CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014 OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, MARCH 4, 2014 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WATER RATIONING: IF IT COMES, DO IT RIGHT”
Despite heavy mid-February rains that
briefly drenched Northern California and the respectable ensuing snowfall in
the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the California drought remains.
In fact, it is still more severe than
the worst previous dry spell of modern times, which hit in 1976-77.
Short of millennial downpours in late
winter or early spring, this means water rationing is almost certain for most
Californians. When and if it comes, there are lessons to be learned from what
happened 37 years ago:
Rationing must be fair and
include heavy consequences for failure to comply, homeowners must be
willing to let some landscaping go brown and the entire system must be free of
politics. Otherwise, there’s a good chance large numbers of residents simply
won’t comply.
It would also help to accelerate the
water metering program now underway in Sacramento and other Central Valley
communities that had no meters in the 1970s drought and a milder one that
struck in 1991.
How fair is it that drought or no
drought, Sacramento residents (including tens of thousands of state officials and
bureaucrats) use an average of 279 gallons per day, compared with 98 gallons
for San Franciscans and less than 150 per day for Los Angeles residents,
habitually accused by some Sacramentans of “stealing” their water?
How fair is it for denizens of the leafy
San Francisco Peninsula suburb of Hillsborough to use 334 gallons per day,
while 14 miles away in much less fortunate East Palo Alto, residents glug only
79, according to reportage in the San Jose Mercury News?
Those figures and the reality that only
about half the homes in Sacramento and several other Central Valley cities now
have water meters makes it blatantly unfair even to consider asking or
requiring anyone to cut use by a set percentage.
Yes, everyone will likely need to cut.
But when Hillsborough or Sacramento residents cut by the 20 percent Gov. Jerry
Brown now requests of all Californians, they still use far more water than most
Californians do even in a normal, non-drought year.
It’s also true that when people are
told to cut voluntarily by a certain percentage, regardless of their normal use
levels, they understand that percentage cuts may soon become mandatory and be
enforced with penalties. But no one knows what date will be designated as the
benchmark from which use levels are measured. So anyone cutting back now
risks being forced to trim much more later, when rationing begins. This creates
potential future penalties for anyone who conserves today. Strategically, it
makes no sense for residents to trim now when they know they may soon be asked
to reduce from a new, lower level.
So rationing based on percentage
cutbacks can be inherently unfair. By contrast, per-person use limits are fair,
and Californians tend to respond well to them when imposed. In 1991, for
example, the Marin Municipal Water District told households they could use no
more than 50 gallons per person daily. Residents did better than that, using
just 47 gallons each.
A weakness in this kind of system is
that water districts and city water departments can’t know how many persons
live in each household. Even information from the latest Census is outdated.
And yet…Californians have usually been honest about this kind of thing. The
Marin district sent out its own census cards in 1991, with the total of
residents reported on them almost identical to the district’s population.
Percentage-based rationing can be
successful, too, even if it’s unfair. In 1976-77, when Los Angeles
households were asked to lower water use by 10 percent, residents responded by
cutting almost twice that much.
What’s more, a UC Berkeley study of
nine water districts at the time showed that the heavier the fines for overuse,
the better was compliance.
Then there’s politics, like the
February attempt of congressional Republicans to give Central Valley farms a
virtual monopoly on the small supplies available this year. They ignored city
residents and fishing interests, and risked putting several other species at
risk of becoming endangered, as happened to the notorious Delta smelt in the
1970s drought.
All of which means water rationing can
work, as it has before, but only if Californians are convinced it is both
necessary and fair.
-30-
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com
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