My car spends its idle time under a tree of unknown — to me — species, though obviously one eager to dump leaves in the fall that rot quickly into black gum and messy pods in the spring. As a result, dark blotches pock the exterior while meandering muddy streaks serve as reminders of the last rainstorm, when rivulets of water carved through the grime. Meanwhile brake dust, tar and plain old dirt blanket the once gleaming after market wheels.
Mind you, I’m proud of the car’s appearance — or, rather, thankful that California’s drought and Gov. Jerry Brown’s mandatory water restrictions relieve me from the burden of washing almost a year’s worth of travel. I also consider last week’s announcement and excuse to skip shaving three, four, perhaps even five days a week.
The need to conserve water has transformed my desire to avoid tedious chores from mere slovenliness to a thoughtful, almost dutiful sense of concern. In fact, I’m not going to stop at public appearance. My commitment to slashing 25 percent from our water use is so great, I plan to change a lifelong habit of filling eight glasses a day from the tap.
From now on I’m drinking scotch.
In other words, it’s possible to consider the demand for cutbacks with a ‘glass half full’ optimism, so long as that glass is half full of aged and fermented malt. But the scramble to guzzle before the rule goes into effect June 1 and the finger pointing started almost as soon as the governor wrapped up his announcement.
Stories of homeowners rushing to install new pools and hot tubs ricocheted around social media and news sites late last week. Much of the finger pointing is directed at the agricultural sector, which has been excluded so far from the 25 percent plan. Although making up just 2 percent of the gross state product, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, farms and ranches account for 80 percent of “human water use.”
But the problem is not that simple. When the same organization considered the total amount of water in the state, including the amount — admittedly dwindling — in streams unavailable for human use, approximately half of this share went to environmental functions, 40 percent to agriculture and 10 percent to the urban sector. Throw in local wells, century-old water rights pacts and other allocations, it becomes clear that general data on agricultural irrigation requires greater detail.
Golf courses have become another obvious target of water wastage scorn, although some statistics suggest the links up and down the state drink up only 1 percent of all water. Households and businesses are easier to pin down.
On average Californians consume 109 gallons of water per person per day, according to recent accounts. Again, this varies greatly from region to region, with the Bay Area and the stretch from the Los Angeles metro area to the desert playgrounds of the wealthy use far more. The Public Policy Institute claims that half of this goes toward residential and commercial landscaping.
That’s an area where we can cut back without much effort.
Over the weekend I took a look at our bill from the city before grudgingly writing a check. We use somewhere in the region of 70 to 75 gallons of water each day — if my attempt at translating cubic feet into gallons is accurate (and keep in mind I passed high school “Math for Athletes” with an A then found a way to avoid the subject in college). We can cut this even further.
Our method is rather simple. Apart from driving an eyesore and walking around with a patch of stubble that would make the Clint Eastwood of Spaghetti Western days doubt his masculinity, we simply ignore the patch of weeds out front.
Another half full bonus: no lawn work.
The only added task is collecting water while waiting for the shower to heat up so we can water the flower beds and stray rose bushes. And the only hazard involved is spilling this precious stuff after a few water-saving gulps from the half full glasses of 12-year-old Highland malt.
