Proposed solutions

Goodbye lawn

Economists say there is no such thing as a free lunch. In today’s California, you can get an almost-free lawn.

Water authorities around the state are offering substantial rebates — a hefty $3.75 per square foot in L.A. — to people and businesses willing to rip out their water-guzzling green grass and replace it with rocks, shrubs and plants. One booming company, Turf Terminators, does all the “drought-tolerant” landscaping for nothing in exchange, naturally, for the rights to the rebate cash.

Salvation in desalination?

In 1991, during a severe drought that began in the mid-1980s, the city of Santa Barbara spent $35 million building a plant to turn Pacific saltwater into drinking water. Bad decision. The drought promptly ended, and the desalination facility was shut down almost immediately.

Desperate again 23 years later, the city is now thinking about spending tens of millions more to open the facility back up. Environmentalists say desalination consumes great quantities of energy and hurts marine life. City officials say they might have no choice.

“It’s definitely a costly option. No water is a worse option,” Mayor Helene Schneider told CNBC.

Welcome to Water School

From spring through late fall, the government of Santa Cruz tried something unfamiliar in the modern western world: strict water rationing.

Each family of four was allowed to use no more than 7,480 gallons per month, far less than the national average of about 12,000 gallons used. Any family that went over the limit was slapped with a fine — even if a leaky toilet was the culprit.

Some fines ran into the four figures. First-time violators were given a way out of paying: “Water School,” a two-hour class at a community centre in which they were taught about the drought and the local water system.

Buddy, can you spare some H2O

Out of better options, a water agency serving Los Angeles has offered to pay Northern California rice farmers record prices for some of their water. Last year’s purchase price, $500 per “acre-foot”(326,000 gallons), seemed exorbitant at the time. This year, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California had to bump the offer to $700.

Even that won’t be enough to induce some of the northerners to sell. The Western Canal Water District has decided not to ship water down south, board member and rice farmer Bryce Lundberg said, because the district has had its own water allocation cut in half by the state.