One good thing about Maine - no shortage of water. We have a dug well (drilled ones in our area produce salty water). The only time it went dry was when we were putting in new grass and DH watered it too long.
Many farmers are drilling wells to bypass all of the water diversion politics. In California, well permits are super easy to get and give you “unlimited” access to water.
Unfortunately, they’re tapping deep aquifers (1500-2000 ft) which take hundreds or thousands of years to recharge.
Wasn’t there a bad SoCal drought back in the '70’s and people weren’t allowed to fill their swimming pools? Were the restrictions put in place earlier in the drought? I don’t remember the dire talk about depleted aquifers back then.
I remember it was beloved by early skateboarders who would ride in the empty pools.
Many of the recreational use lakes are actually reservoirs, where recreational use is a byproduct of the reservoirs having enough water. Of course, that also means that low water levels mean that recreational use disappears as well.
Much of it is desert with a population who expects to have pools and grass and trees, etc. Demands have now exceeded nature’s supply. Desalination is the answer for S. Ca. Has to be.
There was a drought back in 1977. From the show we just watched it seems like southern cal had it right, northern cal has more problem. There is already a desalination plant in Carlsbad and Huntington Beach. The the big environmentalists are against for Santa Monica. But at least the environmentalists and every body agree there should be more storage facility in nor cal.
My thinking California need to scrap the bullet train and build more storage.
Again, I only follow this story because D lives in LA, but the comments after the stories I’ve read are full of this sentiment.
The bullet train is a ridiculous boondoggle. It is bad for the environment, costs too much and we already have a fast way to get from LA to San Francisco. Southwest Airlines.
Is there talk about “grey water” reclamation being done on a larger scale, like this?
There is talk about putting grey water recycling into new construction. I don’t think it’s practical for existing construction.
I stayed in a home in which the shower and bathroom sink water was cycled into the toilets. That makes sense. This water is clean and could be used twice. The toilet water was just a little cloudy from the soap and shampoo.
An experience this morning made me think of another water waster. Those electric eye toilets that flush automatically often flush twice depending on how much moving around you do in the stall before leaving. Could they be set to only flush once?
Do you think California schools admission will be less competitive this fall due to the drought? I remember that after Nortridge earthquake people were moving to other states. Will it be the case?
No. The drought will really only affect homeowners with landscaping that will die due to lack of water.
Nothing new with water wars in California. The word rivals is derived from the Latin word ‘rivus’ (stream) like when people on either side of a stream would fight about who gets to use water…water wars have been going on for thousands of years in all parts of the world. Florida has big water problems with developers, politicians, agriculture, mining, population centers with too many people and too little water, and rural areas with water and no people…all fighting over limited amounts of water.
The only way I can see the drought affecting admissions is that restrictions on water use may well affect the beauty of our gorgeous, lush, manicured campuses like UCLA and USC, both of which have beautiful landscaping and fountains that are not currently being used. I personally think that the beauty of the setting is a relevant criterion in choosing a school, so I could see, theoretically, how the drought could have an indirect effect on some kid’s choice.
The days of unrestricted watering for lush green grass are over with…xeriscaping is in and wasteful watering is out. Too, when lawns are watered endlessly, too much fertilizer ends up seeping into aquifer making things even worse.
I think the basic problem is that the Southwest and California have a larger population than the natural resources of the region can support, at least on a cyclical basis.
But in addition to that, it really seems insane for farmers to be growing rice in California, instead of in some naturally swampy locale like Louisiana or parts of the Carolinas.
I felt as you do about the rice until I learned how important the wetlands they produce are to the birds in the Pacific Flyway.
http://www.norcalwater.org/efficient-water-management/birds-and-pacific-flyway/
Not going to be one magic bullet solution, but many, many contributing smaller solutions:
- Some cities still have flat rate water billing. That has pretty much got to go.
- Some cities/communities still put grass and other water-hungry plantings in medians. That needs to go.
- Arrowhead/Aquafina and the other companies bottling water to sell from areas where water is scarce should be bought out. This is a fairly stupid use of water, especially when you consider that it takes 3 liters of potable water to produce 1 liter of bottled water. Maybe they ought to look to Maine as a bottling source? (Or Washington, Oregon, or some other area with lots of water.)
- Turf areas should be strictly limited in arid areas.
- Lining or covering water ditches should be evaluated to reduce losses from evaporation.
- Agriculture should be put on a plan to transition to drip irrigation for crops where that is feasible, and perhaps eminent domain or auctions to buy water rights from some landowners where cotton or rice is currently grown
-Laws – such as those in my state – that prohibit use of rain barrels and other water re-use solutions should be changed.
-Just as we (mostly) separated sanitary sewers from stormwater sewer systems a while ago, it may be time to change new housing requirements (especially in high density housing) to require graywater systems with the graywater used for all outside watering purposes.
- Cities might want to incentivize use of instant hot water heaters in older homes so that there is less time required to run water before it gets hot enough for showers, and perhaps mandate those installations in new construction. At my MIL’s house, it took 3-4 minutes to get the hot water to show up in the shower that was the one she used most often. That’s a lot of wasted water. (And someone her age wasn’t going to be putting it in pails and carrying it outside!)
I would like to see a water circulator become mandatory in ALL homes-- new, old, and everything in-between. You can install a closed end type for about $400 plus labor of $200-$300 ( on average, if a licensed plumber installs it). Residential landscaping still accounts for the most water used (in most families).
I just completed my own water audit: My 6 lawn stations (2,400 s.f.) are each on 5,6,7, or 8 minutes per water day, accounting for 500 gallons of water. During the warm spring and summer months I run 3 days per week. During most of the early spring late fall I run twice per week. That’s assuming no rain. If I increase the water times and only run 2 days per week, I get too much run off. My 4 planters run the same number of gallons per watering day, using a drip system. They run twice per week in the summer, once per week in the early spring and late fall. Currently, 3 stations run 12 minutes and 1 station runs 15 minutes. These days of use and run times are not excessive, imo. Our lawns represent about 30% of our total available landscape area.
We use one thousand gallons of water every time we run a complete irrigation cycle yet only use 100-150 gallons per day for our interior use-- for my wife and me.
I’m really hoping widespread desalination plants can now become a reality.