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California Fights Drought With Data and Psychology, Yielding 5% Usage Reduction
dcblogs writes with an article about hackers using technology to mitigate the effects of drought. From the article: "California is facing its worst drought in more than 100 years, and one with no end in sight. But it is offering Silicon Valley opportunities. In one project, the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Oakland used customized usage reports .... that [compare] a customer's water use against average use for similar sized households. It uses a form of peer pressure to change behavior. A ... year-long pilot showed a 5% reduction in water usage. The utility said the reporting system could 'go a long way' toward helping the state meet its goal of a reducing water usage by 20% per capita statewide. In other tech related activities, the organizer of a water-tech focused hackathon, Hack the Drought is hoping this effort leads to new water conserving approaches. Overall, water tech supporters are working to bring more investor attention to this market. Imagine H2O, a non-profit, holds annual water tech contests and then helps with access to venture funding. The effort is focused on 'trying to address the market failure in the water sector,' Scott Bryan, the chief operating officer of Imagine H2O."
So, how long before they start redefining "average" down below the actual average so as to make even more people feel bad about themselves?
After all, it's pretty much just a line of code to reduce the value displayed under "average use" to be, well, whatever the coder wants it to be.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I had my T&E team start sending expense reports with a ranking compared to average, and a percentage of total.
I also publish the list on our internal Intranet, along with all of the expense reports, so everyone can see who the big spenders are.
Within 6 months of doing so, our expense spending dropped 50%. People are much less prone to spend company money unnecessarily when they'll be called out on it.
Ah that explains the monthly 'here is your power usage graph' mail I get every month from my power company. My graph is higher than all the others. Yet I talk to my neighbors and my bill is 'waaaaaaaay lower'.
I might take the water use comparison as a challenge and try to use the most water. Isn't more better?
It's goal is to get water to people, not make as much money as possible from people.
Only an idiot wants to put resources needed for the most basic survival in the market.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Stop trying to farm and build huge cities in the desert. When you fuss about not being able to find enough water in the desert I just want to sit in my muddy, humid, rainy state... and watch you die of thirst.
so a group of peope had the brilliant idea of building massive cities and huge agricultural farmlands in a desert, made possible by unsustainable draining of acquifers and importation of water from other states.
and now they have a "drought"?
can't raise enough moisture for a tear over here....
Why not simply lower the water pressure by 10% to curb water usage?
What happened to slashdot's design? It's so much harder to read now. Bring back black text and white backgrounds! My eyes hurt reading here.
There's a government failrue that's decided that 3" fish are more important than people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Does anyone else see another annihilation of privacy here?
If you want to reduce water use then eliminate the corporate welfare for agriculture. Better yet, reduce the number of people in the strained geography. It's simple math: Total Resources Available = Resource Consumption Rate x Number of People
What's the best way to control this? Cost. Remove all the subsidies beyond a minimum X gallons per person. Let people and markets drive the rest.
If the drought continues they will just make usage reduction mandatory. As has happened in the past, they will probably define reduction in terms of last year's usage, meaning those who compliantly reduced their usage this year get punished and must reduce it below their needs next year, whereas those who refused to reduce it this year will be allowed to still meet their needs next year.
They could save themselves a heap of trouble and just tax usage, and let the free market sort it out.
There is merely a shortage of raw materials (H2O) for big agriculture.
Agriculture consumes 80% of the water in California and contributes 5% of the economy. There is sufficient water in California to supply the cities 5 times over.
But before you fly-over states get all self-righteous, think about this the next time you buy fresh salad greens in January.
If this method has reduced usage by 5% on average, then the average has already been reduced. Which bit eluded you?
And why is it WRONG to stop wasting? After all, this seems to be the complaint you have, though you couch it in the opposite term, I just didn't take the one that made you the victim of someone restricting your use and made it your wanton desire to waste.
Well, folks are used to paying too much for water. Walk down the beverage aisle in your local super market.
Markets can be good. There is so much water wasted due to inefficiencies and just plain stupidity - like having a lush lawn or golf course in the middle of the desert. If people really had to pay, it would be an incentive to be more efficient. Agriculture is not efficient with their use of water because it's so cheap and growing grass for lawns or golf courses are the dumbest uses of water I can think of.
Water use taxes are a better option because it won't make drinking and cooking water expensive but make stupid uses pay their way. I think there should be a special water tax on golf courses. They can afford it anyway. The same for lawns.
These old people move down to the Southwest for the desert weather and what do they do? Plant lawns and other water intensive plants that have no business being in the desert. And being old and rich, they put in golf courses, too. In the meantime, others have to deal with less water for drinking, cooking and agriculture.
As someone who lives in Alameda County, I have been greatly saddened by a reduced rainy season...I love my rain. I'm trying to be aware of my water usage, and have been looking at ways to reduce. One key place, that I think is dramatically impactful on the water I use is in how I clean my dishes. Rinsing dishes, pots and pans, right after use is a huge water saver...no need to waste water soaking them to make them easier to clean.
Moderate flushing, as well, is another area.
Did the usage reports really result in a 5% drop in water usage, or is it the fact that for the past 4 months, you can't watch the news without hearing all about the drought conditions and how people have to stop flushing their toilets so much. Meanwhile, residential use accounts for only 10 - 15% of California's water use, so even if everyone cut their use by 20%, it really wouldn't solve the problem.
San Francisco dumps water into the ocean. Wasteful hippies.
"These are not the faucets you are looking for."
Table-ized A.I.
In Denver we suffered through a drought that lasted a few years. There was a big campaign to get people to reduce their water usage - and it worked! People significantly reduced their water usage - so much that the water board was no longer getting the revenue that it said it needed. So, the rates went up.
Funny how the rates didn't go back down when the drought was over.
Also, not surprisingly, the golf courses got all the water they wanted.
CA is suffering a lack of water because billions of gallons of fresh water have been dumped into the ocean in order to supposedly "save" an insignificant fish.
Latino immigrants vote Dem to get gov handouts which keep Dems in power. Dems in power cater to extremists in their own party resulting in CA's drought and CA's brainwashing of kindergarteners with the radical politics of alternative sexual lifestyles. CA is in bad shape now, but it is going to be one truly f***ed up place in 20 years.
I find residential usage citations vary from 5-13% of total California water usage. Let's say it's 10%. I'm having a hard time figuring out how cutting my usage by, say, a big 25% along with every other California resident is going to solve the problem when that represents maybe 2.5% of total water usage. Don't get me wrong, I see no reason to waste water unnecessarily, but I just don't get all the emphasis on residential usage when it's a drop in the bucket. What am I missing?
Water saving measures have drained funds from water taxes that are used to maintain the infrastructure...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com...
uh, the invisible hand won't make it rain. predatory capitalists suck more than water.
Meanwhile billions of gallons of water from California are, essentially, being exported to China.
NB: I apologize if the article is paywalled. The first look is free.
Proverbs 21:19
I do not understand why politicians wont do this. Raise the rates 400% and water usage will drop and in the end a true crises of NO WATER by the summer will be avoided.
The laws of supply and demand benefit everyone even including the consumer. Why don't the left wing politicians see this? It benefits the consumer as Lake Mead wont dry up totally.
When next winter when the snow and rain returns then you lower prices or keep them high while the reservoirs recover. ... oh heck who am I kidding. The top 3 big farm corporations will cry foul and go lobby some money to use up everyone's water at prices below demand and then freak out when no water is left. I hope I am not being too cynical but corruption is pissing me off.
http://saveie6.com/
I will take this seriously when they cease watering golf courses. Until then, it is just theater.
"...each course each day in Palm Springs consumes as much water as an American family of four uses in four years. "
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
For the past two weeks the town I live in and many other towns have issued a "please keep one faucet running in your house at all times" plea. This is so that water keeps running through the pipes outside so they done freeze and burst. Pipes that are 14 feet deep, BTW. Tell me more about global warming, please.
Try the answer that everyone else uses. You simply must issue loads and loads of building permits. Do everything possible to attract millions of new residents. Keep soliciting businesses to move into the state. That will keep you inline with other states with wretched issues. Make certain that birth control and abortions are impossible to get or so expensive that people never use them. And whatever you do please do not build resevoirs, canals, or any other method of storing water. Be certain that you do not plant ground covers that would prevent water losses. Please do turn the land into roof tops, asphalt and concrete. And do not begin the evacuation now. Film crews love it when the dead and dying litter the streets in large numbers. Fox News will blame it all on Obama anyway. The rest of the nation can engage in hand wringing while chanting ain't it awful. Carpet baggers will come in droves buying the rich estates for pennies and new books will be sold on late night TV about how everyone can get rich taking possession of abandoned California properties. The National Guard will arrive handing out two ready to eat meals but no water.
I was on an island that always has a fresh water shortage. Beside each toilet there was a little sign. "If it's yellow let it mellow. If it's brown flush it down." If we can get over the issue of having pee sit in the toilet we can reduce water consumption significantly. Pee does not need to be flushed immediately.
First, are you in the area effected by the drought?
Second, are you in an area that is very cold without snow?
Third, the pipes are not always 14' below ground. Your house is probably above ground so there must me a pipe that goes from 14' below ground to at least ground level to get to your house. I bet if you go outside you will find a shut off valve between the water main and your house. I doubt very much that the valve is 14' below ground level. It is that section that might freeze.
Sorry i cant hear you with all my Canadian 3 feet of snow and gazillion lakes full of water !.
Just a recommendation for lowering your local water consumption...
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Tell me more about global warming, please.
Sure thing.
The problem is not a "market failure", it is that the market is distorted. If the true laws of supply and demand were allowed to work on the water market in California, then water would be a lot more expensive right now because of how rare it is due to drought.
If the people are using too much water then raise the price. Define what consitutes a "drought" in strict terms (average rainfall below some amount for X days in a row), and raise the price per gallon of water an extra 50% during these drought conditions. Add in a credit for people below the poverty line so that they don't have issues.
Usage problems will be solved overnight. Charge people more and they will use less. Wallet pressure works a lot better than "peer pressure".
And watch how quickly usage drops. The problem now is that people waste water because they dont really pay for it. Its well past time we just lift ALL government regulation and control, and hand the keys to the water plants and pipes over to the corporations that have proven over and over again that they, and they alone, can fix societies problems once and for all. Remember when it was proven how much better the Obamacare website would have been if Apple or Google did it instead of fat cat beurocrats and lazy welfare queen goverment employees? Now imagine that kind of amazing improvement but with WATER.
As usual the free market would solve every one of our problems but we keep listening to stupid liberal leftist statists and the problems just keep getting worse.
They just need to do what they've done in other western "dry" states and price water on consumption. In my state I pay a normal about $30 a month for the first 7000 gallons, which is enough for most moderately sized households internal uses. But the next 7000 gallons cost me double the $30 and the third set of 7000 costs me triple. In the summer my water bill goes from $30 a month to almost $300. This progressive pricing was introduced during our last big drought and water consumption went down 20% almost immediately and has continued to drop every year. Xeroscaping became very popular.
In fact I'm in the process of ripping up several hundred feet of sod to be replaced with native plants.
That link to 'hackthedrought.org' is blocked because "Suspicious Content. Sites in this category may pose a security threat to network resources or private information, and are blocked by your organization."
Teach them to put the word " |-| @ C | " into their URL! Nasty terrorists!
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Interesting how they call it a "failure of the market" before the market has an opportunity to correct itself. I guess it's just another person who doesn't understand how the market works.
Check.
The merging of corporate and government power is fascism,
is basically what Mussolini said, and that is what we have to be sure.
When the citizen serfs pay 10 times or more then what the Big AgriBiz
folks pay then the game is rigged.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
How are farmers wasting massive amounts of water? Do you know anything about food production and agricultural water use in general? American farmers do export a lot of food, but your food prices are low because of the wealth of food grown right in your backyard. Where are farmers growing food where they shouldn't be? Do you have an alternative? In many places, the best farmland is under cities now, perhaps pushing farmer to more marginal lands. This is an unfortunate consequence of growth. Granted.
Farming is under more pressure than any other industry to use water efficiently and effectively. And farmers are more aware than anyone else how scarce it is and how badly drought can affect them. Especially in California, irrigation is done using the most efficient means possible. Drip irrigation, low-pressure center pivots that put water down close to the plants. Irrigation losses to evaporation during irrigation are about as low as they can get. Current pivots are, depending on the wind, around 85% efficient, which is pretty good. Could we get better? maybe so. In the end, though, it still takes a lot of water to raise vegetables, grains, fruits. All things that, when they are in season, you enjoy, locally sourced.
I heard an astounding sound bite on the news once. A woman was upset about having her city water rationed in Reno, NV, and, I kid you not, said to the interviewer, "Why do farmers need all that water anyway? Why can't they buy their food at a grocery store like everyone else?" Just. Wow.
What was the uncertainty level for that study? 5% seems like it might be in the noise.
Which average did the water users get?
http://www.naturalnews.com/029...
http://www.climatedepot.com/20...
Well we seem to be breaking all time cold and snowfall records so...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Thanks! I always appreciate a good XKCD.
Fact: The cost of water is TINY even when it is scarce because it's a socialized resource. Bringing in water great distances can be costly initially unless done really poorly it eventually ends up cheap.
The REAL cost of water that you really pay for is the SEWAGE cost. SEWAGE processing is some expensive shit. ;-) They couldn't measure sewage but they could measure the water they also run into your house; also done by the city. Every place that doubled the two services up (almost everywhere with city water) puts the sewage treatment costs into the water costs. It's not precise but if you use a lot of water you are more likely putting out more sewage too. This is why most cities forbid wells once they run city sewer because then people get nearly free sewer service because they don't use the metered water service.
I know somebody who invented a sewage measuring device, but it never got anywhere because they don't want the added cost of requiring it in new developments... plus they'd keep measuring the water too and water meters are cheaper. Averaging out the sewage costs to water usage is a simple cheap accounting solution.
If you really want to cut water use, start making people store their own rain water and subsidize it with the water bills; eventually removing most the city water system. Sewage would also have to be done along with this, obviously. That would require a great deal of changes since sewage is a complex problem nobody thinks about (we just pollute... BTW, modern treatment is only partially effective.) Then you have to ban products being put down the drain... we should have done that already... those flushed drugs end up in the ecosystem and back in us (not to mention the bad kinds of microbiological evolution it promotes.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Native of Israel here - we got screwed by our gov and water utilities company. As we had our share of droughts besides the campaigns the water prices got raised dramatically. But during the not no droughty years they didn't reduce back the water price rates. There are quite many people around angry about this.
...happen is gearing up for mud slides relief and prevention..Cause it is going to rain....
what do you do when it freezes?
regards,
californian
But yes, as someone with their own well and septic and who lives on a small lake, I laugh in the face of these people who moved to the desert and are surprised to find there isn't enough water to go around...
When I water MY lawn (not that I do, but I guess I COULD) it goes right back into the well it came from whether directly through the ground or coming back as rain-water. That's completely sustainable and if I ran my pump on Solar would be ZERO impact. If only the West-Coasters had thought of THAT!
Instead of using a single sink-full or half-sink-full of water to soak all your dishes at once, you'll run the water over and over and over again to rinse the stuff off instead? Why not just use a damp cloth and WIPE them off into the compost bin/trash/neighbors lawn?
What a well thought through and nuanced position that is. As a rule, famine doesn't happen because people live in a desert. It happens because of crop failure. Or war. Or any combination of a number of social and geo-political factors. But because they live in a desert? Not so much. Further, the "great" Sam's position implies that people have a choice about where they live. Again, not so much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yZhh2leRJA
google can find anything, water is no exception
The only drought proof source of water in California is the Pacific Ocean. Build large scale solar or nuclear plants in the desert, send power to shorline or offshore desalination plants, and pipe the water back. This combined with treating sewage water dumped into the ocean is the way of the future. Some states and countries are already doing one or both, but it has to be done at a higher level of government, not each individual water entity. I started getting similar "average usage" reports a couple of months ago from SDGE, probably for the same reason.
Beware of the Redittor who loans you a Sharpie.
Isn't there a way to use salt water to change to usable water to drink and stuff?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Given this data it doesn't make sense to spend money to reduce a fraction of 10% when the same money could be spent in research or pressure on industries that swallow all of California's water.
It's the right-wing that want to keep their hands off the market and let the market do what it will and complain about the left-wing interfering in the free market.
Half-truth. The right-wing wants to keep their hands in the market, while pretending the market is doing what it is doing. This is a mainstay of business -- there are no consequences for my actions, my actions affect noone, and everything besides me is not important.
The left-wing also wants to keep their hands in the market, while pretending they are outside of it. They do this under the claim that they are preventing interfering. The method they use to prevent the right-wingers from interfering is they interfere themselves.
Even at greatly increased prices tap water used for drinking does not amount to much money. That and a couple of flushes a day is all anyone needs, and that's not enough to justify a cutout for the poor.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
If that is truely all one needs then this cutout would not be expensive would it? And it would be paid for from the increased revenues. This is the way all necessities should be costed. Equal opportunity over equal outcomes.
I don't mean are they trying to use less water like everyone else. I mean - have they mandated ZERO growth for their cities? NO new housing, NO new businesses, NO new developments, NO new malls? If not, why not? If this is a water crisis then at the minimum you need to cut all NEW drains on the water supply to zero.
If they have not done this, and will not ever do it (as seems likely) then the problem will never be made any better. Any conservation gains will be eaten up by new demands, add infinitem.
Desalinization: solution to near unlimited water
Am I the only one who notices that California borders the Pacific Ocean?
Am I the only one who things that California should desalinate the water, and pump from the ocean?
California doesn't have water because they just want to steal water from other states at a cheaper cost than it would take to produce their own.
Ok, so desalinization is too expensive?
What if California could increase the water supply without desalinization? If only there was a Great Salt Lake a few states to the east that had a natural evaporation system to desalinate water. This natural evaporation system would increase water that flows from the Rocky Mountains mountains to California. Then California could pump Ocean salt water into such a lake, keeping it full so more water is in the rivers running toward California.
Now, are their problems to solve to make these solutions work? Sure. But they are solvable.
Turn all the canals off! Build lakes, resevoirs up in the mountains and preserve the water for future use. The Core of Eng. should be shot for building the canals. Very bad planning, nobody could forsee the time when Cal. would NEED water. I guarantee you people were screaming that the water should be preserved not thrown away. Tell the town fathers, grandfathers and great grandfathers that okayed this catastraphy that they just lost their right to live in Calif. Shame on you!
I hate to be antedeluvian, but I haven't been to Slashdot in a while and this new beta interface is terrible.
Flushing water can be reduced by using composting toilet. Should increase demand for that technology.