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The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

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Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#51

Post by z3c0 »

gruez wrote: post #41
z3c0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... let them use up the water so that it's affordable to stop them from using up the water?

The goal isn't to "stop them from using up the water", it's to charge them the true price of providing that water, and charging a bit extra so we can subsidize the price of water for the poor.

I think this premise is sufficient in any scenario where there are disparities in the distribution of a plentiful resource, as is the case in countries with privatized water.

However, when the resource is no longer plentiful, it is unwise to try the "let the market fix it" route (always a popular one on HN), because the resource in question can be consumed much faster than the systems you are describing can combat it (or can even be gotten off the ground.)

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#52

Post by rektide »

Dave_Rosenthal wrote: post #46
CitrusFruits wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk with my friend who works in water law a lot about this, and he always comes to basically the same conclusion as this. Almonds and pistachios are a huge waste of water. The problem is that farmer's water rights are constitutionally protected (California constitution). You need a super majority in the California senate to do anything about it, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. IMO I think we should ta…

The answer is to use taxpayer money to buy the water rights from the farmers who will sell it the cheapest. The state can then use it for something they deem more valuable, perhaps urban usage.

That sounds like a workaround for a ridiculous & pathetic inquity that never should have been, that has metastasized into a societal scale suicide pact. The state forever paying people to give up an infinite right to natural resources the state didnt have may be a legal answer but it's immoral & this buying-out "solution" keeps the injustice going uncorrected.

Change the constitution.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#53

Post by halffaday »

ars wrote: post #2

I wonder what it will take for people to start leaving the state. And it's going to be the wealthy who leave first.

I think net domestic migration is negative for California, so it’s already happening.

For perspective, I live in Arkansas and my family and I live in a 2000sf single-family home on 0.5 acres. Our mortgage is <$800/mo. My income isn’t significantly different from my coastal counterparts.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#54

Post by RosanaAnaDana »

wkyle wrote: post #48
RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #22

I just want to make a note and an aside to the whole conversation happening around water right now. Aside from the 9000lb gorilla of ag/industrial versus urban/ suburban water use, I think that its clear that tiered rate based structures are a clear failure. We knew this half a decade ago, but its become impeccably clear with articles like these. Its very very easy to see blame the millionaire/ elite class in this si…

I'm not sure if this claim really makes sense - if water districts are incentivized by income, and if high users really have such inelastic water consumption, then wouldn't the water district continue to raise the tiered rates at the highest level? Thus, under these assumptions, the current tiered rates should accurately reflect the marginal price that the wasteful users are willing to pay, and any rise in price woul…

Water districts are not able to do so with their tiered rates. They aren't necessarily for profit corporations (some are), although in many ways they are managed like them. The additional revenue allows for the addition of staff, the implementation of new programs, it helps cover the cost of aging infrastructure. Its not necessarily a bad thing. Tiered rates with straight caps might make more sense, but again, districts are disinterested from this. They generally need to make 'across-the-board' reductions of some set amount (say 20%). For a long time, it has not been in their interest to reduce the usage of these highest rate paying tiers of users.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#55

Post by lostgame »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #15
lostgame wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, that helps nothing. Outside of agriculture, it’s entirely only the rich who are wasting the water (look no farther than the recent example of Kim Kardashian from just this week on this issue) - it’s not like the lower / lower middle class has lawns to waste water on, anyway. And since the idiots like KK wasting all the water are multi-millionaires or billionaires, of which there are a greater conglomeration of in…

Correct. Increasing the price actually pushes toward guaranteeing that water is only for wealthy people or companies and therefore not for the poor.

Not sure how people don’t get this or why my post was downvoted. Maybe it’s just not a comfortable truth for some people.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#56

Post by gruez »

z3c0 wrote: post #51
gruez wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal isn't to "stop them from using up the water", it's to charge them the true price of providing that water, and charging a bit extra so we can subsidize the price of water for the poor.

I think this premise is sufficient in any scenario where there are disparities in the distribution of a plentiful resource, as is the case in countries with privatized water. However, when the resource is no longer plentiful, it is unwise to try the "let the market fix it" route (always a popular one on HN), because the resource in question can be consumed much faster than the systems you are describing can combat it…

>However, when the resource is no longer plentiful

My previous comment mentioned acquisition methods up to and including desalination, which would make the resource virtually unlimited. If the rich want to water their huge mansion grounds and are willing to pay for a desalination plant to do it, why stop them? If they're willing to do that, and we can take a portion of that money to subsidize water supply for the poor, all the better.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#57

Post by dehrmann »

twblalock wrote: post #47
Someone wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why the argument “We aren’t the worst offenders by a long stretch” would ever imply “we shouldn’t be prosecuted” I agree they should target the other groups, but I also don’t see why they shouldn’t target people using precious water just to have a green lawn in a place where lawn grass can’t really survive without watering.

Because the sacrifice should be shared by all water users, and homeowners are far from the primary consumers of water. When agriculture uses most of the water, and the most water in agriculture goes to luxury foods like almonds and pistachios, it’s ridiculous to be investigating homeowners while not asking farmers to reduce consumption.

> luxury foods like almonds and pistachios

"Luxury foods" oversells them a bit. The retail price per pound is close to ground beef.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#58

Post by dehrmann »

twblalock wrote: post #5
hadlock wrote: post #3

In a dry year agriculture uses as much as 50% of all water, urban use ranges between 8-13%. https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/jtf/JTF... Agriculture is effectively unrestricted by law in their water use. I think we may be targeting the wrong group

Agriculture is also a small portion of the state’s GDP and we could do without some of the most water-intensive crops, such as almonds. There won’t be food insecurity or famine if we cut back on almonds.

> Agriculture is also a small portion of the state’s GDP

Be careful not to fall into the GDP trap. This is a place where free markets looking for efficiencies will cost you in p99 events. It's one thing when there's a toilet paper or semiconductor shortage. It's another when it's food, so it makes sense for governments to subsidize farm production, whether it's though cheap water or buying surplus product, to ensure a stable food supply.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#59

Post by sillystuff »

jeffbee wrote: post #49
sillystuff wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My water district (in California), sent out mailers a few years ago explaining their new rate structure. They said people were "conserving too much" that the fees were not covering infrastructure maintenance costs. So, they lowered the price of water and set a base fee (charged whether you use any water or not) to $54/mo.

Well, how do you expect them to fund scale-free costs? I pay $60 water service charge and another $40 wastewater service charge, every other month.

My original comment didn't make a value judgement on the rate restructuring, but it is true that I think the rate restructure was short-sighted. By lowering the per unit cost of water, they are discouraging conservation. And, the base fee is quite high for even our median wage earning households.

I believe it would have been better to have a lower base fee that does not, alone, cover fixed costs and make up the deficit by higher fees on those with high water consumption by maintaining a high per-unit water charge. The problem with this is that by not fully covering the fixed costs with the base fee, there will be seasonal variability in funding, but basic budgeting would mitigate that. And, GGP's point about such policies dishonestly being framed as, "rationing" by opponents.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#60

Post by fmajid »

CitrusFruits wrote: post #16
twblalock wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agriculture is also a small portion of the state’s GDP and we could do without some of the most water-intensive crops, such as almonds. There won’t be food insecurity or famine if we cut back on almonds.

I talk with my friend who works in water law a lot about this, and he always comes to basically the same conclusion as this. Almonds and pistachios are a huge waste of water. The problem is that farmer's water rights are constitutionally protected (California constitution). You need a super majority in the California senate to do anything about it, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. IMO I think we should ta…

Pistachios are a high-value crop, and other places under drought like the La Mancha region of Spain are also switching from olives and wheat to pistachios.

Compare this to alfalfa, an ultra-low-value crop the Saudis are growing in California because they bought senior water rights, then shipping to Saudi to feed cows, essentially laundering water.

Agricultural water is heavily subsidized in California, and the absurd system of senior and junior water rights means a senior rights owner has absolutely zero incentive to be efficient, so instead of installing efficient drip irrigation, they simply flood fields. But reforming the system would take so much litigation no California politician has dared to do it.

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