Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

LA City Council goes tyrannical green: $600 sprinkler fines
Examiner.com ^ | April 23, 2009 | Ben Shapiro

Posted on 04/23/2009 5:53:32 PM PDT by UltraConservative

The city of Los Angeles will be instituting harsh new rules for individual water usage due to the state’s current shortage. The LA City Council approved new water conservation measures regarding sprinkler systems in particular. Automatic sprinkler systems may only be used on Mondays and Thursdays. A water conservation force will wander the neighborhoods of LA looking for violators to cite – if you happen to run the sprinklers on a Sunday, you’ll get a warning; a second time, and you’ll get a fine that can run up to $600. The price of water will also be rising.

Read more here: Why we should privatize water distribution


TOPICS: Local News
KEYWORDS: environmentalism; losangeles; sprinklers; water
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 next last
To: Wuli
“... simply to greatly raise the water fees the municipal water systems charge.”

While I admire your economic stance, raising the rates for everyone for every drop of water consumed seems unreasonable. The poor & those on fixed incomes suffer, while the rich waste water with abandon. Access to clean affordable (essentially free) water is a foundation of modern society dating back to before the Romans.

California is in a drought. Water must be conserved or many will go without.

People need a certain amount to eat, bathe, & crap. All other water usage is mostly optional. In times of drought, the lawns & cars should be secondary to basic human needs.

I do believe the water cops are a stupid waste. A better idea, I believe, would be to impose tiered pricing on residential customers. The first X number of gallons would be at a lower rate per gallon than any excess usage. This would accommodate customers’ basic needs, while allowing those who water their yard to avoid the police state.

Poor people not bathing & crapping in the back yard to save money is not the solution. They proved that 2000 years ago.

Imagine being on a lifeboat with a limited supply of water. Should the water be shared equally, or should the rich guy be able to bathe while the others die of thirst?

21 posted on 04/23/2009 7:19:27 PM PDT by Mister Da (The mark of a wise man is not what he knows, but what he knows he doesn't know!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: Polynikes

Yeah i know...Nice guys get fu*ked


22 posted on 04/23/2009 7:35:27 PM PDT by GSP.FAN
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: Mister Da

“The poor & those on fixed incomes suffer, while the rich waste water with abandon.”

The “poor” (many more single person households than those above bottom 20%) and “those on fixed incomes” (mostly retires) also consist of habitats with less water-per-capita consumption, smaller houses, fewer, smaller or non-existent yards (apartments) than everyone else and will, in fact, on a per-capita basis be hit not as hard by higher water fees. In fact, because the “rich” consume so much more, on a per-capita basis, they will also be nit the hardest with the higher fees and be paying the largest share of the total fee revenue.

“Access to clean affordable (essentially free) water is a foundation of modern society dating back to before the Romans.”

First; “affordable” has never meant “essentially free”.

Second; whenever and where ever water is not priced based on supply and demand, issues of drought are always more of a systemic problem, with little wiggle room in people’s expected usage to make reasonable adjustments without draconian measures.

Third; while getting water from where it is to where it is needed has always been a hallmark of a civilization that solves problems, instead of moving away from them, just who water was transported for and why, as well as access and “affordability” have not been achieved by any one set of universal measures - before, during or since “Roman Times”.

“California is in a drought. Water must be conserved or many will go without. People need a certain amount to eat, bathe, & crap. All other water usage is mostly optional. In times of drought, the lawns & cars should be secondary to basic human needs.”

And, making it more expensive for those who consume more WILL convince people to voluntarily shut off or reduce unessential water usage, out of self-interest to obtain a lower water bill.

And yes, the best rates would even be “progressive”, charging “a” for “x” cubic feet, “b” for every “y” cubic feet between “x” and “z” and “c” for every “y” cubic feet above “z” (letting local districts fill in the rates and numbers for a,b,c and x,y,z, as their supply and demand needs dictate).

In the end, the price of the supply will help control the demand; and do so with greater efficiency and justice than any water patrol.


23 posted on 04/23/2009 7:46:57 PM PDT by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Wuli; Mister Da

Streisand uses as much water as a small subdivision, about $2,000.00 a month. Get her first

There are people here that require entire new piping to supply the vast amount of water that their shower demands, get them first.

If the issue is a water shortage then you have to stop the waste period.

People making 2 to 20 million dollars a year and paying a water bill of tens of thousands of dollars are not going to change their lifestyle or replace a $3,000 dollar shower head or an array of 10 shower heads with a single water saver shower head, just because the LA Times mentions a price increase.

This isn’t about market prices, it is about reducing water use and in my work I see that the middle class and lower already accomplished that many years ago, you can barely squeeze anything more from them as far as conservation goes.

I look for ways to do that in their homes and I just can’t find much to work worth. In the mean time my rich customers keep coming up with new ways to waste water and want ever larger plumbing systems to bring it all in.


24 posted on 04/23/2009 9:48:11 PM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: UltraConservative

Isn’t this just until the water shortage is over. For example, I remember in the 80’s our suburb would not allow us to water our laws from 1000-1800 everyday during the summer. This is just hoping that the water does not run out.


25 posted on 04/23/2009 9:53:14 PM PDT by napscoordinator
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Polynikes; GSP.FAN

I should have pinged you to post 24.

The middle class user and the poor have pretty much done everything that they can, on the other hand nothing seems to slow the rich, they are the only segment of my Southern California customers that are going in the opposite direction.


26 posted on 04/23/2009 10:10:17 PM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: UltraConservative

Your water has to go to those solar panels in the desert. ———>Park Service warns of solar projects’ impacts to Mojave Desert - An estimated 63 large-scale solar projects are proposed for BLM lands in the region, and the plants are expected to use a large amount of groundwater to cool and wash solar panels..http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/04/23/23greenwire-park-service-warns-of-solar-projects-impacts-t-10660.html
“Solar Industry Seeks Water Out West, Finds Little” The solar hopefuls are encountering overtaxed aquifers and a legendary legacy of Western water wars and legal and regulatory scuffles. Water is among the complications in deserts where more than 150 solar applications have been submitted for hot spots in Nevada, California, and Arizona, plus a few in New Mexico.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/18/solar-industry-seeks-wate_n_188549.html
“As a result, the total annual water demand (50,000 afy) estimated for solar energy development projects in the Amargosa Valley cannot be fully sustained by the water that is theoretically available for purchase or lease in the basin (approximately 7,000 afy)”. (Not sure what that is in gallons, lol!)


27 posted on 04/23/2009 10:13:32 PM PDT by anglian
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

“Streisand uses as much water as a small subdivision, about $2,000.00 a month.....There are people here that require entire new piping to supply the vast amount of water that their shower demands........If the issue is a water shortage then you have to stop the waste period....”

You can make the rates as progressive as needed to stop the waste.

“People making 2 to 20 million dollars a year and paying a water bill of tens of thousands of dollars are not going to change their lifestyle or replace a $3,000 dollar shower head or an array of 10 shower heads with a single water saver shower head, just because the LA Times mentions a price increase.”

No, but if the progressive rates do what they should, their accountants and financial advisers WILL convince them to (a)install more efficient water systems and (b)reduce their water bill. Just because they have more money does not mean they want to spend it if they don’t have to.

“This isn’t about market prices, it is about reducing water use and in my work I see that the middle class and lower already accomplished that many years ago, you can barely squeeze anything more from them as far as conservation goes.”

Why not. It works in other parts of the country.

In my lifetime, I have always found the comfortable, setting pretty easy middle class, more wasteful in every way than the rich or the poor - and, compared to the rich they far outnumber them. Get many of the middle class to quit watering their lawns and you save many times more cubic feet of water than even heavier conservation measures get you with the smaller population of filthy rich.

The supply issue is NOT about who, individually, uses the most, but how to get the most conservation, in total; which in almost every case must attach the right conditions to the broadest number of users. But, you seem to be more interested in class warfare than actually conserving more cubic feet of water altogether.

Obama makes the same argument as you when it comes to taxes, and so do your California politicians. Meanwhile, the % of top wage earners that are contributing the majority of the state’s income taxes, in comparison to their numbers, keeps shrinking (they leave), which leaves the state in a bind all the time; requiring ever broadening taxes to make up for the wage-revenue that has fled the state. Now you want to apply the failed lib/Obama class warfare ideas to water rates. Good luck with that.


28 posted on 04/23/2009 10:34:27 PM PDT by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Wuli; Mister Da; Polynikes; GSP.FAN
But, you seem to be more interested in class warfare than actually conserving more cubic feet of water altogether.

Obama makes the same argument as you when it comes to taxes, and so do your California politicians. Meanwhile, the % of top wage earners that are contributing the majority of the state’s income taxes, in comparison to their numbers, keeps shrinking (they leave), which leaves the state in a bind all the time; requiring ever broadening taxes to make up for the wage-revenue that has fled the state. Now you want to apply the failed lib/Obama class warfare ideas to water rates. Good luck with that.

Actually you seem to be the one that is involved in class warfare, I am merely a person that is in this business and has experience over a 33 year period in droughts, water conservation and servicing customers homes in relation to the issue in Southern California.

I posted this and I am correct This isn’t about market prices, it is about reducing water use and in my work I see that the middle class and lower already accomplished that many years ago, you can barely squeeze anything more from them as far as conservation goes.

I look for ways to do that in their homes and I just can’t find much to work worth. In the mean time my rich customers keep coming up with new ways to waste water and want ever larger plumbing systems to bring it all in.

This morning I will go to work and be verifying the very same thing that I posted to you. You can theorize and get back to your class nonsense but I do this for a living and I know what my So. Cal customers are doing in their homes, and I know it intimately since I am their water expert.

29 posted on 04/24/2009 6:55:19 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

“This isn’t about market prices, it is about reducing water use and in my work I see that the middle class and lower already accomplished that many years ago, you can barely squeeze anything more from them as far as conservation goes.”

If you knew anything about the combination of water usage plus economics plus demographics you’d understand how silly your argument is, because the sheer numbers of middle class vs the numbers of filthy rich tells you that a few millions of middle class saving “x” cubic feet of water, saves more total cubic feet of water than a few thousand rich people saving x*10 cubic feet of water.

You’re in a drought, and no matter what you know is installed in middle class homes, you know that too few are turning off their sprinklers, too many are refilling the swimming pool and no one is limiting how many times a day they flush the toilet or wash dishes.

What can move them to do more? The price of water. Raise it. Small steps among the broadest group of people amounts to the largest savings. But go ahead, send the water police to Malibu, go after the greedy rich; and see how much more water there is. Not.


30 posted on 04/24/2009 7:09:01 AM PDT by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Wuli
You’re in a drought, and no matter what you know is installed in middle class homes, you know that too few are turning off their sprinklers, too many are refilling the swimming pool and no one is limiting how many times a day they flush the toilet or wash dishes.

Don't tell me what I know, you are wrong about that, the middle class and lower have done just about all they can, like you suggested they can now do without their tiny yards as well (although many did that decades ago).

The working class is not here to suffer in support of the waste of the wealthy, there is a water shortage and the turnip has been bled to the extent that many of them here have rock or concrete yards with no plants, now it is time to set limits on usage.

I see the families that have done everything to get their water usage down to almost nothing, while my rich customers are using more water than they were several droughts ago.

I just checked three months of my water bill and my average bill for just water (not sewer) is $4.90, there isn't much for me to work on there, you could raise it 100% and I would just have to pay it.

Today I will see homes that use hundreds more times water than me and I know that their interest is in living a certain way and displaying that plush life, and a bump in the cost won't phase them, out here your landscaping says much about your status.

If there is a shortage then limit usage and let the free market forces supply water to the extravagant, they can pour Perrier on their plants or have water trucks supply storage tanks at their homes the way many people in Big Bear do.

31 posted on 04/24/2009 7:58:04 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

“Today I will see homes that use hundreds more times water than me and I know that their interest is in living a certain way and displaying that plush life, and a bump in the cost won’t phase them, out here your landscaping says much about your status.”

They are small in number compared to the many in the middle class. They are so small in number that they could cut their water usage in half and it would not add much to the supply; but millions of middle class reducing their usage by 5% will save allot. Your just spewing more class warfare without getting to any real solution.

Now we get to the nub of the problem: “I just checked three months of my water bill and my average bill for just water (not sewer) is $4.90, there isn’t much for me to work on there, you could raise it 100% and I would just have to pay it.”

Even here in New Jersey, without a drought, and where the water supply does not have the long routes from source to the users as does S. Cal, we have paid twenty times what you’re paying, for decades. Quarterly rates here above $100 are not unusual today.

You, nor anyone else in your area is paying EVEN THE ACTUAL COST of your water. No wonder there’s no money for improvements in your water system. A 100% raise would not be enough, I would do a rate ten times what you’re paying, to a minimum of $49.00/qtr, and see what happens to usage; see if it needs to be doubled again.


32 posted on 04/24/2009 9:16:05 AM PDT by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: Wuli

“Even here in New Jersey, without a drought, and where the water supply does not have the long routes from source to the users as does S. Cal, we have paid twenty times what you’re paying, for decades. Quarterly rates here above $100 are not unusual today.”


LOL you have no idea what I pay for water, when you use almost no water like I do then we can compare bills which is what you are doing, post

I love your idea that by squeezing out the last drops of water usage from a 1000 bare bones homes we might be able to supply enough water to the mansion on the hill to sustain it’s deliberate waste.

I get the point, in a Gulag of a 1000 starving prisoners and an obese 400 pound warden we can either limit his food to a reasonable amount or we can keep his disproportional food use in place by simply removing one more spoon of food from each of the 1000 hungry inmates.

Let the wasteful purchase their water on the open market to pay for their excesses, they can ship in water from private sources.

Water needs has a basic starting point for the good of and the survival of the community, but the waste starts showing up pretty quickly once you get past the basic sewer and sanitation needs.

You don’t have to watch as the lower income and middle class enthusiastically embrace conservation and comply with new laws while the wasteful actually spend thousands to work around even the laws related to manufactured products.

Do you ever wonder how even a high rise condo with zero yard can have a water bill so much larger than a freestanding home of a middle class person?


33 posted on 04/24/2009 9:51:39 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: UltraConservative

And when citizens respond to their pleas by cutting usage, the city will want to hike the rates again because of falling revenue....


34 posted on 04/24/2009 9:52:41 AM PDT by Kozak (USA 7/4/1776 to 1/20/2009 Requiescat In Pace)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

“LOL you have no idea what I pay for water”,

How’s that?? You told us your bill was $4.90 a quarter. Was that an error? If not, then we do know what you pay for water. Who are you kidding?

“I love your idea that by squeezing out the last drops of water usage from a 1000 bare bones homes we might be able to supply enough water to the mansion on the hill to sustain it’s deliberate waste.”

Never did I even think, or give such an idea. Try using actual quotes, and what was actually said, instead of inventing straw men; inventing things no one said.

“I get the point, in a Gulag of a 1000 starving prisoners and an obese 400 pound warden we can either limit his food to a reasonable amount or we can keep his disproportional food use in place by simply removing one more spoon of food from each of the 1000 hungry inmates.”

It’s a great analogy, and in a purely economic sense (which the context does not represent) it does represent how “economics” works; only the moral context of a jailer and the person he controls is NOT the context of your water supply. The “rich” you hate so much have not locked everyone else into their circumstances and nor will the few rich using allot less water make very much water available for the millions in suburbia.

“Let the wasteful purchase their water on the open market to pay for their excesses”

EVERYONE should pay for their water, at its true cost, and then the frugal will pay less and the extravagent will pay more.

“Water needs has a basic starting point for the good of and the survival of the community”

And that is best, most efficiently allocated the same way MOST ALL OF THE THINGS YOU NEED (like FOOD!!!!, energy), by prices that reflect supply and demand.

“You don’t have to watch as the lower income and middle class enthusiastically embrace conservation and comply with new laws while the wasteful actually spend thousands to work around even the laws related to manufactured products.”

I grew-up in middle class S.Cal suburbia (SanBdno county, 1950s-1960s), I know how much the middle class wastes, including the water.

“Do you ever wonder how even a high rise condo with zero yard can have a water bill so much larger than a freestanding home of a middle class person?”

If ANYONE has a larger water bill, it tells us two things - they used more water than someone else, and THEY PAID FOR IT. If you raise the rates, they’ll pay MORE and those that can and among them those who chose to, will use less.

But, go ahead, station the water police over the water meters of the high-rise condos, with the power to close the valve when they all take too many showers. Bull crap.

The power of prices wins over the police state when it comes to both liberty and economics.


35 posted on 04/24/2009 10:10:53 AM PDT by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: Wuli

My bill is monthly.

Living in So. Cal in the 50s and 60s has nothing to do with this at all, to claim it does reveals how out of touch you are. My experience over the last 33 years as a service plumber and contractor ( I am at the user end, not construction) on the So. Cal. coast and Rancho Sante Fe on the other hand is about the best hands on witnessing we can get.

You don’t get the point, we aren’t interested in people paying more so that they can waste the water, we want them to quit wasting it and we have already picked the low hanging fruit that you seem to despise so much. The scandal here is finding out that this water issue seems to be a class issue, with one class and their hidden lifestyles left out of the crisis, even though the policy makers themselves are a part of that crowd.

That reminds me, during one drought in the 90s our wealthy mayor who of course was trumpeting all of the crisis management threats and warnings and declarations (and fines)was discovered to have two water meters on her property that she was using to conceal her actual usage.


36 posted on 04/24/2009 10:38:19 AM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 35 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

Wow, big deal, you’re paying $14.70 ($4.90 * 3) a quarter for water that is ten times more expensive to deliver than water here in New Jersey that people pay ten times more than you for. No wonder it’s a crisis every time there’s a drought. Your water is nominally free.

“The scandal here is finding out that this water issue seems to be a class issue, with one class and their hidden lifestyles left out of the crisis, even though the policy makers themselves are a part of that crowd.”

Thanks for finally admitting that its really about class warfare.

No matter who it is, no matter how frugal or not they are, if they are paying what they are billed, they don’t owe you to use less - they paid what they were asked to pay.

If you want anyone to pay more, so that some will use less rather than paying, you need to charge more; charge more until the price creates changes in demand. How is it that that is done all over the country but California can’t do it. No matter. It’s part of why California is sick.


37 posted on 04/24/2009 1:31:44 PM PDT by Wuli
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: Wuli
Wow, big deal, you’re paying $14.70 ($4.90 * 3) a quarter for water that is ten times more expensive to deliver than water here in New Jersey that people pay ten times more than you for. No wonder it’s a crisis every time there’s a drought. Your water is nominally free.

First you thought you knew about how the middle class uses water in So. Cal. because you lived here 45 years ago before this modern water saving manufacturing era even started and now you seem to know what water rates are here.

You don't know what the water rates are here so why do you keep pretending to, being in the water saving conservation business I use almost zero water, it is annoying that my sewer bill is several times what my water usage bill is every month while I know of people here that use thousands of dollars a month of water at their homes, how does that tell you what our water rate is?

The class warfare here is the rich against the non rich which is a war that you seem to be fighting as well, try reading that post again.

You claim that the real life situation that I keep describing to you doesn't exist in the rest of the country when water rationing takes places, I would like to see the evidence of that. You don't seem to know squat about what is going on out here.

38 posted on 04/24/2009 4:31:48 PM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: ansel12

I am not getting in to the class warfare stuff..
Personally i think the water company is trying to make more money by selling less water..
I will not be able to reduce my water by 10%,i already use the minimum amount of water, so i will get fined even though i use less water than any of my neighbours.
So i have to choose whether i should plant a veg garden this year..
I have called them up and informed them we have a new child in the house,does not matter..
The water company will probadly have record profits this year,i wonder why?


39 posted on 04/24/2009 5:28:27 PM PDT by GSP.FAN
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: GSP.FAN
I will not be able to reduce my water by 10%,i already use the minimum amount of water, so i will get fined even though i use less water than any of my neighbours. So i have to choose whether i should plant a veg garden this year..

That was the real point, diminishing returns, I make my living from this stuff, I know who has brought their usage down to where there is almost no more water conservation to squeeze from them and I also know who has moved in the opposite direction and needs to be brought into line.

40 posted on 04/24/2009 6:05:17 PM PDT by ansel12 (Romney (guns)"instruments of destruction with the sole purpose of hunting down and killing people")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-57 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson