“This shut off scenario could hit Southern California cities out of nowhere much like the world-wide financial meltdown appeared nearly overnight”
Great. That’s why we have the 2nd amendment. The people go, and get their water turned back on.
Obama says, “Let them drink mud.”
She has some stuff in pots, and that's the only place the pre-construction installed irrigation system is allowed to water.
Plenty of people have been putting out white gravel for years just to keep their water bills down.
Southern California is a DESERT.
Just in case somebody there didn’t realize it....
Why not just let people buy all the water that they can afford, and let the owners of the water offer whatever price that they please?
By the end of the year all those suburbanites are going to wished they suported the Klamath falls bucket brigades, if this story is a trial balloon for which ever organization is behind it.
My comment did not make it past moderation on your web site, so I am posting a response here and I sent you an email.
You make too many assumptions without asking or fact checking first. I am not an insider. I do not work for a water agency, the state or federal governments, or any organization with a stake in the water wars. I’m just a regular schmo taxpayer and residential water user. I just happen to be following the situation very closely. :)
This water bubble, as you call it, can be analogized to the housing bubble. Everyone could see it coming, we’ve been through it before, it did not take any special knowledge to know it was coming, and people in the know warned for many years of impending doom but people rarely paid attention or believe the warnings. The public is very aware of our precarious water supply but chooses to ignore warnings in news stories and from water agencies. I still hear stories of “If yellow, be mellow. If brown, flush down.” My local library still stocks multiple copies of Cadillac Desert (I highly recommend you read it). MWD puts millions into its educational campaigns for good reason. See: http://bewaterwise.com/
We were put on notice by the Mono Lake case in the early 1980’s that our water supply is limited. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_lake We were also put on notice that water and our environment is held in public trust for future generations, not just our exploitation today.
I think it is important to expand your analysis to view the larger picture. We’re talking about more than just lawns and swimming pools. This is about our most important natural resource literally drying up. Our reservoirs are at historic lows, including the biggest reservoir of all (Sierra snow pack). That leaves less water for all the varying uses we take for granted. Aquafornia blog regularly posts about the drought and our low reservoir levels. Check out this excellent post made late last week: http://aquafornia.com/archives/6922
We will all feel the economic consequences of decreased water exports from the Delta. The biggest economic impacts from a decrease in water exports will be felt by the farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, served by MWD, and various Central Coast water districts. The State Water Project and Central Valley Project (Feds) have initially told water users to expect only 15% of normal water deliveries and many farmers will get no water.
I’m trying not to point fingers. Conservation starts with all of us. There is waste and unreasonable use all around us, in both urban and rural uses. Pointing fingers would not be the way to resolve the bind we find ourselves in. A state wide dialog needs to happen now and discuss all uses and water sources. Agriculture uses 80% of water consumed in California and municipal/industrial consumers use the rest. Landscaping, discussed here in your posts, and alfalfa each use about 12% of all water statewide. That 24% of water consumption needs to be seriously discussed along with all of the other uses that we have for water. In other words, are green lawns and alfalfa reasonable uses of water as required by the state constitution?
Some blogs and other web sites you should check out and add to your RSS reader. I use My Yahoo! as my RSS reader, in case you do need one.
http://aquadoc.typepad.com/waterwired/
http://www.sacbee.com/1268/index.html
(and for fun) http://urbanflyfishing.blogspot.com/