Don’t almonds take a huge amount of water to grow? My DH was reading the same article, or listening to it on NPR that agriculture is taking 83 percent of the water. Of course it’s necessary, but I think items like Almonds maybe not so, if they are produced elsewhere.
@socalmom23 We hired a horticulturalist at an hourly rate for consultation. It saves in the long run and I recommend that you do the same. Every part of So Cal has a particular ecosystem so before we settled on a plan we walked the block with him, looking at what thrives on our street. He came up with a plan based on drought tolerant plants and what parts of our yard get the most sun vs water. We planted accordingly and our yard has exploded with color.(The most expensive part of the process was the hardscaping , amending the soil and pulling out old growth.) I just compared this years water bill to two years ago. We are now using 45% less water.
Is the story about massive amounts of fresh water being wasted to save a couple of buckets of smelt just a fish story?
It takes one gallon of water to grow one almond. It takes five gallons of water to grow one walnut. Yes, the vast majority of California’s water is used by agriculture. But the issues of rationing are complicated by water rights some of which go back 100 years.
What no one wants to talk about is growth. If California is going to have a long stretch of drought, then growth needs to be limited. Sacramento can’t be telling us to take shorter showers when they are also approving more building permits for housing developments, bringing in more people, which of course, cancels out all the water conservation efforts.
I pay about $30 a month for water. I have mostly zeriscape and citrus in front yard. If we don’t ship almond to China then we don’t have to grow so much. Btw I’ve got almond covered chocolate from Sprouts on sale for $3.99, not as expensive as in past years.
We have conserved by just letting the back lawn go. I haven’t yet found a drought-friendly lawn plan that looks good. Our situation is complicated by the fact that we back up to park land. The fire department requires that the hillside be kept green as a wildfire buffer. Dry years = fire years. We have red flag warnings up right now due to the high wind.
The rationing so far seems to be per city. In other words, cities are being given goals to meet in cutting back. I haven’t read what the penalties will be if they don’t. But if there are penalties then presumably they will not be approving more development as that would under cut meeting those goals.
The other rationing mechanism will be, of course, increased rates.
The issue that concerns me more at this point is the well drilling boom that’s going on right now. In fact, the static water levels in the central valley aquifers are dropping so quickly due to farming that the land is actually subsiding in certain areas! Many of these aquifers that are being drilled are so deep that they would take many hundreds (and in some cases, thousands) of years to replenish themselves.
The lack of snowpack, fish conservation, and dragging of feet to build more reservoirs are the main culprits to the surface water issues. Obviously, we can’t do anything about the snowpack, but we can do something about the fish conservation mumbo jumbo and water reservoirs. Hopefully all of the money they will be raking in through increased water bills will go to building more reservoirs!
We pay about $25/month for water. We have torn out all of our lawn, front and back, and have drought tolerant planting everywhere. I actually like the look better than grass- our yard looks like a park with natural growth, a lot of flowers and zillions of birds and butterflies. We do have a pool which was here when we bought the house, but our city is not issuing permits for new pools.We keep it covered whenever not in use which cuts down evaportation drastically. We also have a small turtle pond- we would not install it if we were doing it over, but our turtle is almost 20 years old. We are not allowed to hose down driveways, sidewalks, etc, and a pressure nozzle must be used for cars. There really aren’t any penalties per se, but the rate goes from $1.40/748 gallons once you go over 6700 gallons per month. There are penalties for leaks, landscape watering more than 3 days/week, etc.
We are in a very mild climate- a coastal area with cool temps. I can’t imagine how the more inland areas are coping where temps get up into the 100’s regularly in the summer. Our county is heavily agricultural with a lot of citrus, avocados and strawberries. Our strawberry farmers have been told they will not have water to irrigate their new plantings in October. The water shortage will have a huge economic impact on our county where a large percentage of our population works in agriculture related fields. It is frightening to think of where we will be in 5 or 10 years unless the water picture changes drastically. This year’s rainy season has totaled 6" of rain, which is high compared to last year’s total of 2.5". It looks like we are done for this year. The snow pack at higher elevations is also extremely low so we are not getting run-off from that source either. And still we keep building…
$25 -$30/month for water is very, very low. Is that typical? I have never paid so little for water and have lived in rainy climates. What is your rate/gallon?
@socalmom23 - plants that need less water generally have a certain look to them. They might have thick, succulent looking leaves, like aloe or a jade plant. They might have leaves that are smaller and fuzzy, or they are needle shaped. Think of how rosemary and lavender look compared to basil. All those attributes help them hold onto the water they get. Large, thin, glossy leaves transpire more and need more water.
Here’s a list of many lists of drought tolerant plants for California:
My water bill is $45-50/month. I have drought tolerant in about 70% of the yard with a small lawn in the back that I do water. I have shut off the water completely in some areas. I don’t like the idea of desal either - it will backfire in one way or the other. Everything does. But why is everyone else buying produce from California when all the produce I buy here comes from South America? I don’t see anything local any more. Although they are still growing strawberries and broccoli by the side of the freeway.
The original question that everyone has glossed over is - how has the drought affected your college choice. What does college choice have to do with the drought? They still have water in dorms? I don’t quite understand the question.
Also - I read an article last year that said the same weather pattern causing our drought is what caused the polar vortex and extra snow on the east - so essentially, you’re getting our water and we want it back!
greenwitch- We pay a flat base rate of $20.95/month + $1.40/unit for up to 9 units of water. 1 unit = 748 gallons. Our useage this last month was 4 units, or almost 3,000 gallons, so our total was $20.95 + (4)($1.40)=$26.55. The month before we only used 3 units so our bill was a little less. Once you go up to Tier 2 use (10-19 units of water) the rate goes up to $3.34/unit, and it continues to increase with each Tier.
We pay $3.59/1000 gallons for the first 3000 gallons and $6.13/1000 gallons for between 3000 and 17000 gallons.
Add to that a flat $5.40 service charge, taxes of 2.5%, safe water fee of $3.20, city sanitation charge of $24.00 (that is trash pickup),and then all the sewerage charges - service charge of $15.44, plus $5.37/1000 gallons and they figure that your sewerage volume is 85% of your water usage.
I have a bill for 3800 gallons of water and it is $81.42! Subtract the trash fee and it is $57.42. We are in the rainy gulf south. Maybe I shouldn’t let D1’s boyfriend do his laundry here…
Even stranger, it says the previous year’s usage was 6600 gallons for the same time period (plus a few days) and there was only one man living here then.
Pete McBride, photographer and producer of the award-winning film “Chasing Water,” gave a series of talks this week in Seattle about the fate of the Colorado River, much of which is diverted to LA (and Denver, Phoenix, Tuscon, Las Vegas). The second half of his talk was about the Ganges, facing a different set of challenges.
His metaphor was that water use districts put all their straws in, dividing up the portions of a large drink but only having a medium drink available. The population relying on the river, in the meantime, has gone from 30 million to nearly 40 million in the past 20 years.
Reservoirs are at 50% and dropping, nearing the dead pool stage where they can no longer produce electricity, the other product of all our western dam projects. For continued lifestyles, we need both cheap food and cheap energy and we will need to get more conservation minded to maintain both.
Disturbingly, they recently had an auction to sell some of the water rights to the Colorado - oil companies bought every single one, none to farmers.
As a reference, my water bill is about $100/month in the water rich Seattle suburbs, only about $15 of which is actual water usage. The rest is water/sewer/environmental bond issues.
Wow… we’re not in a drought area (are in the Chicago area), and during summer months we have watering restrictions with our village - where we’re at, I can only water on odd days of the month, and between certain hours (early morning and evening) - this goes from May 1st - Sept. 30th.
^^^We do have those same restrictions year round, but given our drought it should be even tougher. We only water in general about once/1-2 weeks depending on the temp, with a couple of exceptions for individual plants. I have 3 raised garden beds for my vegies and herbs and water those separately but again not usually more than once a week.
Up until last year our small town (in LA County) of 10,000 depended on our own reservoir in the foothills . We have been rationing for the last two years – tiered payment, heavy fines if usage was not cut by a mandatory 25%, watering only allowed twice a week after 7 pm to 6am on your assigned days only, no car washing, no driveway washing,no pool filling and absolutely no new development --and still we have completely depleted our reserves. We now buy water from the neighboring city.
We live in Walnut Creek CA, an east bay suburb of S.F. Our water bill for the last 2-month billing period 12/17 to 2/19 was $140.71 (327 gallons per day). We have 2,400 s.f. of lawn in 5 different areas of our 13,000 s.f. lot. I had our water municipality (EBMUD) come out just last week and perform a water audit. They checked for leaks (especially with the toilets), which I already knew did not exist. I also knew the majority of our water usage was irrigation:
We have 10 irrigation stations on timers-- 6 lawn zones using pop-up sprayers and 4 planter areas using drip. We water twice a week. Lawns get watered just 6, 7, or 8 minutes depending on location/direction. Drip zones get watered between 10 and 15 minutes depending on type of planting and direction. We use organic compost as our mulch and fertilization.
We use 1 unit of water every time we water. A unit of water is approx. 743 gallons. The breakdown of water allocation is approx. 52% drip and 48% lawn. We have LOTS of plants and trees, which accounts for the almost 50/50 allocation-- probably a higher allocation of drip usage than the norm.
Solution:
We will be removing ALL lawn areas and converting them to mulched planters using drip and also adding a flagstone (permeable) patio. Our plans are to plant very few shrubs, in the new areas where the lawns are removed, but will be adding a few trees in the back. We also plan to only drip water ONCE per week. EBMUD will be giving us a credit of .75 per foot of lawn removal/drip conversion totalling $1,800.00. The net cost to us, after receiving this credit, will be between $3,500.00 and $4,000.00 (pending design specifics).
Santa Barbara County has had no mandatory restrictions yet. Two months ago my neighbor across the street took out his front lawn. I was so proud of him. He hacked away at the dirt himself with an axe. Dug up all the crabgrass. Put in nice fertilizer.
And reseeded the grass…
Why???
What do we need grass in the front yard for anyway? Other than a dog toilet? It’s not used for anything. Ever. On my street there are three homes without grass. Mine, my next door neighbor (who put mine in before he sold it to me) and one more. Everyone. Else. Has. Lawn.
edit: wrong thread…