Water Woes

Anyone who needs water for their plants and yards should be storing this rain water
Buy some of those big blue barrels. Start prepping!

I have a few hundred gallons now.  Would like a few thousand gallons.

That's awesome! Glad to hear that! If I wasn't a poor apartment dweller I would have myself a few thousand gallons. Now I have a few cases of bottle water.
At 3.50 a case of bottles water at Costco everyone should have a months worth. Never know what tomorrow holds.

Our drinking water hold is only 2500 gallons.  I'd love to have another 1500-2000 of non-potable water collected from rain, etc.. to hold thru the non-rain months.

Our drinking water hold is only 2500 gallons.  I'd love to have another 1500-2000 of non-potable water collected from rain, etc.. to hold thru the non-rain months.

Me too.

When I saw our 220 tank was already full it made me want a 1000 tank for runoff for sure.

I placed an 80 gallon garbage can outside a couple days ago.  It's almost full from rain drippings.

We've got almost 2000. gallons from the barn roof. We save it to water the very small vineyard we put in.

Good idea!

Can you get someone to come fill that 2500 gallon tank if need be?  I've seriously considered a tank to capture rain run off from my roof.  I have 5,000 sq. ft. of roof.  12 inches of rain could potentially result in 5,000 cu.ft. of storage. (That's about 37,500 gallons of water per foot of rainfall.)  We average 40" of rain at my place, tracked over the past 23 years. 
I could fill your 2500 gallon tank with .8 inches of runoff from my roof! 

We COULD get someone to fill the tank but a little conservation NOW will hopefully prevent us from needing to rely on the "open market" for our water.  No longer would we be self sufficient.

It is getting pretty tiresome to hear, storm after storm, that it's a 'non event', but in the next sentence telling me to not flush my pee until after I poop!  Either a 20' elevation rise in Folsom Lake IS an event worthy of note, or if it isn't, then flushing an extra flush or two a day is also not an event. 

I just called EID.  Last January I lost my residential ag rate due to some Federal requirement.  My water bill increased by 150% since then.  Beginning THIS January, my water bill was increased by 5%.  Now they want another 15% if we all don't cut back by 30% in use.  The lady on the phone told me that it's an across-the-board increase because they don't have the staff or resources to handle it any other way.  So, all those folks in El Dorado Hills, with their big expensive homes; do you think THEY give a darn about another hundred bucks or so to keep their landscaping green or doing their 'delicates' in the laundry that isn't a full load?  No.  They will not bat an eye.  In the meantime, some guy like me, a retiree 'gentleman' farmer with a few chickens, a couple pigs, some fruit trees, nut trees, a garden and the usual yard and plants is going to have to pick up that extra fee because of all those over priced lawyers and such down in El Dorado Hills!! 
It ticks me off that Folsom Lake had so much water this time last year that was released due to water mismanagement.  But maybe it's not mismanaged.  Maybe it's their plan all along to control another critical infrastructure.  And why not?  If we are all so dependent on gas that they can charge what they do for that resource, then why not water too?  This government is constantly looking for ways to tell you and me what and how we can live our lives to the point that they spill water from our reservoirs to justify their pipelines and aquaducts.  Speaking of which; while the news stations were all pointing their cameras at the Nimbus Dam when they reduced flows, did any of you look over their shoulder at the aquaduct?  It was full and running as much as I've ever seen it.  That' bull!! 

Sorry to rant.  Just seems all I get from our government, weither it's a little municipal water district, or the feds, is a way to find what money I do manage to hang onto in my wallet and take it from me.

This will make you happier, the wineries EID serves will be exempt from the increase, a rumor I heard, Eldo's biggest water user perhaps?

I like wine! 

Problem solved.  Thanks! 

Now I gotta go keep the creek out back clear so it doesn't flood out the garage with all this 'non-event' falling from the sky.  (Reminds me of the Wizard of OZ; "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, or the rain falling from the sky in this case.) 

So my water use has reduced almost 2.5X since fall, down to ~120 gallons a day.  How about you?

-Allen

When there is a building moratorium, I'll start conserving.  Until then; if the water companies can keep adding more rate payers, then they can keep selling me all the water I need. 

When there is a building moratorium, I'll start conserving.  Until then; if the water companies can keep adding more rate payers, then they can keep selling me all the water I need.

Ordinarily I'd agree with you, but this year's drought is extra-ordinary.

-Allen