Currently there are raging debates about the delta Smelt, the California levee system and if a canal or aquaduct should be created to bypass the fragile levees. How does this effect Southern California people? Well, imagine water faucets in your home that don't work.
We know that a major Earthquake will eventually happen, and that it could destroy the levee systems and allow sea water to contaminate our drinking water. Imagine 20 million people in Southern California without drinkable water. We also know that major, even historic cuts to Californias water infrastructure loom in the immediate future. There are no plans to address any of these issues, and given the feckless nature of our political class, things will only get worse.
Of course, my interest is in getting people to change the way they think about rain and rain gutters. I confess I have an agenda. I asked Jeff Helton, the regional sales manager at Bushman rain tanks what it would take to get the average Southern California person serious about collecting and storing rainwater and his answer made sense. He said, " this tract that I live in in Murietta Valley almost didn't get built because they could not get an allocation of water. New rules say that before you can build you must plan for the water. Once they start building again the water rationing will return in full force and get people off the fence about rainwater harvesting. "
Then, as I usually do I did some research and found that in an average year, water shares were issued for eight times more water than existed. Check it out yourself;
The reality is, poor planning, incompetence and a dismal failure of leadership has set California up for a epic disaster and everybody has to do their share to reduce and conserve water, for our own sakes. We have to have our own micro-infrastructure ( our homes ) yield water to decrease the dependence on a government that fails to plan, fails to act or is planning on failure. They seem to prefer endless crisis orientated realities rather than meeting these challenges head on. We all agree that the economy will not be sound until there are homes being built, but the catch 22 is that in reality there are very few homes that can be built with our infrastructure.
key thoughts: micro-infrastructure. perma-culture. self-reliance
Get this, when you read about foreign banks and Wall Street tycoons getting trillions in so called bailouts remember; " Next year water infrastructure projects and programs are expected to see massive budget cuts as President Obama has proposed slashing infrastructure spending at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (SRF) will see nearly $400 million cuts and the Clean Water SRF will be cut nearly $600 million; according to Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, these cuts in SRF budgets reflect a return to a more "sustainable level"; states worry that cuts will make it difficult to fund future infrastructure upgrades; reports have shown that the United States faces a $500 billion shortfall for water infrastructure funding over the next twenty years ".
Check it out here.
If the levee situation is not addressed, if more storage is not built then there can be no new construction in California. As the above text from homeland Security indicates, the money got spent elsewhere. These decisions are going to result in massive economic hardship and potential loss of life when the big one hits and those of us in Los Angeles look to the feds to save us, like they did in Katrina.
Every home in Southern California needs to be equipped with a rain water harvesting system with at least 1000 gallons of capacity. It is socially responsible to get rid of your grass, plant native plants that are conditioned for our desert climate. Every home should have a basic gray water system where the water from their laundry discharge is fed through pipes that water food bearing gardens.
I say 1000 gallons minimum based on a typical rain year in Anaheim. You need a large capacity to carry over through dry months, to be prepared for a water disaster. The math suggests that if 1000 square feet of roof were harvested, in a typical rain year in Anaheim California that roof would yield 8700 gallons.
IMPORTANT VIDEO! PLEASE TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO WATCH.
The Cycle of Insanity: The Real Story of Water from Surfrider Foundation on Vimeo.
Supporting links;
http://www.greendiary.com/entry/earthquake-in-california-could-cause-another-katrina-in-next-50-years/
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/node/8640
http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/water-infrastructure-budgets-see-massive-cuts-2012
