Water rationing hits California: Fines For Exceeding Your Allowance

Millions of Californians are about to be hit with strict water rationing — daily “allocation” numbers that represent the maximum amount of water you’re allowed to use for any purpose. Households that exceed the allocation limit will face stiff fines of hundreds of dollars per violation.

“In July, the State Water Resources Control Board passed stage one emergency regulations, giving powers to all local water agencies to fine $500 per violation,” reports the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. [1]

Keep in mind that these are only “stage one” emergency regulations. Stages two and three have yet to be invoked and will only become more severe.

The amount of water each household is allowed by water districts will be determined by government employees viewing satellite imagery of private properties, then calculating how much water that property should be allowed to use.

“Using census records, aerial photography and satellite imagery, an agency can determine a property’s efficient water usage,” says the SGVT.

50 gallons per person, per day

In some districts, water rationing allocation is also based on the number of persons who are known to be living at each address based on U.S. Census data. The Irvine Ranch Water District allows 50 gallons of “indoor” water consumption per person in the home. As explained on the IRWD website: [3]

The indoor water allocation is 50 gallons per person per day and depends upon the number of residents in a home. Water allocated for landscape irrigation depends upon the type of home.

As the IRWD website explains, those water consumers who the government deems to be “wasteful” will be charged 160% or higher rates for water consumption. This is on top of the $500 fines for each violation, as has now been approved by the state.

The 50 gallons per person per day is the maximum allocated amount for all indoor water use, including laundry, showering, toilet flushing, drinking, washing dishes and hand washing for hygienic purposes.

According to the EPA, the average U.S. citizen currently uses 100 gallons per day, with 70 of those gallons consumed indoors. [4] The largest users of indoor water are toilets, showers and clothes washers.

Not yet called “rationing” because the word isn’t socially acceptable

Interestingly, the water rationing that’s about to be enforced in California isn’t being called rationing. Instead, California’s doublespeak wordsmiths have decided to call it an “allocation-based rate structure” (which simply means that after you hit your ration limit, you are harshly penalized for any additional consumption).

In explaining why California citizens will be heavily penalized with fines if they exceed their water rationing allocation, all sorts of elaborate doublespeak terms are now being used such as “strong price signals” and “conservation response.”

Here’s how the IRWD explains water rationing to its customers without using the term “rationing“:

Allocation-based rate structures are the foundation of IRWD’s Water Shortage Contingency Plan. This rate structure allows IRWD to quickly respond to limited supplies through strong price signals, which result in the greatest conservation response from our customers.

Translation: If we aggressively penalize people for exceeding their water allocation, they will seek to stay within the limits for the same reason that people try to avoid speeding tickets – nobody wants to pay the fines!

Landscape watering limited to two days a week

Some California water districts are also enforcing unprecedented restrictions on water use for “outdoor watering” applications.

The Irvine Ranch Water District, for example, has publicly announced its intention to “…implement mandatory outdoor water use restrictions that restrict outdoor watering to two days a week.” [2]

California homeowners being paid big bucks to remove grass in “Remove Green. Receive Green” program

The California drought is so bad that some California homeowners are even being paid cash to remove their lawns.

The IRWD Turf Removal Program advertises the slogan “Remove Green. Receive Green” and explains there is no limit to the amount of money a person can be paid under the program. [5]

What’s interesting about this Turf Removal Program is that it essentially pays people to restore their yards to the way they should have been constructed in the first place. Green lawns in desert regions are one of the most idiotic things modern humans have ever come up with, with green golf courses in desert regions taking the top prize for sheer environmental stupidity.

Where it’s all headed

Water conservation efforts are greatly needed in California and should be applauded. On the other hand, they only postpone the inevitable — a mass migration out of the American southwest as the water runs out across entire regions.

Tearing up your front lawn and replacing it with agave and desert spoon plants doesn’t nullify the fact that much of California is wildly overpopulated to the point of long-term non-sustainability. Even if each person in the state were restricted to just 25 gallons a day, the water would keep dropping in Lake Mead (which is already perilously close to outflow restrictions that will impact California and Arizona).

The only way the current population of Californians can live in harmony with the regional water resources is if most of the people stop taking showers, stop flushing toilets and stop doing laundry. Unfortunately, this practice is currently limited only to a few UCLA campus frat houses and hasn’t yet caught on with the rest of the citizenry.

Crop yields already in a state of collapse

Honestly stated, the modern-day lifestyle that many people equate with California living simply isn’t sustainable. As a result, a collapse of the water infrastructure has already begun. That’s why the crop yields have also collapsed this year [6], with the Sacramento Bee reporting:

While many crops have yet to be harvested, it’s clear that the drought has carved a significant hole in the economy of rural California. Farm income is down, so is employment… Economists at UC Davis say agriculture, which has been a $44 billion-a-year business in California, will suffer revenue losses and higher water costs — a financial hit totaling $2.2 billion this year.

That financial hit is only going to get worse, and the implosion of crop production will only accelerate. “Roughly one-fourth of California’s rice fields went fallow this year, about 140,000 acres worth, according to the California Rice Commission,” reports the Sacramento Bee.

And the worst part is that farmers have been tapping into underground aquifers in order to grow their crops this year. But that water is irreplaceable in any human timeframe, and when it’s all used up, it’s gone for good. California’s agriculture industry has yet to come up with a way to grow food crops without using water. Until they do, the food producing potential of the entire region is headed for accelerated collapse.

When the citizens of California truly wake up and realize where this is all headed, real estate prices will utterly collapse, leading to a collapse of local property tax revenues and the economic devastation of towns and cities. Many of those once-thriving towns will inevitably return to the desert from which they sprang.

Sources for this article include:

[1] http://www.sgvtribune.com/general-news/20140…

[2] http://www.irwd.com/liquid-news/irwd-receive…

[3] http://www.irwd.com/services/residential-wat…

[4] http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/pubs/indoor.ht…

[5] http://irwd.com/save-water-money/turf-remova…

[6] http://www.sacbee.com/2014/09/28/6739735/cal…

This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition