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

Post by bcrosby95 » Mon, Aug 29, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #85

lostdog wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand. Isn't the point of tiered rates so that the customer reduces their water usage?

Is it? One might assume on fce value and with a bit of charity that's the point. But districts are in a contradictory position. They are being mandated by state of California to reduce water usage. If they did so by mandating caps, this could work. However, their revenues would drop linearly with use in a flat rate scenario. If, rather, a district goes without caps and uses a tiered price structure, they can up the p…

Post by midoridensha » Mon, Aug 29, 2022, 5:48 AM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #321

Siddarth1977 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agricultural use of water is actually productive though. Most of us prefer having food to starving. Having a lush, green front lawn in the desert however helps no one (and actively harms the natural plants and animals that belong in a given climate). Additionally, while some water issues are over very large areas (eg, piping water from Colorado River to LA) lots of places have far more local water issues, where a giv…

Someday we will face hunger, because the short term economies of scale associated with “the miracle in the desert” made farming economically unviable elsewhere. Places like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, etc have and are continuing to permanently lose prime farmland to subdivisions because nobody can compete with growing in the desert.

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Aug 29, 2022, 5:54 AM UTC

RosanaAnaDana wrote: post #31

avalys wrote: post #4

The obvious solution here is to have a tiered pricing system for water, where the price per gallon increases with consumption. Increase the price of the higher tiers and/or rate of increase until consumption drops to level you need. And then you don’t need to pay government employees to drive around and inspect celebrity lawns all day.

I've done worked with or developed outdoor water use models for almost all water districts in the state of California. The issues cited in the article are a direct consequence of tiered rates. Districts become disinsentivised to reduce the water use for their highest using customers because thats where they make the most revenue. They need to show water use savings in gallons, but they make far more from high using c…

Post by Dylan16807 » Mon, Aug 29, 2022, 6:04 AM UTC

RichardCNormos wrote: post #223

CharlesW wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has the largest economy in the U.S. and (if it were its own nation) the fifth largest in the world, with agricultural production/processing representing under 3% of total state GDP. There's lots of money and lots of strategies for mitigating water problems, including things like desalinization on a scale never seen before. In contrast, Arizona is relatively poor and landlocked. It seems like they're far mo…

Desalination is an ecological catastrophe, and it costs over $1,000 per acre-foot, and that's before the cost of water delivery to the end user. For comparison, my local irrigation district charges ~$150 per acre-foot, delivered. Desalination doesn't work for California.

Post by nradov » Mon, Aug 29, 2022, 6:17 AM UTC

gsk22 wrote: post #338

nradov wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be ridiculous. No one is seriously proposing completely cutting people off from water. Flow restrictors still allow customers enough water for personal consumption and hygiene.

When were we ever talking about flow restrictors? You were defending a market-based solution to water usage, which I asserted would be inequitable and therefore immoral. Flow restrictors are pretty anti-market, and I think they're a great solution to penalizing those who repeatedly break the rules.