Conservation habits could come in handy again some day
Get used to this new motto, Northern Californians: Conservation as a way of life.
We reported a while back that while the drought was recognized by the governor as officially over, local water districts expect conservation requirements to continue.
“The state is moving toward making conservation a way of life,” said Mike Paulucci, regulatory compliance administrator for Yuba City Public Works.
Some of the measures have been hard for some of us. People have ingrained images of what is good and what is bad and it’s not easy changing lifetime habits.
A green and lush grass lawn in front of the house … it looks pretty to most of us. Xeriscaped lawn design has been around for decades, but the concept is still not generally accepted.
Trouble is, we believe Gov. Jerry Brown is right. Now’s not the time to totally roll back on conservation concerns because the next drought could be just around the corner.
Districts will continue having to report urban water use to the State Water Resources Control Board. There’s no longer the threat of penalties for not meeting conservation goals, but you can bet they’ll be back the next time there are two dry winters in a row.
Tim Shaw, general manager of the Olivehurst Public Utility District, in that story we did a couple weeks ago, said it looks like there could be more regulations to come. And he said the state would be compelling districts to adopt water conservation rates that could ratchet up as water usage increases.
Might as well maintain at least some level of conservation … it will be a little easier when it becomes mandatory.
It’s the sort of thing that drives some average citizens – either party, we’d like to think – a little crazy because it seems like it’s happening too quickly to be taken seriously.
But here it comes and we don’t understand how all the parts work. We don’t know how the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to run such a program would be raised. We don’t know how receptive our doctors and medical facilities would be.
We don’t know that the Trump administration would provide permission for California to go it alone. We don’t have any idea, just yet, how the particulars would work – would we ever have any financial liability for health care bills? And will the additional taxes we’ll surely pay be balanced out by being rid of premiums?
It feels like the politics of the thing has gotten way ahead of the practicalities. Want to totally change our health care system? We deserve to have the details explained up front.
Have you ever wondered about this:
We’re anxious to open up as much trade as possible because it’s good business. And that includes trade with totalitarian countries. And we justify that increased trade by reasoning that the more interaction those folks have with our democracy, the more likely they are to increase the value they assign to human rights.
In the meantime, people in totalitarian countries are anxious to trade with us because it’s good for their bottom line and they justify trade deals with us by reasoning that the more interaction we have with them the more likely we’ll be to understand that curtailment of individual rights is really not a big deal.
Hey, we want our farmers and businesses to have that trade; we just hope that it doesn’t comes by looking the other way when it comes to oppressive governments.