Privilaged and Parched in Montecito

[EE_]

October 15, 2014, 6:58 AM
For California's wealthy, drought a problem money can't fix

Article and video: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/montecito-california-drought-has-wealthy-residents-paying-water-usage-fines/

California's punishing drought is entering its fourth year, with reservoirs a mere 36 percent full.

One area running out of water is Montecito, an upscale community home to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise and Ellen Degeneres.

Now, those who lack for nearly nothing are coping with a problem money can't solve, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy.

"The real impact is that we've invested a lot of money in our lawns and our shrubbery and our flowers and so forth," resident Pat Nesbitt said. "That's all going to have to be replaced at some point."

Nesbitt's front yard is a full-sized polo field. But the grass is now dead and his ponds empty.

Montecito cut Nesbitt's water allotment by 90 percent. He now tracks his water use every day.

If he uses too much, he's fined.

"Most people are working hard as hell to get below their allocations so they don't get fined," Nesbitt said. "And those that can are importing water."

Tom Mosby heads the Montecito Water Authority. Faced with running out of water, he imposed drastic water cuts on the area's 10,000 residents.

He's already handed out $2 million in fines to people who use more than they're allowed.

"It's been difficult," Mosby said. "We've had many people come to us with appeals asking us for more water."

Montecito has almost no ground water access. Eighty-five percent of its supply comes from nearby Lake Cachuma. It is now just 30 percent full -- part pond, but mostly prairie. If the drought continues, it could be empty next year.

"Without Lake Cachuma, we're going to definitely have to be looking at an alternate water supply that currently does not exist," Mosby said.

Larry Reiche's water allotment was cut by 60 percent. He's spent nearly $200,000 ripping up his landscape and installing drought-tolerant plants and trees. All of his grass is now artificial.

He admits, in retrospect, he may have been using more water than he needed to.

"We know there is a limited amount of water, but yet we all used water like there was an unlimited supply," Reiche admitted.

He's praying for rain and that Montecito does not become a paradise lost to the drought.

[EE_]

The solution...

Drop a brick, feel better about the California drought
By Sara Bernard

If every Californian dropped a brick in the toilet, according to founders of the Drop-A-Brick campaign, it’d save the state 67 million gallons of water a day. “The brick I dropped was the same size as my dad’s,” says a pigtailed girl in the project’s Indiegogo video.

The Drop-A-Brick founders aren’t hawking your typical red-clay bricks. And they aren’t suggesting a mass bowel movement, either. The Drop-A-Brick is a device that promises to save water by taking up room in your toilet tank. The old-school idea is that if you displace that extra half-gallon of water with a brick, you’re not using said amount to flush your toilet. The Indiegogo page says that Drop-A-Bricks are made of a nontoxic rubber, cost $15, and arrive in the mail squished flat. They’re filled with a hydro-gel that expands once you add a bit of water and makes the thing heavy enough to sink.

It’s a great PR campaign for water-saving techniques in a state that’s probably going through its worst drought in 500 years and whose dwindling aquifers are getting slammed with billions of gallons of fracking wastewater, along with plenty of other bad news. Americans use more water flushing toilets than showering or any other activity, according to the EPA. And what’s not to love about a poop joke?

But $15 for a rubber brick? You gotta be shittin’ me! (Wink, wink.) I bet I could find me a real brick (or 10) for free. OK, OK — project founders claim that regular bricks would eventually dissolve and cause all sorts of expensive problems for people’s toilets. And these eco-friendly rubber bricks can squeeze into oddly shaped toilet tanks more easily than clay bricks. Right. But wouldn’t, like, a rock also do the job?
http://grist.org/list/drop-a-brick-feel-better-about-the-california-drought/

[brosil]

How many times do you have to flush after you add the brick?

[Dogman]

Have the same bricks in my tanks that were placed in them by my grandpa in 1967 shortly after this house was built! Two per tank and still intact, not to I check them much.

[milehi]

I use a couple quart sized Mason jars full of gravel.

[Dogman]

I use a couple quart sized Mason jars full of gravel.



Hummmmm! :)


Good way and place to stash PM's and such also, who thinks of toilet bowls!

Also a great brick replacement except the lids rusting!

[crimethink]

How many times do you have to flush after you add the brick?

You'll likely use 150%+ of the amount of water you'd use without the brick, since you have to flush twice.

[Serpo]

You guys cant be that far behind, we have had DUAL flush in OZ for decades.


http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/australia_innovates/?behaviour=view_article&Section_id=1040&article_id=10044

[crimethink]

You guys cant be that far behind, we have had DUAL flush in OZ for decades.


http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/australia_innovates/?behaviour=view_article&Section_id=1040&article_id=10044

Only fanatics have those here. They haven't taken off here because they don't work. You have to push the Number 2 button regardless.

[osoab]

urinals for every home!

[Serpo]

Only fanatics have those here. They haven't taken off here because they don't work. You have to push the Number 2 button regardless.

What hahaha

In OZ they are NORMAL and seeing a single flush toilet is unusual now.

Using gallons of water to flush away urine is inherently a stupid idea and OZ being the driest continent on earth, means we have been through all this dry weather and water shortage stuff and have learnt.

[crimethink]

What hahaha

In OZ they are NORMAL and seeing a single flush toilet is unusual now.

Using gallons of water to flush away urine is inherently a stupid idea and OZ being the driest continent on earth, means we have been through all this dry weather and water shortage stuff and have learnt.

If it's "normal" in Australia, it must good, right? Just like "gun control."

I've had experience with these toilets, and they are a joke. The bowl is still full of yellow. If they weren't a joke, people here would readily install them voluntarily. People like Al Gore push these things.

We could always go to an even greater extreme, and have squat toilets. Have a pile of turds just sitting there exposed to the air, with their "pleasant" aroma, just so we can save on water.

[Dogman]

For men any sink will do or step outside and kill some plants!

But women do have problems with those solutions! >:(

Low volume flush tanks suck except the hi pressure ones but they can crack and leak, replacements suck !

I like my old school ones, simple and cheap upkeep!

New style one need bowl brushes handy!

[crimethink]

For men any sink will do or step outside and kill some plants! But women do have problems with those solutions!

(:

Low volume flush tanks suck except the hi pressure ones but they can crack and leak, replacements suck !

I like my old school ones, simple and cheap upkeep!

The same notorious spokesmen who push such things on we little folk have no problem with acres of green lawns for golf, Olympic-sized private swimming pools, acres & acres of vines solely for alcoholic beverages, and even artificially flooding a low stream for a campaign photo-op (i.e., Al Gore).

Toilets, in the great scheme of things, are about 50th, or less, on the list of "water wasters."