Another California First…..Water Restrictions!
Everybody into the pool…not!
California’s “mega-drought” has been caused more by water mismanagement than “global warming.”
As I have foreseen, the state’s drought cycle is the pad for Governor Jerry Brown to launch new rules. This time, Brown is issuing the state’s first set of water restrictions.
Brown ordered the California Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory restrictions to reduce water usage by 25%. The water savings are expected to amount to 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months.
Other elements of Brown’s order would:
–Require golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscaped spaces to reduce water consumption.
–Replace 50 million square feet of lawn statewide with drought-tolerant landscaping as part of a partnership with local governments.
–Create a statewide rebate program to replace old appliances with more water- and energy-efficient ones.
–Require new homes to have water-efficient drip irrigation if developers want to use potable water for landscaping.
–Ban the watering of ornamental grass on public street medians.
–Call on water agencies to implement new pricing models that discourage excessive water use.
–Require agriculturalists to report more water usage information to the state so that regulators can better find waste and improper activities.
About the new rules, Brown said: “It’s a different world. “We have to act differently.”
This statement is laughable, as Brown is acting exactly as Democratic politicos have always done in this state: impose the rules, then tax/fine people when they can’t adhere to them. For example, Californians have already been dinged $500 a day for wasting water.
So, based on the above rules, I expect taxpayers will be paying for all the new and improved landscaping, as well as for the appliance rebates. We will also be charged for more bureaucrats to oversee all those pesky golf courses and cemeteries, to ensure they have and are implementing “water reduction plans”.
And I am sure that those “new pricing models” will not cost us Californians more…..APRIL FOOLS! (One day late, but still.)
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
It looks like pools may become an endangered species…just in time for the summer.
Pools have been part of California’s lifestyle for decades, but as the state struggles through its fourth year of a worsening drought, communities are putting bans on filling pools or restricting new pool construction.
A handful of cities and water districts statewide have implemented restrictions on swimming pools, ranging from moratoriums on swimming pool construction to restrictions on draining and refilling pools. The California Pool and Spa Association, a trade group, has responded to restrictions with a “Let’s Pool Together” campaign that gives consumers tips on being more water-efficient.
“They’re trying to hammer us with the ‘we’re the culprits’ because we do pools,” said Blaine Enbody, who runs Enbody Custom Pools in Moorpark. “But if homeowners put in (landscaping), they are wasting more water than if they had a pool.”
Who would have thought that pool care companies would be the new environmental villains?
Residents of some areas of the state have noticed the water running out of their taps tastes “sour.” And while officials indicate it is safe to drink, Californians once again are paying more for less.
But, at least we have sunshine.
Victor Davis Hanson offered some great insights about how bureaucratic, do-gooder environmentalism has lead to our water woes in “The Scorching of California – How Green extremists made a bad drought worse.” As another example of the water-control complexities within this state, it is being reported that plans for water transfer between the Central and Southern part of our state may be thwarted because of water right rules:
On March 10 the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California authorized $71 million to secure 70,000 acre-feet of additional raw water supplies via the water market for 2015. However, on March 11, the Chico Enterprise-Record reported rice farmers with senior water rights were predisposed to not transfer water to MWD if their state water allocation this year is cut.
As the Obama presidency has made everyone nostalgic for the 1970’s, Jerry Brown is often mentioned as a potential candidate. If he does run, I am sure he will say that he “turned California around”.
I will throw some cold water on that claim…if I can pay for it.
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Comments
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And if you don’t have one handy, make one!
If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s Gov. Brown, gotta crack down.
“If it’s Brown, Flush it Down.” FIFY
About freakin’ time they started curtailing water usage.
It is not the first time San Diego has curtailed water usage. This is the second in the last 5 years. The first time, they got a voluntary reduction of 20%, and promptly raised the water rates on homeowners, who are in fact a relatively minor user of water. The blowback was so bad, this time they raised the water rates first, and THEN requested a mandatory reduction [sic], this time.
For a water utility the incremental cost of the next gallon sold is a relatively small part of their overall costs. Much of their costs are fixed; think of capital investment required to put hundreds / thousands of miles of pipes in the ground, build treatment plants, staff and maintain it all, etc. So the fact that water rates must go up when consumption goes down is just hard economics.
In fact we do not have a water shortage, we have a money shortage. People are used to getting reliable, clean drinking water for a virtually nothing. Costs are going to rise as new technologies are brought into play. For example, in Texas we’re starting to deploy desalination plants to purify brackish groundwater.
The problems in California have been greatly exacerbated by poor policy decisions. A highly wasteful agriculture industry (think flood irrigation) has first dibs on a lot of water that is “needed” for consumer consumption because population centers were allowed to grow without the foresight to ensure that adequate water supplies were in place. This has in part been caused by the environmental lobby being allowed to prevent development of adequate reservoirs and alternative supply solutions like desalination plants along the coast.
And of course you’ve got corrupt bureaucrats in many California water supply districts paying themselves many hundreds of thousands of dollars for doing jobs that are simply not “rocket science.” Sorry, but Directors of public utilities should not be making $400K, especially when they’ve done such a piss-poor job.
Texas is faced with many of the same problems; it’s going to be fascinating to watch over the next 10-20 years to see which state does a better job of managing the challenges. My money is on Texas.
Not to worry. Old Moonbeam is on it now that realty has gone upside his head. The dimwit will be pushing a new environmental tax of some sort by next week.
Nothing that importing a few million more illegal aliens can’t help, right Jerry?
It is so hard for me to take this drought seriously, because the government plainly does not.
What could be LESS ecologically sound than an unnatural flood during a drought?
http://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/2014/03/28/colorado-river-delta-flooded-experiment/6998281/
That happened THIS YEAR.
Should have said within the last year. it was in 2014.
Moonbeam should have started addressing this problem years ago, but that would have required rubbing two braincells together, and when you only have one…
Strategy: put head in sand about water problem because we can blame Globull Warming later and get FEMA dollars to fix the problem we created by BUILDING HUGE CITIES IN THE DESERT!
God give me strength.
Shortages and Rationing of any kind has ALWAYS been the inevitable net consequence of Statist + Socialist rule.
A drought not only affects commercial activity but that of local fauna and flora. It’s an under appreciated fact that CA’s rice paddies also act as artificial wetlands for over a hundred species of birds.
Just how much water does CA’s fascist environmentalists use for themselves anyway when they cook, shower, flush their poop, do their laundry. Much more than what they begrudge a farmer and flock of bird looking for a drink.
Milton Friedman is credited with saying, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be shortage of sand.” Why should the deep-blue state government of California being in charge of water end any better?
It was Republicans who built the water system in the state. And they did a fantastic job.
It was Democrats that have caused it become worthless.
Cemeteries? Wow…. democrats are taking a big chance pissing off one of their major and most loyal voting blocks.
LOL! My official “comment of the day”.
A scarcity of water should lead to a price increase to the customers. A higher price will lead to lower usage/demand.
Also, EPA restrictions on water usage should be revoked, thereby increasing water supply to crop farmers who supply the nation with produce.
In the mean time, Oprah will still have to truck in millions of gallons of water to fill her pools.
Our fear is that this will lead to mandatory water meters in our bathrooms.
Nobody should be concerned about how much water you’re using in your bathroom… it’s the lawn irrigation use that is the huge waste on the residential consumption side.
FREE THE SNAIL DARTER! FREE MUMIA! FREE PHONES! FREE BENNIES! FREE… er, wait a minute. How we gonna pay fer all this, gov?
FREE THE PENSION AND RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS…!!!
(That’s how.)
FREEBIE & THE BEAN
One solution (no pun intended) would be to build a series of desalinization plants from San Diego to San Francisco. Instead they budget billions for a rail line from nowhere to nowhere.
They are starting to come online in the next couple of years. It has taken a decade to beat back a dozen or more lawsuits from the enviro-whackos. It also helps that the technology has continued to improve such that it becomes more and more economical every year.
So what happens if you live in California and you’re a scotch and water drinker?
Unless it’s mere drops…DROPS, mind you…you deserve to burn in hell.
You switch to craft beer…made with imported water.