WATER RATIONING ALREADY STARTING TO GO WRONG

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2014, OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WATER RATIONING ALREADY STARTING TO GO WRONG”

          As expected, it’s now late spring and water rationing is upon California. Despite the heavy mid-February rains that briefly drenched Northern California and the respectable ensuing snowfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, drought remains.

          It may seem odd, but the opening compulsory rationing measures have come in Northern California, closer to the big rivers now carrying lower-than-usual runoff from the high mountains than the big cities to the south, where water conservation is voluntary, so far.

          Reasons for this include the fact that the Metropolitan Water

District of Southern California draws supplies from the Colorado

River in addition to the Bay Delta region through most of Northern

California’s water flows. The Met has also spent many millions of

dollars over the last 20 years to increase its storage capacity, creating

new reservoirs and upping underground storage.

          So some of the first serious compulsory rationing comes in places

on the fringes of the San Francisco Bay Area, cities like Pleasanton

and Dublin and Santa Cruz, which get much of their water from

local supplies or the state Water Project, but don’t have access to the

water San Francisco draws from its Hetch Hetchy reservoir near

Yosemite National Park.

          Rationing is sensible in some places – like Santa Cruz, where

all homes are now limited to 1,000 cubic feet of water per month, or

about 249 gallons per day. Local officials say the limits are needed

because the area's streams have all but dried up long before their wet

season would normally end.

          But in other places, like Pleasanton, a city of 70,000 on the

eastern edge of the East Bay area, residents and businesses are

compelled to use no more than 75 percent of the water they used at

the same time last year. The more you used in 2013, the more you

can use today without paying penalties, which can see water bills

double or triple upon a first offense and rise on subsequent

violations.

          So the water profligates of a year ago have an advantage over

anyone who conserved water in 2013, when there was already

drought, just not as severe. In short, if neighbors each had lawns of

the same size and one watered freely last year, with no regard for

conservation, but the other installed a drip irrigation system and cut

water use substantially, the one who conserved now can use far less

than his profligate neighbor. How fair is that?

          Inequitable situations like this were common in the major

drought of the 1970s, when homeowners or businesses who saw

drought worsening and realized rationing would ensue sometimes

increased their water use to make sure they would have a good

supply once rationing took hold. No one can prove anybody did

that this year, but it’s very possible and it’s a major flaw where cities

ration according to past use.

          Other water use inequities abound, too. 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, whom Northern

Californians habitually accuse of profligacy? Or for residents of ritzy

Hillsborough on the San Francisco Peninsula to use 334 gallons of

water daily, on average, to just 79 for those in far less fortunate East

Palo Alto?

          Plus, while there’s a water metering program in progess in the

Central Valley, about half the homes there still no have water meters

at all, so owners or tenants can use all they want with no penalties.

          As Southern Californians watch this and realize that given

another year of drought, they will also be rationed, plenty will realize

that the more they use now, the more they’ll be able to use later –

unless water rationing is done on a strict per capita basis. 

          Yes, it can sometimes be difficult to know how many persons

reside in each household, but Census data can help – taken in 2010,

it’s still useful. Any household feeling short-changed could complain

and prove it has more occupants than the Census showed.

          That’s not a perfect system, but if adopted statewide, would at

least be more fair than the patchwork of systems gradually being

imposed now, with rationing just beginning and already starting to

lean toward the unfair.

         

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    Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net