Our City''s unreasonable water rules - GRRRRRR!

[ksinger]

I''m sure it''s the same now, but years ago when I visited Moab Utah - true desert - they had rock lawns, but roses around all the foundations. It was pretty neat. I suspect they saved every ounce of water from dishes and baths, to water them. In any case, everyone did it, and it looked lovely. Who knew one could grow such glorious roses in Moab? They weren''t dealing with blackspot, thats for sure!

 

[kenny]

Yes we use those low-water toilets.
I think our city has rules supporting their use but not sure if they really enforce it.

The design of those toilets is improving.
You'd have to flush the old ones twice if you didn't want . . . little floaters. . .

 

[Selkie]

Date: 11/22/2009 1:40:05 PM
Author: kenny
Yeah, I think they should just have graduated bills.


Something like . . .

1 cents per gallon for the first 1000 gallons per month.

2 cents per gallon for between 1001 and 2000 gallons.

5 cents per gallon for 2001 to 3000 gallons.

25 cents per gallon for 3001 to 4000 gallons.

$1 per gallon for 4001 to 5000 gallons.

$10 per gallon for 5001 to 6000 gallons.

etc.


Waste would plummet.


Oh, I almost forgot to mention this since I''ve been doing it so long.

Our water heater is in the garage so you have to wait a while for the hot water to reach the faucet.

When waiting I actually catch the water in a bucket, carry it outside and throw it into the lawn.

How many people do that?

Kenny, the LB water rates ARE in fact tiered. Here''s a link:
http://www.lbwater.org/wr.php. So the less you use, the lower your rate. And since you''re obviously pretty aware of the water situation in southern California, I''m not sure why you think conservation requirements are so unreasonable?

 

[KimberlyH]

Date: 11/23/2009 12:13:33 AM
Author: movie zombie
as a northern california resident i''m glad to hear there are brown lawns in s. california. too many years water flowed south and not enough conservation was being implemented. no pity re the regulations.

mz

MZ, as someone who lived in the Sacramento area for 7+ years, I wish they would put restrictions in place in N.CA as well. The waste that I saw was unbelievable to me. As someone who had lived in S.CA for her whole life I was stunned at how much water people used and how little they thought about it.

 

[kenny]

Selkie please read my OP again.

Singling out one visible use with fines (when there are a zillion invisible uses) is not fair.
Our overall use is tiny compared to the average.

 

[MustangGal]

I''m in Phoenix, and either I haven''t been made aware of water restrictions, or we just don''t have them. My HOA does only allow up to 25% of the front landscaping to be grass, but pretty much all the houses have gravel with a few bushes and trees. DH works on a golf course, most of them here are watered with reclaimed water, which presents it''s own challanges. Apparently the treatment procces adds salt and other by-products that can damage the grass.

 

[packrat]

I''m not sure how it is here, but I know where my gramma lives (couple towns over), each household is allotted X gallons a month, and anything over that is extra.

We rarely water any of our stuff..if we do, it''s never the grass, unless the kids are in the sprinkler, or we dump out their little wading pool. I put a sump pump in the stock tank and water my plants in the backyard. The front yard only gets the hose if something''s on the verge of dying, or once a year we have a party, so I soak everything so it''s nice the day of the party and then let it go. The backyard can stay relatively nice using the tank if we have decent rainfall. If we have a few rainy days, I''ll be out in a rain suit draining the tank-really soaks the heck out of my plants and they look nice!

The Spring after we got married, we''d started doing all the landscaping and I was always watering. Our yard looked awesome. One day the City called and told us they thought we had a water leak. I said nooo I don''t think so. The lady''s like, well, the water''s coming from someplace, and I mentioned watering our lawn/plants..she''s like, uh yeah, you have a $300 bill this month. I said, it''s just water! She says, you used to have well water didn''t you? Well, in town you have to pay for it. hahahaha what a dork I was! I called mom up right away and said I didn''t care how dumb it looked, I wanted a tank like theirs in our backyard!

 

[fleur-de-lis]

Hi Kenny,

Your post reminded me of a really interesting op-ed piece which appeared in the LA Times on this issue a few weeks back. You might find it an interesting (and eye-opening) read: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-solnit1-2009nov01,0,881907.story


An excerpt:

California is rich. Even in the midst of a drought, we have lots of water, and in the midst of a recession, we have lots of money. The problem is one of distribution, not of actual scarcity.

This is the usual problem of the United States, which is not just the richest and most powerful nation on Earth now, but on Earth ever, and one of the most blessed in terms of natural resources. We just collectively make loopy decisions about how to distribute the money and water, and we could make other decisions. Whether or not those priorities will change, we could at least have a reality-based conversation about them.

Take water. My friend Derek Hitchcock, a biologist working to restore the Yuba River, likes to say that California is still a place of abundance. He recently showed me a Pacific Institute report and other documents to bolster his point. They show that about 80% of the state''s water goes to agriculture, not to people, and half of that goes to four crops -- cotton, rice, alfalfa and pasturage (irrigated grazing land) -- that produce less than 1% of the state''s wealth. Forty percent of the state''s water. Less than 1% of its income. Meanwhile, we Californians are told the drought means that ordinary households should cut back -- and probably most should -- but the lion''s share of water never went to us in the first place, and we should know it....

 

[Selkie]

I still don't really think there's anything unreasonable about trying to curb the more visible wasteful practices, and then going after excessive "invisible" water usage through the tiered rate system I posted. You'll get a warning before they actually come and cart you off to water-wasters prison for hosing down your driveway once a month.

From what you said about being conscious of how much water you use in general, you should be falling into the lowest rate tier anyway. Anyone abusing those invisible water wasting practices is going to be paying proportionally more than you. We have auto sprinklers and a relatively drought tolerant sod lawn, which we water on the three days a week that we are allowed to. (LA City is only allowed 2 days of watering, I believe). We water for 8 minutes in the morning, and in the hottest part of the summer, for 8 minutes at night, and our bill has averaged about $25-35. I'd like to switch over to a native plant/drought tolerant landscape but haven't had the time to really research and design it yet.

We do the same thing with the pre-shower cold water, catch it in 5 gallon and dump it on the lawn or into the washer. Probably saves about twenty gallons a week, which isn't a huge amount, but goes a long way toward filling up the washer.

 

[hihowareyou]

Strange you seem to be saying low water toilets are newish in the US. They have been required in all new buildings where I am from... for as long as I can remember. Probably getting onto 15-20 years now. I vaguely recall hearing that they were designed in Australia so I suppose it makes sense.

Ours are dual flush though so you have a extremely low water usage button for number 1s and a more *powerful* flush for number 2s. Whenever I have been overseas I am always confused by how the toilets work. The first time I saw a bowl start filling up I almost ran out of the stall screaming as I thought it was going to overflow.

I saw the most amazing toilet in japan that made so much sense. there was a hand washing basin attached so when you pulled the chain to flush the water first came out a tap into the basin for you to wash your hands then was used to flush the loo.

 

[TooPatient]

Date: 11/22/2009 2:57:43 PM
Author: kenny
Southern California imports water from Northern California, the Colorado river and there are some aquifers.
I do not think desalinizing ocean water has really taken off yet.

Actually water has been a huge factor in the history of the settlement of California, just like the railroads.
Fascinating reading.

Do a search on desalinization & Israel. It is done in other places pretty successfully.

 

[TooPatient]

Date: 11/23/2009 9:32:54 PM
Author: TooPatient

Date: 11/22/2009 2:57:43 PM
Author: kenny
Southern California imports water from Northern California, the Colorado river and there are some aquifers.
I do not think desalinizing ocean water has really taken off yet.

Actually water has been a huge factor in the history of the settlement of California, just like the railroads.
Fascinating reading.

Do a search on desalinization & Israel. It is done in other places pretty successfully.

Good place to start:

Ashkelon Desalination plant

 

[MishB]

Suck it up kenny.

Wait until you have to adopt the mantra ''if it''s yellow, let it mellow, if it''s brown, flush it down''.

 

[movie zombie]

Date: 11/23/2009 4:08:03 PM
Author: fleur-de-lis
Hi Kenny,

Your post reminded me of a really interesting op-ed piece which appeared in the LA Times on this issue a few weeks back. You might find it an interesting (and eye-opening) read: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-solnit1-2009nov01,0,881907.story


An excerpt:

California is rich. Even in the midst of a drought, we have lots of water, and in the midst of a recession, we have lots of money. The problem is one of distribution, not of actual scarcity.

This is the usual problem of the United States, which is not just the richest and most powerful nation on Earth now, but on Earth ever, and one of the most blessed in terms of natural resources. We just collectively make loopy decisions about how to distribute the money and water, and we could make other decisions. Whether or not those priorities will change, we could at least have a reality-based conversation about them.

Take water. My friend Derek Hitchcock, a biologist working to restore the Yuba River, likes to say that California is still a place of abundance. He recently showed me a Pacific Institute report and other documents to bolster his point. They show that about 80% of the state''s water goes to agriculture, not to people, and half of that goes to four crops -- cotton, rice, alfalfa and pasturage (irrigated grazing land) -- that produce less than 1% of the state''s wealth. Forty percent of the state''s water. Less than 1% of its income. Meanwhile, we Californians are told the drought means that ordinary households should cut back -- and probably most should -- but the lion''s share of water never went to us in the first place, and we should know it....

yes, and now they want the california taxpayer to pay for more water to go south to support these agri-businesses......

mz

 

[luv2sparkle]

Kenny, I feel your pain. We lived in Lake Arrowhead for many years. Water restrictions made us crazy. People in huge homes on the lake and landscaping out the batootie
and watered every day. We had none, but 7 people and were very careful about water. We were considered and abuser. All we did was regular household stuff. We took
short showers and restrictors and never left water running. It drove me crazy. There was no rhyme or reason.

I guess it is something that is here to stay however, so we should probably get used to it. Now we live in a HOA that insists the grass stay green-go figure.

 

[jstarfireb]

Heh, and here am complaining about the huge amount of rain we get in the Northeast. Sometimes I think we should build a giant upside-down umbrella over our entire area to catch the rain and funnel it through some elaborate piping system over to you. That would solve both our problems! But seriously though, I can''t imagine having to turn the shower water off as I''m soaping up every day...I''d freeze to death!

 

[CaliSun]

Date: 11/23/2009 12:13:33 AM
Author: movie zombie
as a northern california resident i'm glad to hear there are brown lawns in s. california. too many years water flowed south and not enough conservation was being implemented. no pity re the regulations.

mz

My thoughts exactly. Not to be rude, but we here in Northern Cali have been watching every droplet for well over three years (!) and paying top dollar on our water bills. And meanwhile supplying Southern Cali with water that hasn't been under the same conservation guidelines.
Seems a little unfair.

I admit I was pretty peeved when we received our notices explaning how we needed to cut back.
But, getting used to it truly wasn't a big deal. We installed different faucet heads and shower heads that really made a big difference. And I got a little creative in the garden - I learned to appreciate succulant plants! So you sweep the driveway instead of hose it off - big whoop.

 

[zhuzhu]

I don''t think the regulations are unreasonable at all. We are all in it together and it is about time to put a stop to unnecessary usage of limited resources.

 

[Cehrabehra]

Date: 11/22/2009 1:43:26 PM
Author: kenny
We are in Southern California where there is virtually no recoverable rain for 9 or 10 months of the year.


It is now PC to have a brown lawn here.

There are a few holdouts who have beautiful green lawns.


Actually people are finding desert cacti and other low-water or no-water uses for their yards.

The paradigm of assuming everyone wants a green lawn is going away.

I am hoping that a grass alternative trend will spring - there are so many other ground covers that are resistant to walking/playing and are more water conservative - or even in areas where there aren''t water issues - you don''t have to mow them! Especially the mosses - I don''t know exactly HOW water conservative they can be but grass is one of the worst. I haven''t looked into it for socal but I have for here and I know what I want but it''s not popular and way too expensive. We need to make it popular to bring down the price lol

 

[Maria D]

Date: 11/24/2009 1:30:47 PM
Author: jstarfireb
Heh, and here am complaining about the huge amount of rain we get in the Northeast. Sometimes I think we should build a giant upside-down umbrella over our entire area to catch the rain and funnel it through some elaborate piping system over to you. That would solve both our problems! But seriously though, I can''t imagine having to turn the shower water off as I''m soaping up every day...I''d freeze to death!

+1! Raking up the (wet) leaves last weekend revealed the fact that the stupid lawn has to be mown again -- in November! I can''t even fathom washing down the driveway. My driveway practically sparkles from all the #%! rainwater that douses it regularly. But don''t worry, instead I''m very busy cleaning/replacing shower curtains that are perpetually mildewed from all the damp weather.