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Wow --- this opinion completely misrepresents the reality of water conservation in our state. You have it backwards. Southern Californians have been tearing up and replacing lawns and golf courses with drought tolerant landscaping for years while Northern California keeps planting thirsty lawns and Coast redwoods in hot inland areas, since it's "their" water to waste, and then points the finger at Southern California for being water hogs. It's laughable. We are the ones saving, and Northern Californians are the ones wasting. I would say the majority of residential landscaping in San Diego, where I now live, is drought tolerant, while in my NorCal hometown of Walnut Creek, which has hotter and drier summers, that's where people water the bejeezus out of giant lawns. And why shouldn't they, when their water rates are half of ours? NorCal water is cheap enough to motivate people to waste it. I could easily take a hundred photos of yards in just my immediate neighborhood that have extremely low water-using landscape. On top of that, roughly half the homes in my neighborhood generate electricity from solar panels on the roof, and we have a disproportionately high number of electric vehicles as well. While I do see a ton of Bay Area businesses and cities using solar panels and planting responsible landscape, I hardly see it among the residential population. That's where the problem is. Everyone preaches environmentalism, but they barely practice it. Words over action. In San Diego, we do it the other way around.
Now I will say that not all low water landscapes are environmentally appropriate, just because they save water. We see a lot of artificial turf and / or desert rock in front yards around here, and both have negative consequences for the environment. For one thing, artificial turf costs about the same over its 10-year lifespan as it would to water and maintain actual lawn, so it is not cost effective. At the same time, it literally bakes the soil underneath it, so that it sterilizes and ruins the soil forever. We lose the opportunity to provide a habitat for microorganisms and other animals such as insects and birds to thrive. Then, after 10 years, the turf ends up in landfill. Desert rock also heats up the soil and contributes to global warming, which makes our droughts worse and worse.
The key to effective drought tolerant Landscaping *throughout* the state is planting more and more regionally appropriate TREES. Trees provide shade and cool the environment around them, they clean and purify the air if the right species are selected, and their seasonal water use is much less than for most ornamental shrubs. However, ornamental shrubs with mulch can create beautiful and water-saving landscapes full of color and texture while providing a habitat for wildlife.
Southern California, outside of the actual desert, is actually not a desert, and in fact, LA and the Valley just to its north average more rainfall than you think -- roughly the same annual rainfall as Silicon Valley and the lower peninsula of the Bay Area. So we don't need to make the region look like a desert. But it does get hot, and we need to plant native trees like Oak, Sycamore, Torrey pine, and imported specis with limited water needs.
Just my two cents. Conservation is everyone's responsibility, not everyone else's. :-)
I expect this thoughtless and arrogant attitude from "you know who in Walnut Creek" but not from you. You are ignoring the problem.
1. Regarding oil and gas, yes we do destroy other natural habitats around our country and across the world -- it doesn't make it right, nor sustainable. And we pay a hefty price for that oil and gas. Still not right. That is why we are using solar energy and electric cars. By the end of the year I will have an electric car which will reduce my "carbon footprint" but more importantly I will be improving the air quality of where I live.
2. Isn't it only fair that you provide at least 50% of the water you use - build desalinization plants and take the water from where you live. Then we can steal the water from you, and we will see how you like it. Seriously, its the arrogance and total disregard that is most disturbing.
3. There is a bigger and much more reliable source of water in Oregon and Washington, perhaps you can take their water instead. You can tax yourself to build the infrastructure so it goes straight to your parched landscape. I wonder if the people in Oregon and Washington would feel the same way I do.
4. We in NorCal meter our water and pay a big cost for it and we really don't have to because we have enough water to sustain ourselves....oh, but we send it to you at the expense of our natural habitats and at the expense of our homes and livelihoods, but it sounds like you don't care about that.
What's arrogant is the complete hypocrisy in the argument about "stealing" water when all the other people in Sac "steal" natural resources from elsewhere too. Without the rest of the state Sac doesn't even have an economy or reason to exist. Isn't only fair that Sac provide 50% of their own oil and natural gas that they use? Start fracking and digging around and find some of our own resources to use.
I apologize if I came off as insensitive. I was hoping that other examples of resource sharing would help you see that water is no different than oil or any other resource. We all need it, and not everyone has it. I do think you are not understanding my point that Northern California does not, in fact, have enough local water to sustain itself without the supplemental reservoirs you dislike. You would never make it through the long hot dry season without them. I remember growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, going through terrible prolonged droughts in Northern California where we had severe water restrictions, and many people lost their lawns.
So maybe on average, Southern California has 9 months of drought per year, and Northern California has 6 months of drought per year. That still means everyone needs to conserve, and perhaps SoCal needs to conserve a little bit more, but it's not like only SoCal needs to conserve and NorCal doesn't. I'm just saying everyone in CA has the exact same responsibilities, and just because people in Northern California are somewhat closer to large state reservoirs doesn't mean all that water was meant for them, which it obviously wasn't, since that would be way too much water for the current population needs in NorCal alone.
I just don't get why anyone would say that some parts of our state shouldn't be entitled to a single drop of the water in the reservoirs built for that very purpose?
Some people are just massive hypocrites and apply double standards all the time. You can't reason with people like that as they are just full of excuses and won't even acknowledge your valid points.
Some people are just massive hypocrites and apply double standards all the time. You can't reason with people like that as they are just full of excuses and won't even acknowledge your valid points.
We'll see. I'm less concerned with individual people having double standards (perhaps even without realizing it) than with the broad masses having them. I notice a lot of NorCal'ers often blaming SoCal for 'wasting' and 'stealing' what they see as 'their' water, conjuring up images of SoCal'ers frolicking on giant lawns, running sprinklers all day long, and gleefully wasting our most precious resource without a care in the world. As if anyone could afford to do that anymore. That was in the 50s and 60s (maybe even later), but it was another era. SoCal has gotten its act together (at least San Diego has, but I occasionally read about more and more golf courses in the desert shutting down for conservation purposes as well). Now it's the NorCal'ers who are lagging on the conservation side, even while they point the finger at the rest of the state. Managing our water is the responsibility of ALL of us.
I apologize if I came off as insensitive. I was hoping that other examples of resource sharing would help you see that water is no different than oil or any other resource. We all need it, and not everyone has it. I do think you are not understanding my point that Northern California does not, in fact, have enough local water to sustain itself without the supplemental reservoirs you dislike. You would never make it through the long hot dry season without them. I remember growing up in the late 80s and early 90s, going through terrible prolonged droughts in Northern California where we had severe water restrictions, and many people lost their lawns.
So maybe on average, Southern California has 9 months of drought per year, and Northern California has 6 months of drought per year. That still means everyone needs to conserve, and perhaps SoCal needs to conserve a little bit more, but it's not like only SoCal needs to conserve and NorCal doesn't. I'm just saying everyone in CA has the exact same responsibilities, and just because people in Northern California are somewhat closer to large state reservoirs doesn't mean all that water was meant for them, which it obviously wasn't, since that would be way too much water for the current population needs in NorCal alone.
I just don't get why anyone would say that some parts of our state shouldn't be entitled to a single drop of the water in the reservoirs built for that very purpose?
Hey tstieber,
Thank you for apologizing. I re-read some of your posts and you sound more sensible than I first thought so I apologize as well for not communicating in a more collaborative fashion.
However, we disagree very much. Expat and Mr. Hypocrisy has misrepresented and distorted the facts of water usage in NorCal. For example, every other yard in my neighborhood is drought tolerant and I see Northern Californians replacing water thirsty landscapes all over the place, and NorCal really doesn't have to because we get enough water to sustain ourselves, but we still diligently conserve.
NorCal meters water the same way SoCal does. NorCal has hefty water prices as well. Should SoCal pay more? Absolutely they should because the infrastructure and transportation of that water exists mostly so you all can water because you all do not live where the water exists naturally.
This nonsense that Expat says about NorCal having equal the rainfall as SoCal is completely false. If you drew a line from Monterey to Yosemite and measured every single valley, mountain, urban area, river, lake and stream North of that line you would find that NorCal has at least 4 times the rainfall of SoCal if not more. All the major natural rivers and streams and natural lakes lie north of that line.
There is no hypocrisy going on here with NorCalers we are less ignorant of where are water comes from and how we use it because it is ours to lose. Without the water that lies in the North you have next to none. You can simply look at native plants and trees and see where they live naturally and you will find that NorCal is by far naturally greener than SoCal. You can make the comparison that NorCal is as much naturally greener than the PNW is greener than NorCal.
NorCal may have a lot more water than SoCal but we still have a lot less than the PNW. Why not take water from the PNW? As you all said before its all ours to own and we should share it equally. The PNW has 1/4 the population of SoCal, yet they have 10 times the water than SoCal. When you take the water from NorCal it has bigger and damaging affect on it than if you took it from the PNW.
This nonsense that Expat says about NorCal having equal the rainfall as SoCal is completely false. If you drew a line from Monterey to Yosemite and measured every single valley, mountain, urban area, river, lake and stream North of that line you would find that NorCal has at least 4 times the rainfall of SoCal if not more. All the major natural rivers and streams and natural lakes lie north of that line.
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Now it's the NorCal'ers who are lagging on the conservation side, even while they point the finger at the rest of the state. Managing our water is the responsibility of ALL of us.
Oh come on Ts, NorCal is not lagging on the conservation side. Sacramento has been metering and conserving water for years, San Franciscans don't even have lawns, like 1% of the property.
We plant NATIVE and drought tolerant plants and all those trees in downtown Sacramento survive on the natural ground water that already exists because two of the largest NATURAL rivers flow right through the heart of the Sacramento metro. When building a big building in Sacramento and you dig a hole for the foundation, the hole fills up naturally with ground water, lots of it, and it takes a long time to pump it out - we DO NOT water our trees, they live NATURALY on the ground water.
There is no double standard going on here with NorCalers. In fact, Sacramento does way more than its share because we put our lives and property at risk by allowing our American River to be damned(Folsom Dam) so we can send water to the East Bay.
Correct. I had made that comparison but only with regards to comparing Silicon Valley to Metropolitan LA and in particular the San Fernando Valley. Those areas both represent millions of citizens with similar average annual rainfall totals. Of course, on the whole, Northern California gets more rain than Southern California, but my point was simply that a lot of Northern California's population centers happen to be in locations that don't get that much rain, so that rainfall alone would not sustain their populations in those locations. There is a reason the big reservoirs are located in Northern California, of course, but those happen to be different locations than where most people live, so that's why we still have to bring water into places like the Bay Area from reservoirs.
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