Southern California water restrictions take effect Wednesday amid severe drought(washingtonpost.com) |
Southern California water restrictions take effect Wednesday amid severe drought(washingtonpost.com) |
I'm frustrated when news articles ignore what, to me, are the most basic facts of the issue. Consumer water use is a small part of water consumption and already has huge surcharges to discourage excess water use. It seems like "efficiency theater" to add even more restrictions to watering your lawn in LA. It's like a distraction to make people argue about it and feel like they are suffering for water efficiency and feel like the government is doing something, when there's a simpler solution of "charge farmers more for water use" that would be more fair, more effective, and less disruptive to Californians overall.
In a desert.
All this focus on consumer water use is emotional hand waving and total BS.
L.A. consumers are punished with an offensive rate scam. Water (and electricity) usage are billed for at tiered rates, which isn't surprising. If you use a lot of either one at any given time, you may cross the threshold into a higher tier. Water in higher tiers costs more, which is fine.
The BS is that if you have a spike in usage (a leak, even) that puts you in a higher tier on ONE bill, LADWP will wait until the following January and then rip you off with higher rates and "access fees" for a FULL YEAR. You'll still be punished up to two years after a one-time spike in use.
Then of course we have corrupt and potentially disastrous legislation like SB 9 & 10, which outlaws single-family zoning and allows the construction of up to 10 units where a single house formerly stood... with no review or approval required. Because it's at the state level, it supersedes any local attempt to stop it (which it specifically outlaws anyway). This giveaway to developers is, of course, done with vague lies about "helping the homeless" or "affordable" housing and how it's our responsibility to make room for new people. WTF! We're in an epic drought with insufficient resources for the people already here, and you want to roll out the welcome mat?
And in doing so, these laws encourage more paving-over of ground and the cutting down of what few trees exist in SoCal cities. Meanwhile, in dying malls, huge edifices like Macy's sit boarded up. Politicians and ignorant zealots push "high density," but attack areas that are already residential instead of fostering the conversion of disused COMMERCIAL property into residences... where the environment has already taken the hit for the density.
Unreal.
The southern Central Valley used to be a big producer of cotton and sugar beets, and the further north near Fresno has always been tree fruit and some vegetables, while the western valley was much more sparsely cultivated (source: mom grew up in a small town near Bakersfield, dad near Fresno, I grew up working on the farm every summer).
These days the southern central valley is almost all almonds, which are huge consumers of water, and they are used for nut milk, of all things. Dairies have also expanded in the past few decades. Cows drink a ton of water and eat alfalfa, which needs crazy amounts of water to grow.
The biggest thing we city people can do is completely cease drink almond milk and drastically cut our cow milk consumption. Dairy and almonds are the two biggest line items in California's water budget. Agriculture in the state would be much more sustainable if we shifted farmers to different crops.
I submit to you that soy and oat milk are both delicious and can replace cow's milk in most recipes. There's not yet a good cheese made from these yet, unfortunately.
https://www.capradio.org/articles/2022/05/09/a-billion-pound...
So, I mean, you might as well stop drinking almond milk in protest. IMO almond milk is disgusting anyway. But it's a pretty roundabout way to make a difference. And Chinese almond consumption will probably keep growing as their people get richer.
I think this problem requires a political solution; we should charge farmers more money for water to encourage marginal almond farmers to switch to other crops and make it easier for farmers elsewhere in the world to grow almonds.
If price increases were permitted, additional capacity would make economic sense, such as desalination plants and aqueducts. And load would decrease. People would save water and some would move out of state. California’s population has increased more than its water supply, which has remained largely static I imagine.