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a different perspective

I live in the wettest place in the state, over 2 metres a year rainfall. (between 6 and 7 feet rainfall.) I don't know how that compares in other countries but in Australia, that is huge. We catch our own rainwater off garage and house, we always have plenty. We don't have to worry about saving water most of the year. Currently the place is waterlogged.

I recently replaced two taps (faucets) in the kitchen and laundry. I was very limited in what I could buy as I was looking for a single lever mixer tap that would turn only a fixed limited amount each way, so the tap couldn't be turned to deliver water off the sink. We needed this because our cat had two or three times flooded the place by turning the tap off the sink and turning on the tap. (bumped it when jumping around like a big kitten.) We could only find a couple of suitable taps at a reasonable price, one from Grohe for the kitchen and one from Ikea for the laundry.

 

Both came with little inlet hoses that were NOT removable/replaceable, and were stupid skinny little things like a drinking straw. The flow is miserable as we have low water pressure - we don't have a pressure pump, our water comes from a tank up the hill and it isn't much higher than the house. Our water supply is plenty for the washing machine to fill in a normal time, plenty to operate a tankless gas hot water service as our backup unit, but the flow though these taps is pathetic. I am more or less used to it now, but it is s-l-o-w. A litre takes about 30 to 40 seconds. It is not a flow restrictor, it is the tiny hoses and they are machined in, can't be replaced. (there was a restrictor of sorts in the aerator, but I removed that.)

 

as I catch my own water, no municipal infrastructure needs to be built to give me water. I just "borrow" the water briefly from the environment before returning it. But it is almost impossible to find taps and fittings that don't have restrictors that are designed for mains pressure, not low pressure.
 
Standards can't go lower

The shower head I posted is 2.5 gallons/minute. Probably not available to ship to California. I bought mine a few years ago. The newest Calif. standard is 1.8 gal/min. Maybe 2.5 is a good compromise. The federal standard is 2.5 so that's what a lot of people have right now. The folks working on the standards here and at the Federal level keep changing them. At some point the standards should just stay where they are.
 
The shower head I posted in reply#18 is 2.5 gpm and is available at Lowes in California where I bought mine. If you look at the link it’s still rated at 2.5 gpm and the there are plenty of reviews that indicate the owners are very happy with the flow rate. I don’t know where this 1.8 gpm rate for California is coming from, but the shower heads on the Lowes website all advertise 2.5 gpm which is perfectly adequate.

Eddie
 
Ok, so let me ask this as someone who doesn't live on the Left Coast. Why in the hell has California not gone all-in on desalination when they have the whole Pacific ocean in their back yard? Water has always been an issue there as there's only a finite amount of fresh water available (hence the water wars of the early 20th century). So why not leverage the ocean for additional supply?
 
Skuze me for pointing out that California does not have a water shortage.  California has a shortage of effing <span style="text-decoration: underline;">SENSE</span>. 

 

80% of available water goes to agriculture which makes up 3% of the state's economy.  Growing things like almonds, which are 'nice' but nobody "needs" them,  and they take NINETEEN HUNDRED GALLONS of water to grow ONE POUND of nuts.

 

Oh, and if you get teary-eyed thinking of mom & pop farmers out of water, save your lacrimation for the geraniums.  More than 80% of California agriculture is corporate AND subsidized on top of that.

 

I loved every minute I lived in California, both north and south.  Except for the occasional traffic jam spanning the entire horizon in every direction.  But most of the desperation they claim is of their own doing.
 
Excuse Me Rick

but I watched Bill Maher last night too and your post is almost verbatim from his mouth. It may or may not be true that California’s agriculture is only 3% of our economy. But it also provides thousands of jobs and food for not just Californian’s but people across the nation and the world.

So we should just let all the farms dry up and go fallow? I don’t think so. I’m a Native Californian and we DO have a water shortage, regardless of what Bill Maher says. I used to really like him, now his devils advocate bullshit just irritates me and I’m probably not going to watch him anymore. This has been coming for me for a long time now and his rant last night sealed the deal.

And as far as water misuse is concerned, I notice he had nothing to say about all the billions of gallons of Northern California water that is diverted to Southern California for their millions of swimming pools. These swimming pools should go dry before allowing farms to go fallow. And the same goes for the lawns on golf courses and mansions. If I have to let the lawns of my HOA go brown then so can the lawns of the wealthy go brown too. I’ll bet Bill Maher is irrigating his landscaping and if he has a pool, which I imagine he does, that sucker is being topped off regularly too.

No matter how you cut it THERE IS a shortage of water in California, PERIOD!

Eddie[this post was last edited: 6/19/2021-15:57]
 
I have to agree with Eddie at this.

It is a FACT that California has a shortage of the precious liquid.

When I created this thread
, the idea was exactly point the nonsense.

Keeping the restrictors at decent level wouldn't save that much water, but people would leave them alone. Ok, it reduced the waterflow but I still can get a decent shower, so it's a little effort that will have a great return for everybody.

But they decided to make the restrictors so thrifty that it feels like you're showering with a spray bottle. Intuitively people will try to drill or get rid of the restrictors, just like me.

I was going to drill my restrictor, to allow a bit more water... but the restrictor came off, so now I have no restrictor at all.

I won't even bother looking for a 2.5 gal restrictor to put there.. why? Waste.my time because it's forbidden to sell or ship them to California.

As a result... people end up wasting much more water... it's not "me", it's thousands of people in the state that have exactly the same situation every single day.

Simply put, reducing even more the water flow had the opposite effect, the plan didn't work at all!
 
Yes, the Maher show is the statistic source.

 

<blockquote>
THERE IS a shortage of water in California, PERIOD

</blockquote>
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Not</span> "period".  No issue of this scope and depth is "period".  There is a shortage compared to what the state is accustomed to miss-allocating before the climate trend changed.  And it's still miss-allocated despite the intrusion of spit showers.  That is to say, spit showers are bureaucratic window dressing that do next to nothing about the problem.

 

Jobs schmobs.  3% of economic product does in no way justify 80% of a dwindling resource that is the basis of life.  Growing water-intensive ag like almonds and rice in a desert is a bad idea.  No matter that it was established in a different climatological age. 

You CAN put a "period" after that if you want.

 

You do know where LA's water comes from, right?  Down an enormous open-air sluice running half the length of the state.  Through the high desert (Palmdale-Lancaster) where [how much?] evaporates into single-digit-dewpoint air.  I've been there too.  How much evaporates?  More than how much evaporates from pools, since the formula is rate times surface area.  And yes, Maher's house is lushly landscaped.  That may have to change as well.

 

This isn't a fight between you and me, Eddie.  I have zero to say about what ultimately happens and you have about one ten-millionth more than I do.  We're both in the same piranha tank when it comes to electric, and neither of us has anything to say about that either.  Where is the 36-point shrug smiley when we need it?
 
California has a shortage of effing <span style="text-decoration: underline;">SENSE</span>. 

 

But most of the desperation they claim is of their own doing.

 

6th generation Californian here and this is spot on. It's incredibly sad what politics and corruption has done to the state.
 
Rick, I had no intention to cause a war between you and I on this or any other topic. I can agree to disagree. I disagreed with Bill Maher’s comments last night and I recognized them in your post. And I have every right to voice my opinion as you do yours. Lets leave it at that.

I live here and see everyday how the lack of rain for the last two years has had a very detrimental effect on my county and state. Agriculture is a big part of the economy in my area, wineries, pot farms and dairy ranches in particular. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I do know when there isn’t enough of a resource to fulfill the needs of the area.

Eddie
 
I went to school in the Sacramento Valley in the 70's and at that time there were huge flooded fields on either side of HWY 80. I found out those are for growing rice. I have no idea if rice is still being grown there, but WTF, the proper spot to grow rice is in the Southeast where's there's plenty of rain and water. I suspect the California rice fields are a major, if not the major, waste of agricultural water.

In terms of governance, I suspect California is not worse than most of the other states in the nation. And probably much better than some when it comes to corruption and waste. I won't say which, not here.
 
Heres the CalRice website link. Rice production in California provides 25,000 jobs and 5 billion dollars to the economy. It’s the second largest producer of rice in the United States and its Mediterranean climate is uniquely suited to the growing of rice according to Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_...der rice cultivation to meet this requirement.

The water from the flooded fields eventually goes back into the water table. People have to eat don’t they?

Eddie

https://calrice.org/industry/how-rice-grows/
 
PLENTY of water out in Eastern NC-In fact we are under a tropical storm warning for Claudette.Supposed to get several inches of rain!My yard will be a swamp!Drainage ditches will be full-possibly flowing onto the roads.Should be a wet ride to work tomorrow night!
 
It's time...

for an end to subsidized wasteful ditch irrigation and ubiquitous and frivolous pools and fountains in places like CA and AZ, and aquifer depleting center-pivot irrigation in parts of states like Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Ag production requiring dependable water should be concentrated in states with decent natural rainfall. Locating 5000 cow dairies and alfalfa, sugar beet, and other water-intensive crop production in dry states with chronic water shortages is beyond absurd, that type of Ag production should be centered in the Northeast, Eastern Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic where irrigation is not typically necessary, it's just common sense.
 
agreed. put the solar farms & stuff in the D E S E R T, and put the agriculture where it rains. It makes a whole lot more sense.

as for desalination plants, they're kinda bad?
They use a ton of energy, and while they do produce drinkable water they also discharge highly concentrated brine back into the ocean which can create dead zones where fish cant survive due to the high salinity, and also the water is often warm, lowering the dissolved oxygen levels which also creates dead zones. per my understanding, the best option is to recognize that its a desert, and move stuff with high water demand (agriculture) out of the state.
 
Speaking of the Maher show, he's no saint of rectitude. 

IOW, he's not always right despite his fervent wish to be considered so.

 

This week he railed on web media for deleting certain references to ivermectin (drug), which he seems to think he needs to know something about.  I wondered what the hell he was talking about.  My memory of ivermectin was it's something ranchers shoot up a cow's butt to kill worms.  And it is.  <span style="font-size: 10pt;">[Don't ask what the hell triggers my memory of such things; it just does.]</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It's also something you don't give collies or turtles, it kills them.  In humans and most vertebrates, doses on the microgram/kg level won't pass the blood-brain barrier in sufficient quantity to do bad things.  Some nutbags from the hydroxychloroquine school of internet miracle cures were gaining traction with ivermectin as a treatment for covid.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was these latter references that were excised from major web portals as misinformation.  Ivermectin in a dish kills [or at least disables] covid.  The safety of passing it out broadly to humans is deeply in question.  Just what Maher thought he was going to do with any data on ivermectin which he was denied, is also deeply in question.  As is bringing it up in the first place, </span>

<span style="font-size: 12pt;">with no background whatsoever.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Here's the wiki; relatively short and non-technical.  Since I brought it up with scant background, one might otherwise think I'm coming down with Maheritis.  I don't think so, but that's not a medical assessment.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin</span>
 
Maher's take on Calif water runs several frames in the 30s.

 

I ran with his POV, but I don't always.

 

The thread had gone dormant anyway. 

 

Ivermectin also kills pedicules.  Which are not little feet, except in the sense they are.

[this post was last edited: 6/28/2021-12:34]
 
Big puzzle

Devices need to have a good balance between water conservation and doing a satisfactory job. I get a more complete flush when I dump 2 quarts of water from a pitcher into my toilet bowl than any tank toilet. Could a toilet be redesigned to deliver a powerful flush with such a small amount of water? Could that gravity assist design used in early high-tank toilets be adapted to make low water usage modern toilets?

California has both a water shortage and a water mismanagement issue.

It seems like piped instead irrigation, restricting or prohibiting water fountains, enclosing pools, planting and using drought resistant natural landscaping could all reduce water usage.

It seems like the water costs less than it should. Do agricultural operations receive hefty subsidies? If the cost of water accurately reflected supply and demand wouldn't it be cost prohibitive to grow almonds and rice, have irrigated lawns and outdoor swimming pools, etc.?

It's a similar situation in Atlanta. Their population continues to increase despite the inability of the reservoirs to provide for the growth and thus begins the water wars. Georgia begins diverting more than its share of water upstream of Alabama and Florida...you get the picture.

So, here in Alabama, we get lots of rain yet, in my lifetime, farms have been dying all over the state. We have water, we have sun, we have a decently long growing season. What kind of subsidies and other economic factors created a situation where the nation's food crops are grown in an area with severe water shortages and shipped across the country while our farmers lose their land or find other ways to earn a living?

California may be a great place to grow rice, but so is Louisiana where water is plentiful. So it seems to make sense to move the rice and the 25,000 jobs to Louisiana. That is an oversimplification, but it would solve two California problems: overpopulation and water demand.

As with any major industrial change, moving some of the water intensive agriculture to areas where water is more plentiful would be painful but perhaps worth it in the long run.
 
my new Kohler Shower Head

Just took a shower with my new Kohler Maxton 1.8GPM shower head purchased from Lowes early this morning. It was wonderful. In no way did I feel deprived. My old Delta shower head was ok. Probably 10 years old. The rubber nozzles were falling apart so it was time for a change.

whitewhiskers-2021091614222101316_1.jpg

whitewhiskers-2021091614222101316_2.jpg
 
I find I usually can figure out a way to remove the flow restrictor from just about any faucet attachment or shower head. For showers, my current favorite is labeled a "Sansu", which I got maybe about 10 years ago. It's a handheld. But of course now I cannot find it on-line. It's a 2.5 gal/min, but I see from searching that now California has reduced the allowable flow to 1.8 or less. Again, I'd just yank the flow restrictor, unless that's been made impossible too. So I guess I'll be hanging onto the one I like for as long as possible. My other shower has an Interbath handheld, which I think is older than the Sansu.

Good luck!
 
sadly we are also running out of fresh water. drought conditions are increasing, and we have to make changes. using less water for laundry and showering is a fine sacrifice so that we may have water year round. if you want to complain, maybe complain about the climate crisis and how we still aren't doing enough to solve it.
 
There really isn't a one answer fits all solution to water issues, it's different for each area.

First of all, water is neither created nor destroyed. Yes, if one lives in an area where water is scarce, it's a good idea to conserve. Even in areas where water is plentiful, it doesn't make sense to needlessly be wasteful. I think we all can agree that areas low on water resources should not have building permits issued. Increasing the population in these areas will eventually lead to disasters. Does anybody see this happening? Nope, gotta expand in order to accumulate more taxes.

In California, residential users only constitutes for 5% of total water used in that state. False propaganda will have them brainwashed that it's 95% but I'll save everybody my personal rants on the matter. I'm not advocating on needlessly wasting water, just something to keep in mind.

Climate change is basically a money laundering scam for the most part, just like most of the wars to keep money rolling into the war machine. The biggest polluters and those that use up the majority of recourses here in the US are the government and corporations....not Joe Sixpack and his family. Again, both of theses institutions heavily propagandize the opposite but I'll just stop here before this gets kicked into the paying forums.
 
what percent of the water used by agriculture goes through m

Good question, not sure about that one but your guess is probably accurate.
 
Again, I think I would be very happy with a 2.5 gal shower head and there's no doubt that it would help me save a lot of water.

The problem.here is that CA went much beyond that, my shower head had a ridiculous flow, I mean, it wasn't enough to have water coming out from all holes.

I didnt even waste my time trying to look for a 2.5 gal shower head because they cannot be shipped to CA because they don't meet the state standards.

As a result, flow restrictor is long gone and for over 1 year I shower with a shower head that looks like a fire hose.

But don't worry, even taking several showers per day, my showers are usually very quick and most of the times I use that pulse massage setting that has only 9 tiny holes (but a wonderful pressure, exactly to save water.
 

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