The next crisis for California will be the affordability of water

[n2doc]

The price of almost everything is on the rise, but we tend to shrug off inflation in goods and services we can cut back or do without. Not water, the rising cost of which is looming as a defining economic problem in coming years.

In California and across the nation, concern about water affordability has been spreading, with good reason. Few basic commodities are under as much cost pressure.

“The water infrastructure is aging, there’s more water contamination and our standards for cleanliness keep rising, and climate change is making our supplies less reliable,” says Laura Feinstein of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based environmental think tank. “At some point the bill comes due” — but because water demand is stable or even dropping, water agencies can find revenue to cover the bill only by raising rates on consumption.

The result is an inexorable rise in water rates. Rates in Los Angeles rose by as much as 71% from 2010 to 2017, according to a survey by Circle of Blue, a water news website. In San Francisco the increase was as much as 127%, and 119% even for the stingiest users, a group that presumably includes many low-income residents.

more

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-water-afford-20170709-story.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Get Nestle to pay for the dwindling water that it buys for pennies on the dollar.

Nestlé faces backlash over collecting water from drought-hit California

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/backlash-bottled-water-nestle/


How Nestlé Gets Away With Pumping California’s Water for Next to Nothing
The company pulls millions of gallons from a nearby creek — while paying an annual fee that’s lower than some gym memberships

http://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/nestle-gets-away-pumping-californias-water-next-nothing/

[BigmanPigman]

2. My HOA fees are increasing yearly now due to this problem.

Meanwhile wages are stagnant and the cost of living (especially housing) is extremely high. The average person pays 30% of their income on rent alone.

[hunter]

3. The problem with many HOAs is they demand keeping it all green, even when water is scarce.

Judging by front yards, 95% of my neighbors, most of us very severely HOA phobic, have abandoned green lawns and other drought-intolerant landscaping.

We've had a few people past years trying to organize for HOAs, "Neighborhood Watch," etc., but they usually give up or move away. Nobody shows up for their meetings.

Freedom is having a front yard requiring very little water, a house you can paint any color you like (some of my neighbors have pushed that to the extreme, "pumpkin yellow," really???), with a project car or two in the driveway completion date indeterminate. (All my cars are project cars.)

That our homes were worth half million dollars plus in the housing bubble was some kind of bizarre accident. I think a few neighbors who sold high and moved to places like Las Vegas or Arizona have regrets.

My dad's family was San Francisco, but his mom and her sister were Hollywood. 'Twenties flappers almost. I have photos. I recently looked up my great-great-grandfather's house in San Francisco, long gone to our family and it sold last year for closer to two million dollars, looking a lot better now than it does in my family photographs, with gilt trim and all the ravages and wrinkles of time artistically filled in with epoxy and polyurethane.

It's very possible this house I live in now could be like that in a hundred years, but I'll be long gone.

My wife and I both got hit by shit falling out of the sky. Medical insurance and debt is more painful our the mortgage.

[BigmanPigman]

4. In San Diego you were fined by the city if you were caught watering or washing your car.

It was limited to certain days of the week, types of hoses, etc. It is even encouraged to report your neighbors and people did (includeing me)! If you were "caught" watering anything you were shamed and embarrassed. Fake grass, non water/succulant landscaping and such are huge businesses now and the "in" thing to do. It has eased up a lot since the drought is officially over. I discovered this when I reported my neighbor again but most people are still conserving.