07.08.07
Cut Back On Water Use
I realize that the entire country is now aware of California’s extraordinary drought conditions. In our area of Southern California, we already have a desert, so there is a more or less permanent drought going on. Even so, conditions are quite a bit drier this year than usual.
There are plenty of things that we can and should do to reduce our water consumption. However, before I advise you to cut your water use, I want to warn you that sometimes mandatory rationing is done as a percentage cut of the previous year’s consumption. If that happens, people who have already been conserving will be expected to cut just as much as people who have been wasting water.
This was brought to mind by an article in the weekend edition of USA Today (July 6-8, 2007). One thing that is happening during this extended hotel stay is that I’m reading the dead-tree version of the newspaper most days. Right on page 1A, the front page of the front section, there is an article entitled “Ease up on the faucet, residents told”. You might do well to read it.
There are a few things that we can do during this period, and even more that need to be done over the long term.
Short Term
- Limit watering of lawns, the most water-consuming part of a normal home, to just enough to keep the grass alive. The only parts of the lawn that should be green are human-use zones. That is, if you walk and play on the grass, water it. If you don’t, let it die.
- Car-washing: skip the hoses and drive-through washes. Get a neighborhood teen to use a bucket and towels to wash your car each week. Many of them have tight budgets and unlimited wants, so a regular cash-flow might be welcomed. Better yet, do it yourself and get a little exercise.
- Turn faucets / spigots all the way off when you are not using them. If they still leak, repair them. Make sure that any watering that you do goes on the plants you want. If you have water runoff or wind-blown mist, you need to change something about your watering.
- Shorter showers can save gallons of water each day.
- Wait until you have a full load to do your laundry.
- Offer to help elderly neighbors repair leaks. On triple-digit days, be sure to visit them and ensure that they have cooling. If they do not, bring them to your home or to a mall or to an emergency heat relief center. I first heard of these last year. Apparently California has some designated places where people may go to cool off during heat waves.
There are more things you can do as well, but this will help immensely.
Long Term
- Rip out lawns and other high-water-requirement landscaping. Replace them with drought-tolerant and native plants, even if they will need a little extra water the first couple of years. The only place where lawns should be in the desert are walking and playing areas.
- Install drip and other low-waste watering systems instead of using the old hose and spray nozzle. Set them on an automatic schedule that avoids common high-wind and high-temperature portions of the day.
- Remove ponds and other ornamental waterflows.
- Get low-flow fixtures.
- Get on the phone promptly when you see water flowing down the street or across desert lots. Some local areas have older iron pipes that break repeatedly. The water company “can’t afford” to replace these pipes, so they put these metal straps on to stop or at least slow the water loss. Other flows will be caused by someone overwatering.
- Advocate for a Southern California desalinization plant to bring several million gallons of purified seawater daily to areas from San Diego to Santa Barbara to Barstow to the Imperial Valley. This will help reduce the North-South tension in the state as well, by making the South less dependent on taking water from the North.
- Advocate for solar and wind power generation, including home-based systems designed primarily to reduce household dependence upon the “grid”. These plants have less need for evaporative cooling than coal and natural gas generators, saving water for other uses.
- Sweep your driveway and sidewalks, rather than hosing them off.
A final thought: one of the reasons so many people are coming to the Victor Valley (and throughout the High Desert and Inland Empire areas) is housing affordability. However, this brings the problems associated with commuting and also increases water use in areas that are already in overdraft.
When we build small, profitable, owner-managed businesses and enable our neighbors to give up their commutes to Los Angeles and Orange Counties, local residents of those counties will be better able to obtain jobs in their own areas that pay enough to meet their needs.
We need to continually remind our local governments that small, owner-managed businesses are on the right side of just about every social issue. Rather than kow-tow to large out-of-area corporations that will dump the area at a drop of a hat, our town and city councils and county boards of supervisors need to support and promote locally-owned and managed businesses that have an incentive to stay and make things better for everyone.
Blogged with Flock
