But It’s Haaaard!

Oh, geez.

By all rights, California is on the brink of creating a reverse dust-bowl event that will cause a mass exodus from the rural areas, and the state probably won’t even notice.  But the CA government, never one to screw up an opportunity, is trying to make this a time to educate the same populace that seems to keep voting for it on how to further screw things up.

It’s one thing to force 25% of the market to take up the capacity loss (hey, how about starting with the delta smelt and the farmers, and then focus on the high-hanging fruit), but it’s totally another to have that 25% clueless as to how to help.

Californians widely support Gov. Jerry Brown’s call for mandatory water cuts amid the deepening drought, according to a new poll of state residents — but many don’t know if they can pitch in.

The survey results released Tuesday by the San Francisco-based Field Poll show that while nearly two-thirds of respondents agree that water agencies should be forced to reduce consumption by an average of 25 percent, more than 4 in 10 homeowners say they don’t have the ability to cut back much.

There’s a comment in the article about needing to water lawns.  Again, oh, geez.  How about, um, you stop watering it?  Yes, it dies.  If you’re serious about water, then you let stuff die.  Or if you don’t want to do that, you water less, but in the morning before the sun rises.

I’m not saying it’s easy.  I’m saying that you have to be willing to find a solution.  At this point, the biggest concern everyone is having is the one that should have already happened… raise the water rates, which will force people to find ways to conserve.

When I lived in the Bay, I remember that the government had a big initiative to replace all the toilets in the area with low-flow types.  They funded a huge initiative to do that, including incentives… which significantly cut water in the sewer system over the next decade… which actually broke the sewer system because there wasn’t enough water to move the effluent.  So they had to flush the system with… water.

I hope California gets some rain soon.  Otherwise, they’ll start trying to truck it from Oregon.