CPR: As reported in the Sacramento Bee and elsewhere, on May 31st Gov. Jerry Brown “signed a pair of bills Thursday to set permanent overall targets for indoor and outdoor water consumption.”
After pressure from the Association of California Water Agencies and others, the final form of these bills, Assembly Bill 1668 by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, and Senate Bill 606 from state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Los Angeles, offers water districts more flexibility in enforcing the new restrictions. But the focus of AB 1668, limiting indoor water use to 50 gallons per resident per day, is a step too far. Way too far.
There’s nothing wrong with conserving water. But urban water consumption in California is already low, and squeezing even more out of Californians will be costly and bothersome without making much difference in the big picture. MORE
Hard to feel sorry for those who shoot themselves in the foot then whine because it hurts.
Yep, all the worlds largest economies have water rationing, no wait…
They asked for dominate socialism, let them enjoy it and show the rest of the country how it’s done. Go for it california comrades.
If only they had accepted nuclear power, they would have the entire Pacific Friggin’ Ocean to use. Oh well.
Reservoirs are higher than average. This is all about Jerry Brown taxing drinking water. The poor in the state will certainly benefit from that. I think Jerry’s got one oar in the water.
we just got a major desalination plant on line in North San Diego a year ago….huge amount of water but sadly, probably will never be another one because the EnviroNAZI’s fought it tooth and nail and forced, now get this, a HALF A BILLION dollar mitigation plan to offset the desal plant……$500 million dollars in offsets just cuz were are in California……no one can afford to build another plant at that rate.
Shower or laundry? Shower or laundry? Decisions, decisions….
Czar of Defenestration
Not that tough. Just wear your clothes in the shower. LOL
Kick out the illegals and we would have water to spare.
Shut down the farms that grow nuts for export to China and our water “shortage” (that’s not real) goes away too.
Meanwhile, our rivers pour their waters, unimpeded, into the Pacific.
That which isn’t already send to the south.
Split the state. I’ll gladly stay in the new state, the State of Northern California.
el grande dumpster fire on the horizon- nary a drop to spare!
what will this do to cleaning sidewalks of poop?
What steams me is that they have several areas they could build more reservoirs, and have water and power. And they could bring desalination online in five years if they back off some of the crazy environmental regulations.
I have no sympathy for California.
Decent folk should move out and let it crash and swoop in twenty years later and gentrify the shit out of what’s left
Same water that’s been on the Earth since before the dinosaurs were pissing it.
It’s a closed system! Hello?
Rains in the mountains, runs down the rivers into the sea.
Evaporates.
Does it all over again.
Suck it out of the rivers, you fuggin morons – what doesn’t get sucked out just runs into the sea.
Oh, wait! When that bullshit Globaloney Warming happens, the icecaps will melt and the oceans will rise and California will have plenty of water!
izlamo delenda est …
Water consumption can still be reduced significantly and still maintain green yards, but it would be capital intensive.
Desalinization is problematic. It is energy intensive and finding a place for the concentrate becomes extremely difficult. Treating wastewater would be easier. I don’t know to what extent California is treating and using its sewage (most jurisdictions that use treated sewage do so only for irrigation, but distilling it would make it safe to drink, if needed).
Even in drought conditions — real or imagined — in the West, water flows toward money. When my son was living in Indio a few years ago, there seemed to be absolutely no effort to conserve water in the wealthier neighborhoods (Palm Springs and Palm Desert). Why bother, with those incomes?
Las Vegas reaches out like some giant water-starved insect, poking its proboscis into remote desert valleys, blessed with oases of green, and sucking all the groundwater out, leaving only desolation and dust.
Here in Utah, we are also reaching the limits of our water supply. Unlike California, we don’t have desalinization as an option. Every year there is talk of drought, even when there isn’t one. A good water year still sees nearly drained reservoirs before the end of the watering season.
Ironically, Silicon Valley is moving its server farms to Utah to take advantage of the cheaper coal, natural gas and hydroelectric generated electricity (unencumbered by insane anti-carbon schemes). Unfortunately, server farms don’t employ a lot of people, but they use as much water as a small city.
I called BS on these pricks. I live 1 mile from a State park and I use the trails every day to hike for a couple hours a day. I saw running water in drinking fountains (the fountain was broke and deer were using it as a trough). A faucet in one of restrooms was running/dripping water. Shower was left running. I reported it to the Parks people in January 2018, the water ran until I contacted Sacramento’s head honcho of Parks & Recreation 2 weeks ago. I told them to never mention water rationing to the People of California again. I pointed out where the leaks were and how the water was wasted. I further threatened to get the media involved. Well, the next day ALL the leaks were repaired. See something do something was my last word to them. I’ve been conserving water since the 70’s. Screw them, I will take a shower every day, wash my dishes, and clothes when I need to. We left our landscaping to nature, we grow rocks.
So I’m on well & septic. How would they regulate or tax me when there’s no place to meter what I use?
Anymouse
Oh man, a couple years ago Fing Jerry Brown declared ground water belonged to the state. So if you have a well, on your own property, you now have a meter. I poop you not.
ACParker: “Desalinization is problematic. It is energy intensive and finding a place for the concentrate becomes extremely difficult. ”
Moonbeam has it all figured out. They’ll dilute the concentrate and put it back in the ocean. ‘Dilution is the solution’
The guy thinks of everything.
Serious question: What about swimming pools? There is several years worth of 50gal/day water in even a small pool. How does that work? Oh that’s right, 2 tiers, for justice and water.
Here in sunny, dry heated Arizona, we have come to love weeds instead of Bermuda grass. Weeds of all kinds, especially the ones that can’t be killed no matter what. We spread rocks on our front yards, we like rocks – they are friendly and require no attention. Dust storms remind us that we live in a desert and don’t need umbrellas or rubber boots. Or snow shovels. Without big leafy trees, we don’t need rakes to scarf up piles of dead leaves. We’re allowed to own firearms so that we can shoot the rattlesnakes that think we’re invading their privacy.
Life is good.
This is paradise.
Toby Miles:
About dilution being the solution — maybe. Much depends on offshore physiography and the volume of concentrate being produced. A scheme for Jordan near Aqaba would pump concentrate to salt pans in the desert. That might work, but there will be an awful lot of salt after a few years.
Desalinization plants are high maintenance and consume prodigious amounts of energy. Still, if the price of potable water is high enough, it would make economic sense.
There are some promising technologies that could reduce energy consumption considerably, but research kind of died off 20 years or so ago, as environmental considerations began to scuttle many plans.
Swimming pools are not a good storage option, unless they are covered most of the time. Evaporation rates in California can be very high. Large shallow reservoirs are not very efficient for storage, as they lose a tremendous amount of water through evaporation, but they are better than no storage.
There has been a proposal by the Corps of Engineers on the books for a few decades here to make Utah Lake about one-half its present area (by diking off Goshen Bay and Provo Bay) and dredge it to keep the same storage capacity. In doing this, evaporation will be reduced by 50 percent, resulting in more water for irrigation and household use, as well as improving the quality of water in the lake, which is now brackish because of the high evaporation rate.
Sub-surface irrigation is what can allow green yards while reducing water consumption by up to 90 percent. Keeping water in the soil limits water loss to plant transpiration. Sub-surface irrigation systems are not cheap and when they break they are expensive to fix, but that is likely the direction we are headed, if we want to have lawns, gardens and trees in arid and semi-arid environments.
I was joking about the ‘dilution solution’
My father was a scientist who completed his PhD in the late ’40’s. That phrase was the gold standard back before “Silent Spring” (a hopelessly flawed book), and he quoted it often. It is still a viable solution, but it depends on all the variables lining up correctly, which they do much of the time.
Joking aside, Moonbeam may be correct in this case, but he will have a very heavy burden of proof to satisfy the eco-nazis. It will no doubt require spending untold billions of dollars in sin money.