California Water Restrictions

When I lived in the greater Los Angeles area in the 1980's, many of the golf courses I played already were watering with reclaimed water from the publicly owned treatment plants. It's nothing new out that way.
 
Leaving aside golf courses, if the situation is truly dire, shouldn't reclaimed water (not sure exactly what that is, perhaps it's just retreated water?) be used for agriculture? If corporate and public lawns are still green, what message does that send?
 
Pellice said:
Leaving aside golf courses, if the situation is truly dire, shouldn't reclaimed water (not sure exactly what that is, perhaps it's just retreated water?) be used for agriculture? If corporate and public lawns are still green, what message does that send?
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California does use ~1/3 of it's recycled water for agriculture but that's just a drop in the bucket of the total water used in the state for agriculture.
 
Pellice said:
Leaving aside golf courses, if the situation is truly dire, shouldn't reclaimed water (not sure exactly what that is, perhaps it's just retreated water?) be used for agriculture? If corporate and public lawns are still green, what message does that send?
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You are right to ask "what is reclaimed water". Not that straightforward, I bet. While it may make some sense to use non-pristine water for agriculture, keep in mind that there have been many salmonella contaminated lettuce and other vegetables incidents that likely came from using contaminated water. So it is a two-edged sword. Maybe it would make more sense to use such water for crops like almonds where contamination is less likely? I don't know the answers but I'm pretty sure it isn't as simple as it sounds on first thought. But back to the question: is there an official definition of what reclaimed water is and what purity standards apply?
 
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Sunset said:
Great photo, all green around the pond, and dry brown in the area farther out.

What is reclaimed water ? , just processed sanitation water ?
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I believe it is water from sewage that has had some significant level of processing. There are signs at the park that warn against drinking the water or swimming in it. FIW, the ducks don't seem to care one bit.
 
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Chuckanut said:
I believe it is water from sewage that has had some significant level of processing. There are signs at the park that warn against drinking the water or swimming in it. FIW, the ducks don't seem to care one bit.
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I recall back when Richard Nixon was President, a new plant opened that was supposed to produce water pure enough to drink from sewage. Nixon was there inside the plant, hard hat and all. The plant operator got two glasses and filled them with the reclaimed water and offered one to Nixon. Nixon looked at the glass and said, "No thank you, I don't drink."
 
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Turbo29 said:
I recall back when Richard Nixon was President, a new plant opened that was supposed to produce water pure enough to drink from sewage. Nixon was there inside the plant, hard hat and all. The plant operator got two glasses and filled them with the reclaimed water and offered one to Nixon. Nixon looked at the glass and said, "No thank you, I don't drink."
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Heh, heh, I watched one of our Division Directors drink a glass of water that came from sewage at the plant site. I wondered if he felt compelled to do it or if he was truly convinced it was safe. The water was never used as a potable water source. IIRC it was used to water our grass, trees and shrubs. No way would I have chugged that glass but YMMV.
 
Down at my kid's school in Florida the water used for irrigating campus landscaping is pumped out of the nearby canals, filtered, and then sent directly to the sprinklers.

Yes, there are signs saying don't drink the water.
 
Now from northern California, a different restriction on water availability. From the SF Chronicle:

In one of the most far-reaching efforts to protect California’s water supplies this year, state regulators on Tuesday ordered thousands of farmers, irrigation districts and
municipal water agencies, including the city of San Francisco, to stop making draws
from rivers and creeks.
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It is hard for a non-Californian to get a grasp on the whole picture. In southern California, the agency in power was a public utility, a water company (I think), while in northern California it was a state agency (?) And there's apparently enough water in storage so that urban users in the north are not being asked to make cuts.

It's all very confusing to me. I'm getting the impression that people do not think there is a crisis, or at least not a statewide one, and perhaps that is the reality - perhaps there is no point in treating the shortages of a few areas as the shortages of the whole state, particularly if the infrastructure is regionally self-contained.

Statewide, usage is increasing:
The reality of drought isn’t sinking in for most Californians — or maybe people just don’t care. Cities and towns across the state have not only recently failed to meet Gov. Gavin Newsom’s request to cut water use by 15%, compared with a year ago, but urban water use has increased over the last year, up 17.6% in April, according to new state data released Tuesday. (Alexander, 6/7)
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It appears that the state is already de facto overruling the traditional seniorty rights to water, but that seems inevitable if the drought continues. I wonder if there will be calls for water to be allocated statewide via a state agency, if it comes to a crisis? Is this even feasible?
 
It's pretty fruitless to require residential water use to be reduced since so little of California water is used by residents.
The breakdown is like this; 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. Environmental means half of all the water in California must run naturally to the sea. The other 50% is ag and home use. That means 80% of water harvested is used for ag and 20% for residential. IF the governor mandates a 15% reduction for residential use, that is only 15% of 10% of all water in the state, or 1.5%. A literal drop in the bucket. It's nothing in the totality of the state's water. I drove up and down the central valley of California this spring and saw acre after acre of new almond groves. Almonds take more water than just about any other crop other than rice, and guess what I saw other than almonds? That's right, rice.

But making such a mandate has neighbor turning on neighbor. If anyone was caught watering their lawn, washing their car, hosing down a patio, their neighbor rats them out to the authorities. As far as I can tell, in this day and age of rage of people towards other people, not a good thing. Someone's libel to retaliate towards their neighbor, and for what? Less than 2% total water use reduction?
It's hard to rationalize letting my yard die and the fire hazard risk that brings when Google Earth shows dozens of 18 hole golf courses in the Palm Springs area alone.
And as to why the whole state? The San Francisco Bay and South Coast regions account for most urban water use in California. Both rely heavily on water imported from other parts of the state. Why 'punish' the whole state when the water use is isolated to these small areas?
Total urban water use has been falling even as the population grows. Even before the latest drought, per capita water use had declined significantly—from 231 gallons per day in 1990 to 180 gallons per day in 2010—reflecting substantial efforts to reduce water use through pricing incentives and mandatory installation of water-saving technologies like low flow toilets and shower heads. In 2015, per capita use fell to 146 gallons per day in response to drought related conservation requirements. Much of the recent savings came from reducing landscape watering, which makes up roughly half of all urban water use.
This isn't just my speculation, this is from the government of California itself.
Here's the link:
https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Webs.../June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf
If half of all urban water use is landscape, then if all landscape waterin use was restricted, that would only be 5% of all water for the state? Asking residents to reduce their water use and planting all those new trees and rice for mega farms has to beg the question who's calling these shots?
 
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^^^^^^^^

Hmmm. Lets put 40 million people in a mostly desert area. What could possibly go wrong.

I actually understand this as much of Hawaii is a desert (under draught conditions) - and we can't bring in water from other states. Fortunately, we have fewer than 1.5 million population.
 
Chuckanut said:
This community near Phoenix has a beautiful park complete with a huge fountain that is operated totally on reclaimed water.

attachment.php
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Fountain Hills was already there when I came to the Phoenix area 47 years ago.

The fountain is powered by a pump that operates for perhaps 5 minutes on top of each hour during daylight.
 
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Koolau said:
^^^^^^^^

Hmmm. Lets put 40 million people in a mostly desert area. What could possibly go wrong.

I actually understand this as much of Hawaii is a desert (under draught conditions) - and we can't bring in water from other states. Fortunately, we have fewer than 1.5 million population.
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Well, Hawaiians can go take a swim in the ocean to clean themselves if water is scarce. :)

Here in a landlocked place, I cannot even get seawater to desalinate, even if I am willing to install more solar panels to get electricity to run a home desalinator.

No, I don't worry for Hawaiians. :)
 
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Koolau said:
^^^^^^^^

Hmmm. Lets put 40 million people in a mostly desert area. What could possibly go wrong.

I actually understand this as much of Hawaii is a desert (under draught conditions) - and we can't bring in water from other states. Fortunately, we have fewer than 1.5 million population.
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You said a mouth full! Water storage is a bad deal and a problem that just isn't an issue that can be easily resolved.

Hard for me to think of a water shortage. I can dig down 8 to 15 feet in any bottom ground here and hit water. I have two shallow wells, crick and river that supplies all the irrigating and water one needs. I really feel for people that live in places with a problem of water shortages.
 
skipro33 said:
It's pretty fruitless to require residential water use to be reduced since so little of California water is used by residents.
The breakdown is like this; 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. Environmental means half of all the water in California must run naturally to the sea. The other 50% is ag and home use. That means 80% of water harvested is used for ag and 20% for residential. IF the governor mandates a 15% reduction for residential use, that is only 15% of 10% of all water in the state, or 1.5%. A literal drop in the bucket. It's nothing in the totality of the state's water. I drove up and down the central valley of California this spring and saw acre after acre of new almond groves. Almonds take more water than just about any other crop other than rice, and guess what I saw other than almonds? That's right, rice.

But making such a mandate has neighbor turning on neighbor. If anyone was caught watering their lawn, washing their car, hosing down a patio, their neighbor rats them out to the authorities. As far as I can tell, in this day and age of rage of people towards other people, not a good thing. Someone's libel to retaliate towards their neighbor, and for what? Less than 2% total water use reduction?
It's hard to rationalize letting my yard die and the fire hazard risk that brings when Google Earth shows dozens of 18 hole golf courses in the Palm Springs area alone.
And as to why the whole state? The San Francisco Bay and South Coast regions account for most urban water use in California. Both rely heavily on water imported from other parts of the state. Why 'punish' the whole state when the water use is isolated to these small areas?
Total urban water use has been falling even as the population grows. Even before the latest drought, per capita water use had declined significantly—from 231 gallons per day in 1990 to 180 gallons per day in 2010—reflecting substantial efforts to reduce water use through pricing incentives and mandatory installation of water-saving technologies like low flow toilets and shower heads. In 2015, per capita use fell to 146 gallons per day in response to drought related conservation requirements. Much of the recent savings came from reducing landscape watering, which makes up roughly half of all urban water use.
This isn't just my speculation, this is from the government of California itself.
Here's the link:
https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Webs.../June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf
If half of all urban water use is landscape, then if all landscape waterin use was restricted, that would only be 5% of all water for the state? Asking residents to reduce their water use and planting all those new trees and rice for mega farms has to beg the question who's calling these shots?
Click to expand...



Good analysis.

Showing my bias as a holder of an ag degree from a western school. CA for years grew a substantial portion of the nation’s fresh fruit and produce, much of which was shipped to other states.

With the environmental uses sacrosanct and everyone else taking a cut, no one should be surprised if we start seeing shortages and higher prices for food historically grown in CA.

Political leadership unable to balance needs across multiple constituencies is a problem with no obvious solution as the shrill minority seems to have the greatest political influence at this point in time.
 
Today I heard on the radio (NPR) , some guy in CA had a nice lawn and trees, and loves his lawn.
He said he would water them all regardless of drought rules. He said he already pays ~$150 per month to water and will continue.

Since I doubt they want to arrest folks, it seems like just have incredibly high water rates for high usage, then those that chose to ignore the "rules" can just pay a LOT more. I'm thinking in the many $100's more per month for the extra water.

Of course the Cities are going to have to have remote meters on fire hydrants to watch for people using them illegally to tap into a free water source.
 
FlaGator said:
Good analysis.

Showing my bias as a holder of an ag degree from a western school. CA for years grew a substantial portion of the nation’s fresh fruit and produce, much of which was shipped to other states.

With the environmental uses sacrosanct and everyone else taking a cut, no one should be surprised if we start seeing shortages and higher prices for food historically grown in CA.

Political leadership unable to balance needs across multiple constituencies is a problem with no obvious solution as the shrill minority seems to have the greatest political influence at this point in time.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't it make more sense to do 15% reduction on everything (including environmental?) Better to have 15% less than let ag die as well as lawns and trees. 50% for environmental was arbitrary (no matter what anyone says - and I don't even know who said it or what they said, but I'm sticking with it being arbitrary.:facepalm:) YMMV
 
My wife just opened the monthly bill from the city.

Out of the total of $120.45 only $26.82 is for water usage, and it's for 12,000 gallons last month. The rest of the bill is for sewer, garbage collection, and various environmental things.

My wife said "See that. I should be able to water my plants more."
 
aja8888 said:
12,000 gallons! Wow!

Two of us and a dog and a yard that has a sprinkler system, and we use about 5,500 gallons/month at the hottest time of year! Without the sprinkler system running, we use about 3,000 gallons a month plus or minus a few hundred gallons.
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Water usage like 12,000 gallons for a month equates to 200 gallons per person, per day. Not excessive if it's in a dry state like California. I think it rained twice this rain season; October when we got over 6" of rain in one day, and again in January sometime. Otherwise, it was 1/2" here, 1/2" there. Nothing that would be considered enough to water landscaping. Our water comes from the snow pack and run-off into reservoirs. Not from local rainfall. So all landscaping requires all irrigation all the time in most of California and the West for that matter.
I don't know where you live, but if it rains enough to turn off the sprinklers occasionally, then you have mother nature backing you up. We don't out west. Along with long stretches of dry weather, humidity is usually in the low teens. I have hanging pots around my porch. They hold 3 gallons of soil and each takes 1/2 gallon of water distributed equally twice a day. That's how hot it is and how low humidity sucks the moisture right out of things. All mine is on drip, timers and moisture sensors. They won't water if the water moisture is more than 80% saturation. At 60%, the plants die and they never drip out of the pots. That would be 100% saturation.
 
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NW-Bound said:
My wife just opened the monthly bill from the city.

Out of the total of $120.45 only $26.82 is for water usage, and it's for 12,000 gallons last month. The rest of the bill is for sewer, garbage collection, and various environmental things.

My wife said "See that. I should be able to water my plants more."
Click to expand...

My bill is slightly higher than that for only 3,000 gallons.
 
skipro33 said:
Water usage like 12,000 gallons for a month equates to 200 gallons per person, per day. Not excessive if it's in a dry state like California. I think it rained twice this rain season; October when we got over 6" of rain in one day, and again in January sometime. Otherwise, it was 1/2" here, 1/2" there. Nothing that would be considered enough to water landscaping. Our water comes from the snow pack and run-off into reservoirs. Not from local rainfall. So all landscaping requires all irrigation all the time in most of California and the West for that matter.
I don't know where you live, but if it rains enough to turn off the sprinklers occasionally, then you have mother nature backing you up. We don't out west. Along with long stretches of dry weather, humidity is usually in the low teens. I have hanging pots around my porch. They hold 3 gallons of soil and each takes 1/2 gallon of water twice a day. That's how hot it is and how low humidity sucks the moisture right out of things. All mine is on drip, timers and moisture sensors. They won't water if the water moisture is more than 80% saturation. At 60%, the plants die and they never drip out of the pots.
Click to expand...


We lived in Southern California in the 1980s and I remember one period of no rain for a good while. But I can't recall our water usage back then.

We are now in Texas which is pretty wet (near Houston) and our usage is nowhere near 12,000 gallons a month. But that 12K number just surprised me. and then I remembered that NW-B is in AZ.
 
NW-Bound said:
My wife just opened the monthly bill from the city.

Out of the total of $120.45 only $26.82 is for water usage, and it's for 12,000 gallons last month. The rest of the bill is for sewer, garbage collection, and various environmental things.

My wife said "See that. I should be able to water my plants more."
Click to expand...

Is 12K gallons what you typically use for a month? Seems like a lot, my monthly usage is about 1/10 of that, desert landscaping so no outside irrigation. My water rates double for usage above 10K gallons.
 
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