i’ve lived in socal for over 20 years.
i’ve never seen any water conservation. people waste water here.
i’m from denver where the water cops come out and ticket you if you water your lawn on the wrong day.
some of socal’s water comes from colorado.
“””i’ve lived in socal for over 20 years.
i’ve never seen any water conservation. people waste water here.”””
To minimize the impacts caused by the shortfalls in imported surface water supplies, most agencies in the region established and implemented rationing programs during the 1987-92 drought to bring demand in line with supplies. Customer rationing allotments were determined by the customer’s use prior to the drought. Rationing levels, or reductions, ranged from 15 to 50 percent.
Programs implemented by the cities of San Diego and Los Angeles are typical of the efforts agencies throughout the region made to combat recent drought-induced shortages. The City of San Diego implemented a 20-percent rationing program for its customers during 1991; a 10-percent program had been in place since 1988. Other programs and activities by San Diego included establishing customer rebates for the installation of ultra-low-flush toilets, distributing free showerheads, providing turf and home audit service, expanding the existing public information program (with a 24-hour hotline), establishing a field crew to handle waste-of-water complaints, constructing a xeriscape demonstration garden, and retrofitting city water facilities. Landscape designs for new private and public construction are regulated for water conservation by a 1986 city ordinance. San Diego also has ordinances that permit enacting water conservation measures and programs during critical water supply situations and that require all residential dwellings to be retrofitted prior to resale.
The City of Los Angeles has had a rationing program in place since 1986. The program was mandatory for all its customers until early in 1992, when it was revised to voluntary status. The program originally called for a 10-percent reduction; however, it was amended to 15 percent during 1992 when the State’s water supply situation worsened. Programs established by Los Angeles are similar to those described for San Diego. Los Angeles also established a “drought buster” field program with staff patrolling neighborhoods looking for water wasters. Table SC-3 shows the region’s water supplies with existing facilities and programs.
You’re right. Californians give only lip service to “water conservation.” Any Californian pol that tells you they’re going to institute a water conservation program is full of crap, because they never go after the 800 gorilla in the room of water policy: lawns.
Californians: here’s an example of a serious water conservation program: In Las Vegas, they will pay you $1.00 per square foot of watered lawn to rip it out and replace it with... whatever else that doesn’t require water. $1.00 per square foot comes to $43,560.00 per acre.
In Southern California (and other low desert environments), you probably need at least five feet of water to keep a lawn green every year. Take the square area of your lawn, stack up water five feet deep, and that’s a good estimate of how much water you’re putting on your lawn every year. In areas like Palm Springs or San Diego, where your lawn doesn’t go dormant at any time during the year, it is probably closer to eight feet deep.
As long as there is a single lawn on any piece of property (much less the large expanses of grass by the highways and outside public buildings that they water), California is not serious about conserving water. All the stupid little stunts about low-flow toilets, not serving water unless you ask, blah, blah, blah — they’re stupid little PR stunts, not real conservation measures.
The only thing that will really make a difference is to stop watering lawn grass. Period, end of discussion, thanks for playing with policy.
This has been brought to you by a farmer in the high desert who pays thousands of dollars a month in water pumping bills to water a crop, so I know a thing or two about water conservation on my own dime.
We lived with 30 gallons of water a day during the drought of the 90's before our well went dry.
I wonder if anybody in CA could do that? LOL