That’s what you get for living on the edge of a desert.
The desert is winning.
Posted on 09/19/2014 10:09:08 AM PDT by Lorianne
In one of America's richest towns residents are paying more than ten times the going rate for water in a desperate attempt to stave off California's "epochal" drought ___ Nestled under the Santa Ynez mountains and cooled by the Pacific Ocean breeze, the billionaires' bolt hole of Montecito, California, seems at first glance like a palm tree-strewn idyll.
Here, in one of America's wealthiest post codes, celebrities including Oprah Winfrey, George Lucas, Rob Lowe, Kevin Costner and Ellen DeGeneres live alongside CEOs too numerous to mention in some of the world's biggest and most outlandish homes.
But look a little closer and it is soon apparent there is trouble in this paradise: not even the likes of Miss Winfrey, it seems, can make it rain.
As California endures what the state's governor Jerry Brown has called a drought of "epochal" proportions, lawns everywhere – including one at a five-acre property owned by the chat show queen – are scorched and gone to seed.
A polo field also lies unwatered and, according to locals, some owners of $10 million (£6.2 million) homes are eating off paper plates to avoid using their dishwashers.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Montecito/Santa Barbara built a desalination plant, but don’t use it.....why? They limit growth (maintaining exclusivity/limiting growth) by using the excuse of limited water resources.....
BTW Montecito is on the California coast and is not desert, but rather deciduous forest with rolling hills.
You are so right, and if it (the deluge!) happens not this year, but next year, or the year after, these snippets of geological/climatical time might be giant PITAs for humans but are nothing on the planetary scale.
I for one have more scorn for the inept (but very well paid) bureaucrats on various CA water agencies who are beholden to the enviro crowd for closing reservoirs when we are flush but crying in their mineral water when things are tight....than for mere rich folks who think the water was put there for them. The homeowners only hurt themselves and WILL have to reseed their lawns. The stupid bureaucrats aren’t held to any sort of account. Arguably, they are completely useless and the money used to pay them and their staffs would be better used for pinatas at diversity-training parties.
That’s what you get for living on the edge of a desert.
The desert is winning.
I know, right?
From dust you came and to dust to will return.
The rule of thumb from my plumber is 90 gallons a day for each person in the household Toilets—showers—lawns—etc.
You can hire people to paint your lawn now....literally.
I guess the rich liberals don't have to do endless "environmental studies" on that.
God responded.
Israel did it and they have more fresh water than they can use. And they worked the desalination process plants with modern technology that makes the plant unbelievably effective. Our problem is brain dead democrats running California. Need a fast rail system like Brown's dream rather than do anything about our water problem. Oh I forgot, save the fish!
Desal plant underway in carlsbad ca. Open 2016
100 grand to drill a well is chickenfeed for the uber-rich. Trouble is, well drillers in SoCal are booked up solid for the next two years.
Well, at least they are saying they are praying for rain. Does anyone think God is listening?
It takes HUGE amounts of electricity to desalinate ocean water. The EPA is causing a major fraction of our national coal-fired generating capacity to be shut down. Windmills and solar won’t begin to fill the hole that leaves. Where, exactly, are we going to get the electricity for desalination?
Or pay to build desalinization plants.
Lots of liberals talk about how we should use solar to desalinate. Let them pay for the projects as an example.
Actually, we did start it up, but after about only two months of operation, it was put into standby mode and later most of the parts sold off . The rains had started, desal water was quite expensive and the powers that be were tired of all the uneducated complaints that it would kill off golf courses & lawns, etc.
I do recall family trips to Arizona every summer in the 50's where it seemed every gas station bathroom carried the sign "Reclaimed Water." Guess that state was way ahead of the curve.
You are right, they finished the plant, tested it for a few months, but never used the water in the water supply.
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