Water Conservation in California

Drip, drip drip

I grew up in California, in the Los Angeles region.  This area is known for being a dry desert, with not too much in the way of water.

My wife grew up in Japan, a country that is just teeming with water; It has large rivers around it's cities and small streams throughout the neighborhoods.

So when it comes to water conservation, we are coming from totally different experiences.

I grew up indoctrinated in the ways of water conservation; turning off the tap while doing anything; not watering the garden daily; the stomach turning rhyme of "If it's Yellow, Let it mellow; If it's Brown, flush it down".

For us, wasting water was not only a stern talking to from your parents and a risk of a papercut from the water bill being waved in your face, but a serious issue that we could see just by looking out the window.

For my wife, water conservation was a part of conserving natural resources, a good thing to do and part of a responsible citizen's duty. One of the coolest things I saw on my first visit to Japan was what was done with the bath water.

For those that haven't been to Japan (yet), allow me to explain. The bath room (the room where you take the bath, not the toilet room) is usually located very close to the clothes washer. Everybody takes a bath using the same water in the same tub, the water is not drained and re-filled between people.

Stick with me here, it's not that bad.  You wash before getting into the communal water. This is very different from our Western, European based idea of bathing, where the Dad takes a bath first, then the wife, then eldest son, etc, all the way down to the baby. By the time the baby gets a bath, the water is so dirty, that the maid ends up... throwing the baby out with the bath water.

If you didn't know before, you now know the origin of that figure of speech. You just learned something from Gaijin Daddy!.

Anyway, back to Japanese baths: So, at the end of the night, after everybody has taken a bath, a hose is taken from the clothes washing machine to the bath tub. Then, the water from the bath is not drained, but instead used to wash the clothes!

If more people in California knew about this, and especially those in the water conservation board, then this would be a mandatory piece of equipment with your washer for water conservation, just like a catalytic converter is for your car to control air pollution.

But, we don't yet have this mandated equipment, let alone is it available as an option to us.  The closest we have is some people draining their clothes washers out to their yards, so they can water their plants with "grey" water. Thus, they have greener lawns, and don't get in trouble for watering their yards on days they aren't supposed to.

So here we are in another drought emergency. Our own Governor Jerry Brown has said "Don't flush more than you need to", which is a much gentler way of saying "If it's Yellow, Let it Mellow..."

I remember in grade school, being told about the incredible displacement properties of bricks.  You can take a bath with a Brick. And Save Water.  You could put a brick in your toilet tank. And Save Water. You could even put a decorative Brick in your Fish Tank.  To Save Water.

In Scouts (Yes, I am an Eagle Scout) we sometimes had to carry all the water we needed in to a place that we were camping.  ALL the water.  This means for not just drinking, but for cooking, and cleaning.  This causes you to become paranoid about every drop, for fear of running out on the hike back.

You learn how to clean with dirt. I kid you not, you can clean with dirt.  Take enough dirt and throw it into your pot and pans, and it's coarseness will knock all that foodstuffs right off of them.  Then, use the water to wash off the dirt.  But, use the water smartly!  Put some water in your largest container, and dunk your smaller containers into this water. Wash all your utensils and smaller containers in this dirty water, and have a separate container of clean water as your rinse.

So, what to do with this dirty water?  Don't dump it! Save it for late at night.  At the end of the night, dump it on your campfire.

What about your rinse water from earlier?  It gets used tomorrow to be dumped into your dirt filled pot from breakfast.

I've carried part of this practice over to washing the dishes at home in our own sink. I can tell at times that my wife think's it would be faster if I just used fresh water, and had the tap running.  It's just that this practice of water conservation is so ingrained on this southern California kid. It bothers her even more when I wait to fill up the dishwasher or laundry, and wont run them unless it's a full load.

Now that it seems these drought conditions are going to continue for the foreseeable future, what can Los Angeles do?

For starters, catch all the water that we can.  When it rains, all of our water goes into storm drains, down into rivers, and out to the oceans.  In some areas, new parking lots and schools playgrounds are made of a porous material that wither lets the water go into the ground, or into a tank where it is routed to the drinking supply, instead of down a drain to the ocean.

For those of you that are familiar with "The Valley" anytime it rains even a little bit, the streets become flooded.  This water should be routed to a treatment facility where the trash is strained out, water is filtered, and then transferred to reservoirs for storage.

We residents of SoCal can no longer rely on the supply from up north and the Colorado to keep coming, so we have to make better use of what little we do get more efficiently, rather than letting it all go out into the oceans.

For those of you that are from the area, what are your memories of water conservation growing up?  Comment below!