Sacrifice for the drought

Rain barrel catches...upcoming project.

Beef. It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to face, but the fact is that beef is one the most (if not the most) water-intensive foods we eat. ~2500 gallons to grow a pound of beef. Take your showers, drink your wine, even water your lawn, but if you truly want to make the biggest difference you can, reduce your beef-eating.

Food for thought... 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/13/food-water-footprint_n_5952862.html

From the Huff and Puff Post.  It takes 1,056 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of coffee.  Time to shut down all those northern California coffee plantations!  In the mean time, I believe in helping the SoCal voting bloc that demands our northern California water by producing inflow to Lake Oroville thru my kidneys.

The 25% reduction is based on 2013 water consumption, not last year.

It only applies to residential, not agriculture, parks, golf courses, or anything else for that matter. 

The worst thing that's come out of all this is that the government wants us to rat out each other if we see 'water wasters'.  Sounds like the Brown Shirts too much for me. 

We can somehow justify billions on a bullet train, but can't spend a nickle on desalination plants.  The Saudi's have proven it works. 

We can pump water to LA, but can't take a drop out of Tahoe?  Now there's a fresh water source!!   

Here's some drought pics. Watch the images change...

California Drought Pictures

Beef. It's the elephant in the room that nobody wants to face, but the fact is that beef is one the most (if not the most) water-intensive foods we eat. ~2500 gallons to grow a pound of beef. Take your showers, drink your wine, even water your lawn, but if you truly want to make the biggest difference you can, reduce your beef-eating.

Ummmmmmm....No. Spent too much on my barbecue.

BBQ the elephant

It's supposed to rain Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I hop it's enough to put some usable water in the rain barrels I installed last week!

  I think the amount of rain I got last night/this morning filled my 2 55gal rain barrels and topped off my 500 gal rain tank!  But it was mealy a drop in a bucket to what we really need!

Saving water any way we can is a good thing. Here is a link concerning the "use" of rain barrel collection systems to achieve this...
 http://owendell.com/blog/general/roll-out-the-rain-barrels

 

If Ag cut by 10% it would be equivalent to residential saving 40%

just saying...

We are probably going to get stuck with the same restrictions as the rest of california here, yet we have a 50 million gallon per day surplus capacity and are not connected to the state or federal water projects and counldn't sell it or ship it south if we wanted to.

But we can get fined for watering our lawn after a rain or letting runoff into the street.  Makes no sense.

Maybe have major cities recycle their wastewater...

It's supposed to rain Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. I hop it's enough to put some usable water in the rain barrels I installed last week!

  I think the amount of rain I got last night/this morning filled my 2 55gal rain barrels and topped off my 500 gal rain tank!  But it was mealy a drop in a bucket to what we really need!

I checked my barrels today. One is 80% full. They are daisy chained so any overflow will go to the second barrel. Mine really aren't even in the best spot, so I was surprised I got that much.

Saving water any way we can is a good thing. Here is a link concerning the "use" of rain barrel collection systems to achieve this...
 http://owendell.com/blog/general/roll-out-the-rain-barrels

 

Yeah, meaning it is a proverbial drop in the bucket.

-Allen

Every little bit helps.  I'm getting used to showering with a 5-gallon bucket in there & my plants (very few at that) are all too happy to have that little water.

Every little bit helps.  I'm getting used to showering with a 5-gallon bucket in there & my plants (very few at that) are all too happy to have that little water.

Have considered using the shower bucket method but my shower is up stairs and with a new stairwell, carpet, and wood floor recently installed hauling a near full bucket downstairs, I see spillage and a pissed off wife in my future. Am considering a hot water recirculating pump that can be retro fitted to existing to water heater and associated plumbing. Any one have any input on how functional this maybe? 

how about a toilet tank sink?

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/04/03/toilet-tank-sink-save-water-california-drought-robin-weld/