Being WaterWise LA

So the whole reason I up and started a blog (beyond being told by numerous sources that I should and that it was a great idea) was because I was driving down the street and saw the sprinklers on at a local high school.

We are in the midst of what some are calling the worst drought in the history of California (the worst in the US since the Dust Bowl). Currently 100% of the State of California is in a drought and 96% of the state is in either a severe, extreme, or exceptional drought ( Drought by the Numbers). Exceptional Drought, by definition, is extreme losses in pasture and crops, shortages in our streams and reservoirs, and high instances of water related emergencies. More than 80% of our state in Exceptional Drought.

What are we doing about this? Well there are these scattered about when they aren't warning us about construction, traffic, Amber Alerts, or Reporting Drunk Drivers.

But does anyone think that is actually enough? I don't.

Current our neighbors to the South in Orange and San Diego Counties are making moves. Orange country currently recycles about 40% of its waste water for filtration and injection back into its underground aquifer. San Diego is in the midst of building a desalination plant in Carlsbad that, when up and running at full speed, can supply up to 7% of San Diego residents with clean tap water.

Both of these systems are more expensive than the current method by which a HUGE portion of Southern California residents get their water - we steal it! Through the State Water Project, most of SoCal gets its water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and their snow melt. This feeds the multi-billion dollar farming community of CA's Central and San Joaquin Valley's on its way to supplying the water for most of Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties. Literally millions of people. Except this is what happens when we have a drought:

The white stuff is snow. The picture on the left is Jan 2013, the right Jan 2014. That is a big problem for those of us who would like to drink water in LA.

Ok, I'm getting long winded so I am going to bring it back around and wrap a bow on it. I was driving down the street, watching sprinklers water grass in a completely unused section of a local public high school. It was behind some bleachers, along a fence, along a road. Totally unnecessary to even be keeping this area up, especially in an exceptional drought. We need to be diligent, we need to be thinking, and we need to acting on this. It's not going to suddenly rain and solve these problems, or worse yet, it might. Temporarily, of course. We live in a desert. There are a lot of us. We need to be stewards of our land, make wise choices with our resources. I will expand on a few programs that local and state authorities are pushing in future posts... stay tuned!

Cheers

TJ