211–220 of 242 posts
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Along the coast and in some mountain areas it's perfect. Otherwise it's a f...ing desert.
I dig the desert. It’s nice to escape to e.g. Joshua Tree. Later this summer I’ll be hiking Mt. Whitney, and will swing through Death Valley on the way home. 15k altitude change in a few hours.
They need to completely change the way water in California is billed. Right now rates keep going up as we get better at conservation, which disincentives conservation. At the same time, in areas with a flat rate, people use way too much water. When Sacramento had a flat rate, you'd see people turn on their hose as they left for work and let it flood their lawn all day, running into the street, to keep their lush gree…
I'm really confused by what you're suggesting (probably because water availability isn't really an issue here in Iowa). Are you suggesting there should be some sort of sliding scale rate per gallon of water? Kind of like how income tax has tax brackets? So the first bit of water you use is cheap and after that it gets expensive? Or do you literally mean that you paid one flat fee per month for water? My water bill is…
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This quote gets me thinking about how snow is treated in this system. It isn't like water in a stream because it stays where it is. It isn't like a reservoir or aquifer because the water isn't trivially dispatchable. I suppose it depends where the snow is, some could be 'permanent', some seasonal melt, some gone by next week. So really we should be differentiating the different types of snow?
Snow is really important. It is quantified as “SWE” or snow water equivalent, the amount of water that would be released when the snow melts. SWE is monitored by satellites, aircraft, and by in situ measurements like from snow pillows. In California, the state DWR tracks SWE to estimate reservoir influx. More: https://aso.jpl.nasa.gov
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I thought California. Has the best climate in the country?
No, that's just my home, Redwood City. We don't have A/C or a house fan, and the need for heat is fairly minimal, relatively speaking. (It's been a cold winter, though, I think it was 36f this morning!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_City,_California#Sloga...
Can confirm, don't need much AC or Heat year round.
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I think you might have replied to the wrong person. I agree with you.
You're wildly contradicting yourself. California is both an example of how markets can't handle water, and has also never had markets in water.
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The system would have to account for both property size and number of people. Maybe only count non-built land plus people, so folks who have townhouses with no yards pay less than a SFH with a huge lawn.
What's the logic of giving a discount for a big lawn?
They need to completely change the way water in California is billed. Right now rates keep going up as we get better at conservation, which disincentives conservation. At the same time, in areas with a flat rate, people use way too much water. When Sacramento had a flat rate, you'd see people turn on their hose as they left for work and let it flood their lawn all day, running into the street, to keep their lush gree…
Can someone help explain this? How would higher costs disincentivize conservation?
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How is the proposed system different from computing the cost per gallon by taking the flat rate and dividing it by the typical usage, and using that amount under a conventional billing model? Either way, it has the same basic properties of "cost is flat over time if you continue to conserve" and "you'll pay more than your neighbours if you use more than them."
It's more obvious to the consumer why they are being charged more, and it gives them more control. Also, just conserving wouldn't be enough to keep your bill down -- you'd have to conserve better than your neighbors. If you keep doing the same thing your bill will slowly go up as you get "out-conserved".