LOS
ANGELES — For all the doomsday proclamations about the historic drought
that has this state in a chokehold, here is what Californians have done
to save water: not much.
In
five months since the drought emergency was declared, Californians have
cut their water consumption only 5 percent compared with recent years,
according to state officials — a far cry from the 20 percent that Gov.
Jerry Brown called for in January.
So,
faced with apparent indifference to stern warnings from state leaders
and media alarms, cities across California have encouraged residents to
tattle on their neighbors for wasting water — and the residents have
responded in droves. Sacramento, for instance, has received more than
6,000 reports of water waste this year, up twentyfold from last year.
Loretta Franzi has called the Sacramento water-waste hotline “a number of times” in recent months.
“You
can hear people running their sprinklers when it’s dark because they
don’t want to get caught watering when they’re not supposed to be — it’s
maddening,” said Ms. Franzi, 61, a retiree. “You can tell the people
who are conserving because their lawns are brown. The lawns that are
really green, there’s something wrong.”
The state is experiencing the worst
drought in its history. Find out just how bad the situation is getting
and what it means for you.
Video Credit By Carrie Halperin and Sean Patrick Farrell on
Publish Date July 5, 2014.
Image CreditStuart Palley/European Pressphoto Agency
Sacramento
has issued more than 2,000 notices of violations since the start of the
year — including citations to some of Ms. Franzi’s neighbors — and the
city is part of a region that has reduced its water consumption 10
percent from previous years, the highest percentage of any region in the
state. (Not every water agency in the state responded to the board’s
survey, though most did.)
“It’s
becoming a competition to not have the greenest lawn anymore,” said
Dave Brent, the director of utilities in Sacramento. “You want to have a
lawn that’s alive but on life support.”
It
does get personal. Some drought-conscious Californians have turned not
only to tattling, but also to an age-old strategy to persuade friends
and neighbors to cut back: shaming. On Twitter, radio shows and
elsewhere, Californians are indulging in such sports as shower-shaming
(trying to embarrass a neighbor or relative who takes a leisurely wash),
car-wash-shaming and lawn-shaming.
“Is
washing the sidewalk with water a good idea in a drought @sfgov?”
Sahand Mirzahossein, a 32-year-old management consultant, posted on
Twitter, along with a picture
of a San Francisco city employee cleaning the sidewalk with a hose. (He
said he hoped a city official would respond to his post, but he never
heard back.)
Drought-shaming
may sound like a petty, vindictive strategy, and officials at water
agencies all denied wanting to shame anyone, preferring to call it
“education” or “competition.” But there are signs that pitting residents
against one another can pay dividends.
In
Los Angeles, water officials will soon offer residents door hangers,
which they are encouraged to slip anonymously around the doorknobs of
neighbors whose sprinklers are watering the sidewalk. The notices offer a
prim reminder of the local water rules and the drought.
The
Irvine Ranch Water District, meanwhile, shows residents how their water
consumption compares with that of other homes in the area — and puts
labels on customers’ bills that range from “low volume” to “wasteful.”
“Not
everyone realizes what a severe drought we’re in, or understands how
their actions affect the whole system,” said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman
of the State Water Resources Control Board,
which issued the report on water saving. “Just showing people what
they’re doing vis-à-vis their neighbors motivates them. Shaming comes in
when you’re worse. You want to be as clever as your neighbor.”
Of course, asking neighbors to inform on one another does come with drawbacks.
In
Santa Cruz, dozens of complaints have come from just a few residents,
who seem to be trying to use the city’s tight water restrictions to
indulge old grudges.
“You
get people who hate their neighbors and chronically report them in
hopes they’ll be thrown in prison for wasting water,” said Eileen Cross,
Santa Cruz’s water conservation manager. People claim water-waste
innocence, she said, and ask: “Was that my neighbor? She’s been after me
ever since I got that dog.”
Ms.
Franzi said that in her Sacramento neighborhood, people were now
looking askance at one another, wondering who reported them for wasting
water.
“There’s
a lot of suspiciousness,” Ms. Franzi said. “It’s a little uncomfortable
at this point.” She pointed out that she and her husband have proudly
replaced their green lawn with drought-resistant plants, and even cut
back showers to once every few days.
One of her neighbors, a woman in her 90s, is convinced that Ms. Franzi reported her to the city.
“Right
now, she’s out watering the grass with the hose in the middle of the
day, looking over her shoulder at me like, ‘Are you going to report
me?’ ” Ms. Franzi said.
(Ms.
Franzi insisted that she did not report this neighbor, saying she did
not feel comfortable issuing a complaint about someone she knew
personally.)
On
the flip side are people who have tried to turn dead, brown lawns into a
source of pride, planting signs atop them with slogans like “Gold is
the new green.” Even the lawn at the State Capitol has been allowed to
die.
The
challenge of persuading urban Californians to cut back is particularly
difficult, said Ms. Marcus of the State Water Resources Control Board,
because they do not see the fallow fields and dry reservoirs across the
state.
With
water still flowing very cheaply from the taps and lawns still green
here, many people around Los Angeles said they were not especially
concerned about running out of water, whatever the dire warnings, and
doubted their own showers or dishwashing would have any discernible
effect.
“I
might turn the faucet off when I’m brushing my teeth or something,”
said Ragan Wallake, 34, a resident of the lush neighborhood of West
Hollywood. “But I don’t feel like that three seconds of turning off the
water is going to make a difference.”
She
has a point. Most homes in Southern California have already been
outfitted with efficient shower heads, toilets and garden hoses, making
it harder for residents to significantly reduce their water consumption
than it was during the last severe drought a quarter-century ago.
Even those who are already water-conscious can occasionally benefit from guilt-laden reminders, though.
Femke
Oldham, a graduate student who has studied resource conservation at the
University of California, Berkeley, was walking with her fiancé on a
sunny weekend when they passed a few children throwing water balloons.
She suggested it would be fun to get some of their own.
He shot back, “Femke, we’re in a drought.”
“It made me feel guilty for wanting to use water in a way that was not necessary,” said Ms. Oldham, 29.
Alina
Weinstein, 27, a web developer in Los Angeles, has also been called out
for small acts of water waste; one of her co-workers reprimanded her
for letting the kitchen faucet run for just a moment after she had
finished washing her cup.
She has since reformed. Still, she does not believe the city pipes will run dry anytime soon.
“I’m more afraid of earthquakes rather than water running out in my faucet,” she said.
Robert B. Gunnison contributed reporting from Sacramento.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/us/californians-keep-up-with-joneses-water-use.html?ref=earth&_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/05/us/californians-keep-up-with-joneses-water-use.html?ref=earth&_r=0
