drooped everyday unless watered. No more fussy flowers! In my hell strip, I poached various cactus from some land that was about to be developed next door: prickly pears and some yet-to-be-identified jointed, low-growing stuff and a very cool-looking type that seems to be a spreading dwarf cholla of some sort. Along with the cactus, I planted yuccas: needle-leaf native (also poached/saved from the bulldozer), a dwarf banana-leaf yucca and a softer verigated yucca with yellow edge "stripes." Hens and chicks have come on strong next to the big rock along with a clump of blue fescue and three hardy ice plants. I planted some tough-as-nails ground covers: Sedums in sun and wooly thyme under the thornless hawthorn. The far edges have yellow and red Indian Blanketflowers, lavanders and Moonshine Yarrow. My hell strip will scoff at drought and be merely amused by summer sun!

I've been looking at natives and drought resistant plants. Fireraven is right about the weather.