California's Water - Residential

In this series on California's water crisis I've talked about both environmental and agricultural uses of water.  This time I want to talk about water use in the home, after all this is where you and I can save water and make a real difference.

Before I can detail some ways to save water around the house, it's important to understand where water goes in a typical home.  From a high level standpoint we can make two distinctions, outdoor and indoor water use.  Studies of water use of a lot of different homes have found that in a typical American home 75% of all water use is outdoors - the bulk of which goes to landscaping.  So if you want to save the most water start on the outside of your house.

Below is a list of a lot of great tips to save water.  Some of these are easy and cheap to do and others are expensive and/or hard to do. It's up to you to do what you can to save water - so even if you pick the easy ones you're still helping the overall crisis.

• Reduce the amount of watering done on your landscaping.  Water for shorter periods of time, water every X number of days, etc.
• Water at the optimal time of day, usually early in the morning before the heat and wind of the afternoon.  This minimizes loss due to evaporation.
• Use drip irrigation lines where possible.
• Install and use timers on your sprinklers.  This eliminates the hassle of having to remember to turn it off and on, allows you to control exactly how much water is being used, and helps you to control what days and times watering occurs.  In other words, it's a win all around.
• Use a soil moisture meter and only water when the ground needs it.
• Consider installing drought tolerant landscaping.  After all, the grasses, bushes, and trees most of us have in our yards are not native to California and require EXTENSIVE amounts of water to keep it alive.
• If you use a hose to wash off the exterior of your house, sidewalks, and/or driveways then use other methods such as a cobweb duster and broom.

Another great tip is to avoid washing your car at home and instead use an automated car wash.  But beware, not all car washes are created equal.  Those small units attached to gas stations can use as much, or more, water compared to a typical home car wash.  The key is to find a place that exclusively does car washes and uses water saving practices.  Such a place will recycle water between washing, as well as filtering out oil, dirt, and detergent to keep them out of the sewer and storm drains.  Unfortunately there really isn't a way to tell if a car wash does all this or is actually using more water than washing at home.  You can always ask or check their website - but they may not say.  Barring that I would suggest using the newest dedicated car wash you can find.  Newer facilities will have to comply with newer ordinances about water use so you're more likely to find a place that will save water.  Another tip, "touchless" car wash machines use more water than a conventional car wash.  So don't be afraid of a conventional car wash machine - after all if you wash at home don't you touch your car?


In the next post I'll cover water use inside the home.

California's Water - Agriculture

Last time, in this series on California's drought, I talked about the distribution of California's water and how "environmental" uses get 50% of all the water.  This time I'll talk about the next largest allocation of water in California which is agriculture.  Agriculture uses 40% of California's water leaving only 10% for urban use.

[Note: Sometimes this statistic is reported as 80%.  When this happens they choose to ignore the 50% of California's water that is not diverted for man's use.  Whether it's 40% agriculture / 10% urban or 80% agriculture / 20% urban the statistic is the same, a 4:1 ratio.]

Some people, especially people in California who are required to conserve water, will get annoyed that agriculture gets so much water.  If only farmers would use less water then there would be plenty for the rest of us.  It's my hope to defend the farmer and enlighten the average person on this situation.

Obviously those farmers are not just wasting the water, they are using it to grow food.  The same food you and I eat in the grocery store.  And when I say "we" I'm talking about everyone in the US and a large number of people in the world.  Whereas the midwest grows tons of corn and grain, the vast majority of fruits, vegetables, and nuts are grown in California.  Here is a very small partial list of the largest crops grown in California.

• Peaches
• Plums (and prunes)
• Grapes (and raisins)
• Figs
• Apricots
• Strawberries
• Apples
• Oranges
• Nectarines
• Dates
• Kiwi
• Lemons
• Melons
• Tomatoes
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Carrots
• Onions
• Garlic 
• Celery
• Mushrooms
• Lettuce
• Artichokes
• Peppers
• Avocados
• Olives
• Asparagus
• Almonds
• Walnuts
• Pistachios

If you live in the US and you eat these foods, chances are it came from California.  Many of these items are grown almost exclusively in California.

In addition to the above, California is the second largest grower of cotton.  Also, California produces 90% of all the wine made in the US.

Oh, and let's not forget things like milk, beef, chicken, eggs, sheep (and wool), pork, and turkey.  Yep, you guessed it, California produces the majority of that as well.


In these lists, did you see anything you enjoy eating?  Chances are the majority of the food you eat, regardless of where you live in the US, comes from California.  So hopefully you see the importance of the agriculture sector and giving water to farmers.  Without water for California farmers everyone's food would be significantly more expensive!


Ok, so farmers are important - but do they have to use so much water to grow our food?  Well believe me when I say that farmers have long been doing EVERYTHING they can to cut water use.  When growing food is your job, and water is scarce and expensive, you do everything possible to make the most of it.  If you think your water bill is high, image the water bill for a farmer!  They buy their water by the acre-foot.  Several decades ago 1 acre-foot of water might have cost $50.  Now that same acre-foot of water might cost $300, $500, even as high as $1000.  This is why, long ago, farmers switched to drip-irrigation systems, smarter watering practices, changing crops to those that require less water, using reclaimed water, etc.

So it is true that agriculture uses 4 times as much water as urban uses here in California, but hopefully you understand the importance of that water and believe that farmers are doing everything they can to make every last drop count.

Next time I'll finally talk about water use in the home.

California's Water - Distribution

In this second post on the subject, I wanted to talk about how Califnoria's water is distributed.  One thing you can definitely say about California, because water is such a precious commodity water is heavily studied, tracked, and reported on.  Knowing where water is going and how it's being used are the first steps in conserving it.  Below is a graph showing the breakdown of all water that falls in California in the form of rain and snow.

The first thing you'll notice is the largest piece, a full half of the water supply, is "environmental."  What exactly is that?  Environmental is my blanket term for what all the surveys break down into smaller categories.  This is basically water that is NOT captured or used directly by man.  This is water that is allowed to remain in streams, pass through dams, flow into lakes, estuaries, wetlands, and the ocean.

At this point you're probably asking yourself, if there is a water crisis why isn't California capturing and using this half of the available water?  The answer to that is more political.  Because of federal, state, and local regulations this water must be allowed to flow free - whether that's to preserve native habitat, help with an endangered species, etc.  Some people get very emotional on this issue - after all is a fish really worth preserving when we're running out of water?  I don't want to get into a political issue here and take sides either for or against these environmental regulations.  But I will say that the issue is far more complex and, like many things in life, the answer is a balance.

We cannot simply take all of the water for our use and the environment be dammed (no pun intended).  We need the environment more than people realize.  Wetlands filter pollutants and debris out of water.  Trees and forests clean the air.  And this is to say nothing about the recreation from going to the forest, lakes, rivers, etc.

Even though this "environmental" piece accounts for half of the available water in California, consider this water off the table when it comes to conservation and California's water issue.  In the next post I'll look at the next biggest piece of the pie - agriculture.

California's drought and water issues

Anyone who has watched the news lately knows that California is in the middle of a severe drought.  Now before you say to yourself "I don't live in California, this doesn't affect me" - I implore you to continue reading as this does affect you.  Anyway, I was born and raised in California, so drought is nothing new to me.  Over my lifetime California has always been in and out of drought.  That said, this one is by far the worst I've seen.  I don't know if it's the scope, the severity, or the longevity of this drought, but over the last 2 years I have seen reservoirs drying up that have never dried up during previous droughts.  Put simply, our available water is disappearing!  That should alarm you.

Because of this, I am taking this matter very seriously.  Everyone, especially us in California, needs to conserve water, and I fear most other people aren't taking it as seriously as they should.  Either that or they don't know what or how to act.  After all, Governor Jerry Brown mandates the state consume 25% less water, but I haven't seen a single tip, guideline, or rule on how to consume less water.  So I wanted to blog a whole series about water usage and, more importantly, how to conserve water.

In this first post I wanted to talk about how and why this affects you, even if you don't live in California.  Hopefully this will encourage you to save water where ever you are.  I can think of 4 great reasons why everyone should conserve water.

1.  Water is a resource, just like electricity, food, and oil.  There is a finite amount of it, so anytime we frivolously waste it we're only hurting ourselves.  Clean fresh water may be plentiful where you live today, but that may not always be the case.  Large swaths of the USA are prone to droughts, so adopting water conservation now is in your best interest.

2.  Cost - pure and simple.  Clean fresh water costs money, usually in the form of a monthly water bill.  But it could come in the form of an electric bill to operate a well, in which case there is also the hidden cost of digging deeper wells when the water table drops.  If you conserve water you will save money, period.

3.  California's drought affects everyone when you buy groceries.  As someone who grew up in California's central valley, I know why the state is referred to as "the nation's bread basket."  The vast majority of vegetables, fruits, and nuts are grown in California.  Take for example almonds - California grows 99% of the almonds in the USA, and over 92% of the almonds in the whole world.  The plains of the midwest primarily grow grains like wheat, corn, and barley.  But everything else primarily comes from California.  So a drought here very much will affect your food prices regardless of where you live.

4.  Most people who live west of the Rocky Mountains share the same water supply with California.  California's water does not just come from California.  Some water flows down from Oregon.  But thanks to the Colorado river, rain/snow that falls as far away as Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico can end up in California.  So the more we all conserve the more we all benefit.

Hopefully this first post at least encourages you to take this drought seriously.  In the coming days and weeks I'll post more on what you can actually do to help conserve water.

Read the next post about water distribution.