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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Angelika It's been reported all over the world that California has been struggling with a severe drought for four years now, because there hasn't been enough rainfall during the winter months. We've been experiencing the effects of this lately day in and day out. Caused by the extreme dryness all around, there's no less than 17 active wild fires raging across the State of California, and even in our neighborhood in San Francisco, we can smell smoke and the air is quite hazy.
Although San Francisco hasn't legislated compulsory measures for saving water yet, there's reminders towards conserving the precious resource all over the place. The new slogan "Brown is the new Green!" refers to the city no longer watering their public green spaces, and they're asking citizens to follow suit.
Many restaurants stopped automatically serving glasses filled with tap water at their tables. I hope that this stays that way, regardless of the drought. And, unfortunately, the park service has turned off all showers at the public state beaches, forcing visitors to return home with sandy feet! And many gardeners are coping with the water shortage by picking plants which get by with very little watering.
Some hobby gardeners are watering their plants with reclaimed waste water. A few municipal wastewater recycling plants offer this turbid water product for free and people are driving to these places with giant containers on their trucks to haul them back filled with few hundred gallons. Their offerings have become so popular that they've started restricting the program to local residents.
It never ceases to amaze me how people completely change their behaviour and mutate to environmentalists, just because they're not given a choice. Even our carwash place is now closed on Wednesdays, to conserve water. Some people cut so far back on their water usage that this led to downright absurdities, like the water supply companies raising their prices (up to 30%) because due to concerted conservation efforts, they're not selling enough water to cover their cost. Now, we all put our hopes on the forcasted El Nino winter, which is supposed to bring the desired rain.
Recently, news broke that the actor Tom Selleck, well-known for his lead role in the 80ies TV series "Magnum", had become entangled in an irrigation scandal. The Callegues Municipal Water District found it curious that a privately owned water truck had been heading to a public water hydrant several times a week, to syphon off a full tank of water and drive it the actor's property. They hired a private investigator for a whopping $20,000 and found out that Magnum used the water to irrigate his vast lot of greenery. And that while his neighbors dutyfully rationed their water to comply with state mandates, and were forced to look at their own dried brown turf in disdain! The water district sued Magnum, but both parties reached a settlement out of court, where Magnum paid the cost for the private investigator back, plus an undisclosed amount in damages.
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