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

   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #31  
The city could assume that if you aren't paying a water utility, you have a well. So it would be pretty easy to determine who has one to begin with.
An acre foot is a lot of water, and irrigators have been pumping "free" water out of the ground without much incentive to adopt more efficient methods. The water table is dropping, and if irrigators don't start conserving they will drain the water table entirely. Some small towns that rely on wells are already scrambling to find water for human consumption.

Meanwhile, at 2"/week, 2 acre-feet is enough for a huge garden, so non-commercial homeowners will not be affected.
 
   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #33  
An acre foot is a lot of water, and irrigators have been pumping "free" water out of the ground without much incentive to adopt more efficient methods. The water table is dropping, and if irrigators don't start conserving they will drain the water table entirely. Some small towns that rely on wells are already scrambling to find water for human consumption.

Meanwhile, at 2"/week, 2 acre-feet is enough for a huge garden, so non-commercial homeowners will not be affected.
Our 20,000 sqft (1/2 acre) lawn theoretically requires about 12,500 gallons per week to apply 1" of moisture. Considering the overlap needed with the sprinklers to get 100% coverage, I'm sure its at least 15,000 gallons per week so the 20,000 gallon threshold wouldn't last long.
 
   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #34  
Our 20,000 sqft (1/2 acre) lawn theoretically requires about 12,500 gallons per week to apply 1" of moisture. Considering the overlap needed with the sprinklers to get 100% coverage, I'm sure its at least 15,000 gallons per week so the 20,000 gallon threshold wouldn't last long.
That leads to the question; do you really NEED a green 1/2 acre lawn, if living in a desert, or during a drought?
 
   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #35  
Not sure I'd call Kansas a desert......even if it does get dry in the summer.
 
   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #36  
Our 20,000 sqft (1/2 acre) lawn theoretically requires about 12,500 gallons per week to apply 1" of moisture. Considering the overlap needed with the sprinklers to get 100% coverage, I'm sure its at least 15,000 gallons per week so the 20,000 gallon threshold wouldn't last long.
I have maybe 2 acres of lawn. None of it has been watered in well over 15 years, other than a few small sections that were reseeded after some digging. It's all green as can be and needs mowing every week or so unless we get into a dry spell.

There is absolutely NO way I would pay for water to spray on a lawn, even if it was just electric to run a well.

I was in town yesterday for the first time in weeks. I passed two homes with sprinklers running. From the spray pattern, all of the heads looked like normal heads that should be rotating. Not a single one of them was out of 40 or more ... not one. Water was just flowing out into the street and down the drains.
 
   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #37  
Not sure I'd call Kansas a desert......even if it does get dry in the summer.
The discussion is mainly about California... My comment doesn't really apply to you since as you say, you aren't in a desert.
 
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   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #38  
I’m not going to say water is in endless supply in Illinois, we do get dry periods. As a rule it’s easy to get water with a well but not always cheap. Sulfur smelling water is the only problem around here.

With this situation, are they trying to encourage people to use less water or are they just going for a cash grab? Are they going to start charging for use of the sun for people with solar panels?
The goal of the legislation is to preserve groundwater and limit the damage to aquifers from overdrawing them. Basically, prudent, long term water management. The legislation specifies areas of concern where the groundwater levels have dropped, wells gave gone dry, and there are known to be issues with subsidence. Those areas have water management/allocations being implemented. Other areas, not in one of the aquifers of concern, have just reporting requirements for the moment. We would fall into that bucket if we went over two acre feet/yr, which won't happen. We use 10-15,000 gallons per month for all of the animals, us, and a few trees and flowers. The letter that was the basis for the clickbait article at the beginning was just notifying the landowner of their reporting requirements. I don't know many growers p, but the few that I do know have installed meters and gone on with life. Many growers in the Central Valley received 0% of their irrigation water this year, on top of getting 5-10% last year. Water levels in wells have dropped a hundred feet or more in some areas. You have to be pretty clueless in California not to realize that there is a water shortage and something needs to change.

It is a big deal if there is no water to drink, regardless of whether you live in a city, or your well ran dry. With Lakes Mead and Powell dropping almost to outflow pipes, it is about to get very real for a big area of the Southwest as the Colorado river dries up. Whether you want to call it a record drought, or climate change, it doesn't matter; there isn't much water left in the ground or in the reservoirs. Around the world, some very big cities have come close to having no water in the last few years; Chennai, São Paulo, Johannesburg.

Three of the five homes near us don't have any lawns, two do, one less than 40x40' and one 20' x20'. There are definitely many California who don't act like they are in a desert where it rains ten inches a year, but many do. Our local cities have been ratcheting up the restrictions against lawn watering, and the incentives to remove them. On the other hand, twenty five miles from here gets 70+" of rain a year.

The state is a mixture of dry and wet areas, but generally, everything inland is dry, as is pretty much everything from Los Angeles south. In recorded history the Central Valley has flooded from Sacramento to Bakersfield, an area roughly 350 by 50 miles. It would be great for the aquifer, but a little hard on the crops and folks living there now. It may still happen if the levees aren't maintained.

Clean drinkable water is a life giving, and limited resource.

All the best,

Peter
 
   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #39  
Bottom line is over population in a semi arid region equals less and less potable water. IOW, Kalifornia is reverting beck to it's ancient times. I'd say it's time to leave myself. I'm willing to bet that places like Palm Springs in 20 years will be desert again and Las Vegas will be a wasteland, devoid of people.
 
   / California Targets Private Property With Latest Water Well Fees, Charges: Report #40  
In many places on the east coast companies are pumping water out of the ground by the tankerful, hauling it to processing stations, bottling and selling it. They pay little or nothing for the privelege.
Yepper, Ice Mountain in Canada Lakes, Michigan comes right to mind. I happen to own property very near the plant in Mecosta County and the residents are not happy about it either.
 
 
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