Posted on 04/02/2015 10:45:23 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Comedy wouldn’t be funny if there weren’t a kernel of truth in it. Remember the 1996 Seinfeld episode based on the problem with the new, low-pressure showerheads that couldn’t rinse the shampoo out of Kramer’s hair? That led him to contact some Yugoslav black marketeers so he could buy and covertly install a high-power showerhead instead. (Naturally, that one proved to be much too powerful.)
Twenty years ago, Americans were already feeling the effects of nanny state regulations on their use of water and things have been getting steadily worse in that respect. That’s because it’s now almost impossible to keep politicians and bureaucrats from doing what so many of them love to do: dictating how Americans live.
In 1994, Congress mandated that showerheads deliver no more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute – hence the Seinfeld script. Why this busybody rule? Because some people with political influence maintain that we’re using too much water and it’s up to the government to prevent that.
Consider the argument advanced in this recent Washington Post article: If 20 percent of our shower water is wasted, “you’re talking about over 200 billion gallons, in a world where gigantic states (California) and megacities (Sao Paulo, Brazil) are suffering from drought and water scarcity problems are expected to become still worse in the decades ahead.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
“Instead of one flush with the old 3.5 gallon tank,”
True story, once I sat on a circa 1955 soviet toilet seat. When I flushed, it literally went off like a Martin Baker rocket powered ejection seat. It startled me. It nearly sucked me in. Something roughly like 200 gallons of water shot through it in about 1.5 seconds. The sound was freaking amazing. The Dnieper river was nearby and it appears water use was not an engineering parameter.
The locals also used it the way we would use a garbage disposal in the kitchen sink.
I wish I had one here, but it would be too embarrassing for neighbors 3 houses away to know every time I was on the throne.
So, if 20% of my shower water is wasted, if I cut my shower water consumption by 20%, will they leave me alone?
Or, will they, the second they achieve that victory, immediately come up with a new demand and start telling me what to do about something else?
Never give an inch. Not now. Not ever. Even about the things you are willing to give away. Because, sooner or later, they are going to get to something you do care about.
Makes me think of what life would be like without hippies and progressives.
How much stuff we could really get done.
Interesting idea!
http://oregoncatalyst.com/2885-Columbia-River-Water-Next-Export-to-California.html
I only care about my water use because it’s the only thing on my water bill I have any control over. I have seven-eight things itemized I get billed for, water use is only one, and it’s the only one I can directly control. All the others are maintenance fees, service fees, metro shared service fees, etc. Those are fixed and always rise.
My water bill is 75-78% things other than my water usage. And that is with me watching how I use my water.
These assholes sit there and talk about lowering your usage like it’s going to help our bottom line. How can it really if 75-78% of what I am paying has nothing to do with my personal water usage.
A few years back, in Colorado, we had a dry spell and the city government set up a rationing plan.
As ordered, people stopped using as much water and the city raised the rates because they claimed that they couldn’t cover the operational expenses.
How it typically works is you cut your water use (or electric, or whatever) and when enough others join you the utility no longer generates enough revenue to cover their fixed overheads. So they apply for a rate increase.
Paramedics revived a nearly lifeless Mika Brezezinski on the floor of her shower the other day, an empty half gallon bottle of Suave shampoo in her hand.
“The instructions said, `Rinse and repeat’!” insisted the blonde Democrat.
I live right next to one of the largest freshwater lakes on the planet. I have a deep well. I will take as long a damn shower as I please. And even if i didn’t have the lake and the well I would still take long showers whilst hollering KMA, al Gore!
CC
Our Pastor predicted that the next World War would be over water.
Every utility does this.
People are told they’re using to much (whatever) - have to conserve, we don’t have the capacity, we need to increase rates to build more capacity
Using too little - you should use more, need to support us, we’ve got costs, we have to raise rates to cover people using less.
Using the same amount, we need to raise costs for regular maintenance and other costs of doing business.
Doesn’t matter if usage goes down, up or stays about the same, there’s always rationale available to raise rates.
No they will not.
That's the beauty of demanding we submit to "percent" reductions. They can always demand a 20% reduction from of the amount you're still using.
While we do need to practice water conservation, please bear in mind that this showerhead issue is another 17th Amendment-related issue, state lawmakers foolishly giving up their voices in Congress by ratifying that amendment.
"In 1994, Congress mandated that showerheads deliver no more than 2.5 gallons of water per minute"
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Simply put, the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate water usage, including mandating water-conserving shower heads.
Again, if it weren’t for the 17th Amendment, there would be all different faces in the federal Senate at this time. The problem with the popularly elected Senate is that low-information voters go home and watch football after voting for their favorite senators, oblivious to the idea that their corrupt senators are working in cahoots with the corrupt House to make constitutionally indefensible federal laws, laws which Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers. Unconstitutional federal showerhead laws are one example.
The 17th Amendment needs to disappear.
I doubt Brown can think that much ahead in the future.
Meanwhile, you and the farmers gotta just make the best of it.
This problem can be safely laid at the feet of the libs.
Now that’s a royal flush ;)
Actually I give Brown some credit for pushing Prop 1 Water Bond that passed last November. Some stuff I don’t like, but the largest item is the 2.7 billion for water storage and reservoirs, Note the last paragraph.
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Specific spending proposals in the proposition include:[2]
$520 million to improve water quality for “beneficial use,” for reducing and preventing drinking water contaminants, disadvantaged communities, and the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund Small Community Grant Fund.
$1.495 billion for competitive grants for multibenefit ecosystem and watershed protection and restoration projects.
$810 million for expenditures on, and competitive grants and loans to, integrated regional water management plan projects.
$2.7 billion for water storage projects, dams and reservoirs.
$725 million for water recycling and advanced water treatment technology projects.
$900 million for competitive grants and loans for projects to prevent or clean up the contamination of groundwater that serves as a source of drinking water.
$395 million for statewide flood management projects and activities.
Gov. Jerry Brown (D) called on the legislature to replace the previous $11.14 billion bond (Proposition 43) with a cheaper $6 billion bond on June 25, 2014.[3] Brown called the previous water bond “a pork-laden water bond… with a price tag beyond what’s reasonable or affordable.”[4] The legislature passed the new $7.12 billion bond on August 13, 2014.
http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Water_Bond_(2014)
You do realize that we are showing our age :<)
Low flow toilets require two flushes.
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