The Great Drought is over. Yes, it's official.
Word leaked out last Tuesday when the Metropolitan Water District's Jeffrey Kightlinger bubbled in bureaucrat-speak:
"The welcome storms this winter have eased short-term water management challenges as we continue to advance a historic long-term solution to the water system/ecosystem crisis in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.''
In people-speak, that means there's plenty of water for current needs.
And with a torrent of expectation, Gov. Jerry Brown stepped forward the next day to announce that the water content of the snow pack in the Sierra Nevada mountains is 165 percent of normal, and reservoirs are near capacity.
He gushed: "I, Edmund G. Brown Jr., governor of the State of California, in accordance with the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the statutes of the State of California, do hereby proclaim the drought to be at an end."
Yet Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in place in Los Angeles.
"And despite a population increase of over one million people, we are now using less water today than we did 30 years ago,'' he said. "We will continue to stay the course on our current, effective conservation efforts."
So water rationing continues. Better haul out those calendars because residents at odd-numbered addresses can only irrigate their lawns on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and those in even-numbered addresses on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. And there are special rules as to what time of day to water. And folks with 1/2 or any fraction in their addresses have another watering-day rule.
An earlier set of conservation restrictions was so onerous that District 12 Councilman Greig Smith said, to heck with this, and he watered as often as needed to keep his lawn from turning tinder dry, no matter what the mayor and the Department of Water and Power (DWP) decreed. And he pushed through revisions.
But if you're not a councilman, beware, because the DWP's 'Water Conservation Team' will continue to patrol neighborhoods to enforce the water-main busting rationing schedule. If the spies catch you, violations can result in fines ranging from $100 to $600. And feuding neighbors can rat you out by calling the 1-800-DIAL-DWP hotline.
So remember as the sun bakes your greenery brown, the governor says there's plenty of water. And as your horses are thirsting, the mayor says we Angelenos are using less aqua than 30 years ago, despite a rising population.
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It terrifies me that articles like this will suggest to people that they should stop conserving.
Oh...and the comment about a neighbor who actually gives a damn about water conservation "ratting out" another, less conscientious, person is only a good one because he lists the number you can call to report water wasters. Move back East, where you think you have the "right" to waste as much water as you want.
Our city, state and planet continue to struggle with lack of potable water, a problem that will not go away with one season's worth of adequate rainfall. We would all love to wake up tomorrow and discover that there is suddenly enough water for everybody, but wishing won't make it so.
In California, water has historically fed our economy and our lifestyle. In a doubt-prone area like Southern California, we need to think long term about how we use water. This doesn't mean draconian rationing, but it does mean being smarter about how we use water. We can save quite a bit of water just by eliminating waste (e.g., by repairing sprinklers or putting in new types of irrigation that eliminate overwatering). Doing these kind of things now will allow our economy to continue to grow without sacrificing our lifestyle when the next drought inevitable hits. People in LA have done a pretty good job of conserving water over the last 3 years--we set a goal of 10% and then exceeded it, reducing water usage by 17%. And I didn't notice a lot of brown lawns in Mar Vista.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/southwestern-water-going-going-gone/
Unless we are self sufficient and not importing water it is critical that we conserve. Could you possibly face a friend in Colorado and tell them we need to the water for our lawns?