Water Restrictions under New Dungeness Rule
Some property owners in East Clallam County, when drilling a new well, will need to pay an additional $1,000 if they want to be allowed to water their lawns. Some will be required to install meters on their wells to measure water usage. And in some areas, water will be for indoor usage only.
Is this a necessary water conservation measure or just another power grab by crazed environmentalists? Comments at the linked article are pretty evenly divided.
Is this a necessary water conservation measure or just another power grab by crazed environmentalists? Comments at the linked article are pretty evenly divided.
posted by Tom Harper at 2:09 PM
18 Comments:
I think it's a ploy by 'the man' to get control of our water and make some money to boot.
As usual the response is complaining, denial that there's a problem and so on. Instead this should be treated as an opportunity to employ techniques that reduce the need for irrigation such as using gray water. Permaculture has lot of ideas to offer in this area. Even locally most gardeners have heard of Paul Gautschi and his Garden of Eden technique of deep sheet mulching. He has a wonderful garden and doesn't irrigate it AT ALL.
At the very least watering your lawn to keep it green through the summer is a terrible waste of water. Not to mention lawns themselves are huge waste of resources and a huge cause of pollution.
BBC is right. I don't see people like Mr. Gautschi making a dent in King Co. organic carrot consumption rates anytime soon.
Wow, the air got bad quick tonight. To my neighbors burning wood for effect - fuck you. To the guy who commented at the PDN article that the particulates don't bother his asthmathic wife - FUCK YOU too you fucking liar.
Ecology hasn't done enough to protect the public interest in the public's water in the Dungeness Basin. The instream flow rule should have been adopted years ago. Anybody who starts a new use for water after the date of the rule should have had to fend for themselves in finding mitigation water, or be required to shut off their taps in the dry season. New water users in eastern Washington know all about this; they've received only interruptible water rights for years. If they want to use water 'year round, they must go find someone to sell them a senior water right.
Ecology is wasting taxpayer money by funding the Dungeness water exchange and subsidizing new water users.
Doesn't watering your lawn put water back into the water table? Legit question, I'm not an environmental science type person, but it seems common sense to me.
Doesn't watering your lawn put water back into the water table? Legit question, I'm not an environmental science type person, but it seems common sense to me.
I suppose it does, and cleans it to boot while it is at it. But we don't water the lawn here, they meter it and want money for extra water usage.
But it's more than just putting water on a lawn, it's all the other crap people put on their lawns to make them pretty that gets into the water table, something else I don't do.
Other than piss on it, but nature loves our piss.
No, the comments are not evenly divided, because the PDN keeps deleting my comments - comments which favor water regulations and rationing. The PDN only allows certain comments to make it through, doing their best to skew the "public response" to match their agenda.
Soon watering your lawn will be banned!
Plants do this funny thing with water called "transpiration". They suck water up, and it evaporates into the atmosphere through their leaves.
Years ago at one of my farms, the county ag guy told me to plant willows near my septic field because one tree will transpire 10s of thousands of gallons of water per day!
What does the amount of carrots eaten in King County have to do with this? I'm talking about techniques that we can keep things growing here with minimal irrigation.
Most water used for lawns evaporates. Fertilizers are over-applied and run off into streams. The equipment used to mow lawns is also much more polluting than cars. There are some options for lower impact lawns. The most important ones are using a mulching mower and not bagging the clippings which become free organic fertilizer, and mowing as high as you can. There also options like EcoTurf seed mixes for alternative lawns.
RE: air quality. We're experiencing a pretty substantial inversion for the last few days. Go up 1000 feet and it's clear and sunny, while all the cold, stagnant air hangs out down here. You can even see it on the Elwha Dam webcams, it's clear at Lake Mills.
Too bad this is AMERICA and people have the FREEDOM to do whatever the hell they want and damn the consequences to everyone else. Too bad we don't allow rocket mass heaters that would keep everyone warm with zero wood smoke and 4-5 times less fuel needed. Instead people can damp down their woodstove for a low and slow burn all night that produces a ton of wood smoke for everyone else to deal with.
I do use a mulching mower, and because the lawn isn't watered I only have to mow when the rains makes it grow.
Your freaking nuts, dude. Burn wood!
Curious about carrots:
At the very least I don't like land trusts land grabs. And as usual, same with carrots. Not to mention King County.
"At the very least I don't like land trusts land grabs.."
You DO realize that people give their lands to land trusts of their own free will?
Or are you saying there should be restrictions on who you can sell/give your land to?
Concerning the water plan; something has to be done. I know, there are people who can't understand there is only so much water in a river, or under ground. Already, more permits for water have been issued than there is flow in the river.
You know, like, you've written more cheques than you have money in the bank to cover?
If everyone with Dungeness water rights pulled what they've been allocated, the river would be dry, and people would be yelling for what they aren't getting.
So, what do you do when you've written more cheques than you have money for? Write more cheques?
Out of water? Time to build desalination plants powered by burning biomass!
Oooh - that's the spirit, Anon 11:29 am! Peddle the idea of a biomass-fueled desalinization plant, engage Exeltech to manage the project, CH2MHill to do the (shoddy but plenty good enuf to pass muster in the city of PA) EIS and environmental permitting, and Karen Rogers to hype it as a project deserving of exorbitant taxpayer subsidies, and stick it to the locals for all the eventual cost overruns. We can already see the hand writing on the wall....
(Thanks for the chuckles.)
Hey, if the officials think there is a pending water problem here why do they keep wanting more growth here?
Over than to have more to lord over that is.
It is kinda like the Climate change stuff. The government says it is concerned about the impacts of climate change, but is busily approving every CO2 emitting project it can, as fast as it can.
Just because there is a problem doesn't mean humans are going to do the right thing!
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