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

Post by gruez » Sun, Aug 28, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

z3c0 wrote: post #25

gruez wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are plenty of mega-wealthy people in California who would pay the premium to maintain their image of wealth, no matter how large. Good. The money they're paying for water can now fund projects to get more water for everyone else (eg. desalination plants, water diversion, or buying water rights from current farmers).

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

Post by jpollock » Sun, Aug 28, 2022, 5:19 PM UTC

oceanplexian wrote: post #14

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…

Arizona is a fast growing state but it's hardly a fair comparison. A better comparison would be Texas or Florida, which people on the coasts seem to turn their noses up at. Both are growing at roughly 3 times the pace of California, with Texas predicted to surpass California's GDP in under 20 years (Perhaps faster, if things accelerate). If you look at the East Coast situation, e.g. Florida and New York, it's much mo…

Post by RosanaAnaDana » Sun, Aug 28, 2022, 5:20 PM UTC

madelyn wrote: post #29

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…

Raising tiered rates enough, intuitively, is effectively the same as a cap. Yes, it's absurd to think about charging ex. $50k a gallon for gallons over 10k, but that's basically a cap. No one has the money. (But yes, I'd say we should implement caps rather than being ridiculous)

Post by twblalock » Sun, Aug 28, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #27

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

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.

Post by jeffbee » Sun, Aug 28, 2022, 5:30 PM UTC

sillystuff wrote: post #34

jeffbee wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most California utility districts do have tiered prices, but the first tier is usually pretty large, the marginal prices are really low, and the national press has a tendency to characterize even this mild scheme as "rationing" so people hate it. As an example, LADWP charges a maximum marginal rate of 17¢/gallon. You can use as much as 650 gallons per day without hitting this rate. The basic rate is 3¢/gallon.

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.