California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report

[MossRoad]

There was no RO available to the civilian market then The military was just starting to experiment with it

Dupont was selling commercial RO systems in the 70s.

 

[Diggin It]

And there's no more water for new development. Las Vegas and Phoenix seem like they are in even worse shape, water expected to completely run out within weeks. Deserts aren't suitable for large populations!

I don't think we have soil loss from runoff like you describe

There has been a LOT of rain there over the last few weeks. NM, AZ, CA and NV have all had major flooding in some areas. Death Valley got a year's worth of rain in three hours. Similar in Vegas. Is ANY of that in places that will help replenish lakes and aquifers?

I'm guessing the heads are gear drive and rotate slowly. Would be very odd if none were rotating.

This is what our lawn would look like by mid summer if we didn't irrigate in a normal year:

I figured maybe a pressure problem, but the houses were a few blocks apart and the streams from each head appeared to be 20-30' or more. I guess they may have been moving slower than I could detect driving by.

I can think of no bigger waste of water than a golf course. I understand that people want to play, but you can't always get what you want... especially during a drought.

Those would be the FIRST places I think should be cut off.

 

[Raul-02]

Dupont was selling commercial RO systems in the 70s.

Interesting. The military was slower I guess.

 

[MossRoad]

Interesting. The military was slower I guess.

We had some RO systems in the Newspaper that I worked at. I guess they are fairly common in the printing industry where a lot of water is used in the printing process.

 

[Nikkorott]

Anyone note the water issues between two states that has contracts going back over a hundred years. Can’t offhand recall the States but I think the Platte River is involved.

California and Arizona had a kerfuffle years ago. I recall seeing a documentary on it. It sounds like both states Nation Guardsmen were chirping away at each.

 

[npalen]

Awesome yard, love the bridge.

Thanks! The bridge is dated with 1944 in one of the blocks of limestone. I had thought it was built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) but that program was ended by Congress in 1942 to divert resources to the war effort.

Would anyone know if there was another government building program in effect in 1944 that might have built the bridge?

 

[Nikkorott]

I haven't read all of the posts here so if I'm repeating somebody else's posts, I apologize.

I live in California and I have riparian rights and a well. In my situation the state is asking my neighbors and myself to cut back on our water usage. For the most part we all have. This is called management. The state also requires us to report and meter usage above 10 acre/feet per parcel. This requirement has caused some issues in that a parcel may be 1 acre or 600 acres. I will do my best to be diplomatic and say they're still working the kinks out. I suspect that if the state starts charging for water usage on these rights they'll see a whole large parcels divided up as a work around.

I hear people all of time threatening to move out of state. My response is usually "Give me a call when you get back". I, myself, have moved out twice, for work. I lived and worked out of state and overseas. I love California. I find it curious that folks from out of state are complaining about California. In my entire time here I've never heard any one complain about another state they hadn't been to.

 

[Eagle1]

I grew up in SoCal was stationed in NorCal came back after a couple other stations. Lasted a year and moved to the southeast. Went back to visit a couple of times and saw nothing that would have me moving back. Now moved to the middle of county and it works for me. There are really nice areas in CA but acreage is out of my price range. Here I bought a functioning business with 90+ acres, pond, creek, well, water tower, sewer system and living quarters surrounded by national forest for just over 400K. Business paid it off in 13 years. I'm closing shop in 2 years and will own the property and my taxes should drop by 60% when it becomes a private farm or hunting property.

 

[ultrarunner]

The Spring serving the ranch is deeded back to 1850 but the location is now parkland and wouldn't you know a meter was recently added.

When questioned the answer given was to track usage...

The park has offered several times to purchase water rights but water is key to the ranch.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

I haven't read all of the posts here so if I'm repeating somebody else's posts, I apologize.

I live in California and I have riparian rights and a well. In my situation the state is asking my neighbors and myself to cut back on our water usage. For the most part we all have. This is called management. The state also requires us to report and meter usage above 10 acre/feet per parcel. This requirement has caused some issues in that a parcel may be 1 acre or 600 acres. I will do my best to be diplomatic and say they're still working the kinks out. I suspect that if the state starts charging for water usage on these rights they'll see a whole large parcels divided up as a work around.

I hear people all of time threatening to move out of state. My response is usually "Give me a call when you get back". I, myself, have moved out twice, for work. I lived and worked out of state and overseas. I love California. I find it curious that folks from out of state are complaining about California. In my entire time here I've never heard any one complain about another state they hadn't been to.

California gets demonized a lot. It's the mass social equivalent of an ad hominem attack. I don't know the Latin for that, but California gets to solve it's own problems and reap its own profits. Nobody else gets a vote. I have family living in California, Texas, and Florida. Not my kettle of fish, but it's their business, not mine.

In 1961, my dad bought a dry land farm. A couple years later some neighbors got together and developed a small intermittent stream that ran on one side of the property. If they pumped water out of the Willamette River, the water would run parallel to the river for about 8 miles before returning to the river. It turned the stream into an irrigation canal. Getting water to the property doubled its value overnight. I was a teenager, and he hauled me along to the organizational meetings.

Filing for water rights was a complex process. According to the State, there was still (1963) free water in the Willamette. However, the Corps of Engineers has a network of flood control dams and according to them the water was theirs. We filed water rights with both the State, which was free, and the Corps, which was not. That put us down the list for senior State water rights, and almost first in line for Corps water rights. The last I heard, they had signed up about 55,000 acres. Maintaining water rights on an individual parcel is on a "use it or lose it" basis. You have to irrigate at least once every 3 years, or your water rights expire and you slide to the bottom of the list.

The irrigation district water rights are superior to several municipal water systems. In 1963, towns were still getting away with a well or two and a few springs. In 1977 it didn't rain, and the wells and springs dried up. Cities decided to build water treatment plants and pump river water. Most of them hadn't bothered to file water rights on the river until then.

In miniature, it's what happened in California. The water projects were irrigation districts built and maintained by farmers. Irrigation water is allocated by seniority, and there is already a lot of land not being irrigated because of the drought. The cities are screaming, because they are used to unlimited cheap water. Some cities don't even have water meters for individual customers. The Corps controls a lot of the water, and they just reduce deliveries because they don't have it. Some customers have switched to pumping wells. That's a limited resource and won't last long. The State is curtailing use by industrial/commercial users because they have to. It has nothing to do with any ideology, it's only reality. If there is no water, there is no water.

 

[ultrarunner]

State Laws now requires water meters...

It was a huge expense for districts like South Lake Tahoe because water was flat rate and lines deep...

It took years of digging everything up to install meters and they learned many cabins used almost zero water over a year so the meter fee went to $150 a cycle and water use $1.50 a unit?

Sometimes we just add to the complexity and overhead with no real benefit... similar for areas in Sacramento where much is flood plain.

 

[ponytug]

State Laws now requires water meters...

It was a huge expense for districts like South Lake Tahoe because water was flat rate and lines deep...

It took years of digging everything up to install meters and they learned many cabins used almost zero water over a year so the meter fee went to $150 a cycle and water use $1.50 a unit?

Sometimes we just add to the complexity and overhead with no real benefit... similar for areas in Sacramento where much is flood plain.

You are right tat many of the cabins at Tahoe didn't use much. So for many customers, metering didn't add much value, but for the water providers metering does help reduce water losses from pipe leaks. In a resource constrained, low water supply area like California, including Lake Tahoe, it does make sense I think to know where and what for the limited amount of water is being used. I think that applies to both Tahoe and especially to Sacramento where there were substantial losses due to pipe leaks. (Also to EBMUD, but that is a different story.) For the vacation "mansions" up at Tahoe monitoring the water use, and therefore the resulting pollution in the form of nitrates and phosphates has had significant benefits in the form of being able to identify the gross users/polluters who are doing things with significant environmental impact, like large heavily used septic systems and large lawns at the lakeside. Given the nonexistent soil around Lake Tahoe, there isn't much in the way of bioremediation in the soil, so the wastes end up in the lake. The Tahoe area probably needs to switch to three stage aerobic digestion of the sewage with phosphate absorption. I believe the area around Stockholm recently switched to something similar, and for similar reasons of not having much soil to speak of.

Lake Tahoe used to have incredible visibility, and it doesn't now due to the phosphate and nitrogen loads from the septic systems and fertilized lawns... "Keep Tahoe Blue"

All the best,

Peter

 

[ultrarunner]

The area is modest cabins mostly from the 50’s

Sewer went in 1966 and septic filled neighborhood wide.

I just looked and so far this year 1 unit water billed… last year 2 units and 2020 zero units but discontinuing service isn’t viable because to start service is like building a new home hookup in fees.

No lawn… just a few pines.

Do have a water/sewer district issue trying to resolve in that new water mains severed our sewer but did not realize until camera sent down the line.

I’m sure living there full time it would have been noticed while crews still in neighborhood… now it’s been years…

 

[ponytug]

The area is modest cabins mostly from the 50’s

Sewer went in 1966 and septic filled neighborhood wide.

I just looked and so far this year 1 unit water billed… last year 2 units and 2020 zero units but discontinuing service isn’t viable because to start service is like building a new home hookup in fees.

No lawn… just a few pines.

Do have a water/sewer district issue trying to resolve in that new water mains severed our sewer but did not realize until camera sent down the line.

I’m sure living there full time it would have been noticed while crews still in neighborhood… now it’s been years…

Yikes! New meaning to the phrase "leach line". I hope that it wasn't too bad to discover the issue and have it fixed. I'm glad to hear that the septic tanks in the area were removed. Getting all of the wastes into one system makes the remediation of sewage more practical. There are now cost effective ways to reclaim phosphate from sewage in sewage treatment plants.

I have a vivid memory of when my grandparents got hooked up to the sewer and the installation crew filled the old septic tank with sand. There was this flood of brown that came pouring out of the septic tank. No, not human waste. What looked like millions of ginormous cockroaches.

All the best,

Peter

 

[oosik]

All this talk of added meters so there is exact billing. Four years ago our electric utility went to telemetering. Your house meter transmits to a centralized receiver which then retransmits to the utilities home base.

I'm so remote they had to put an amplified transmitter on my house meter.

Now this is the type of technology I can appreciate. No longer have to go out - read the meter - send an email, with this reading, to the electric utility.

 

[deserteagle71]

All this talk of added meters so there is exact billing. Four years ago our electric utility went to telemetering. Your house meter transmits to a centralized receiver which then retransmits to the utilities home base.

I'm so remote they had to put an amplified transmitter on my house meter.

Now this is the type of technology I can appreciate. No longer have to go out - read the meter - send an email, with this reading, to the electric utility.

Just be aware that those new electronic meters with the transmitting ability don't last very long.

My utility went to those several years ago. Last year my power suddenly quit. Power company tech came out and changed out my meter. Told me these new meters last on the average of 6-8 years before going bad; he kept several on his service truck because he changes them out constantly as the older ones quit.

 

[WM75Guy]

I can think of no bigger waste of water than a golf course. I understand that people want to play, but you can't always get what you want... especially during a drought.

We have cities that have built golf courses to dispose of the treated water from the sewer plant. It was cheaper than the alternative pipeline. The golf course land below the sewer plant was not desirable for any other development. And the course makes a profit since it doesn't have to pay for water.

 

[oosik]

Just be aware that those new electronic meters with the transmitting ability don't last very long.

My utility went to those several years ago. Last year my power suddenly quit. Power company tech came out and changed out my meter. Told me these new meters last on the average of 6-8 years before going bad; he kept several on his service truck because he changes them out constantly as the older ones quit.

For sure deserteagle. The first telemetering meter went TU while the utility man was still on site. I noticed - he had several of those units in his truck.

 

[ultrarunner]

Just be aware that those new electronic meters with the transmitting ability don't last very long.

My utility went to those several years ago. Last year my power suddenly quit. Power company tech came out and changed out my meter. Told me these new meters last on the average of 6-8 years before going bad; he kept several on his service truck because he changes them out constantly as the older ones quit.

Tenant called no hot water…

I spent time troubleshooting and found no gas flow… I asked if the bill was paid and they said auto pay and then checked.

Turns out the new 3 year old meter had shut off the flow.

The service truck had two racks… ready to install and defective said that is how he spends most days.

The old meter installed in 1957 never a problem but it was not smart like the one one installed in 2017.

 

[California]

Would you rip up your lawn for $6 a square foot? Welcome to drought-stricken California

The megadrought affecting the American West has been record-breaking, with no tangible relief in sight. It's forcing cities to crack down on lawn-watering, and paying residents to replace their lawns with drought-resistant plants.

www.cnn.com