Quote:In Cape Town, South Africa, they're calling it "Day Zero" -- the day when the taps run dry.
A few days ago, city officials had said that day will come on April 22. This week, they moved up the date to April 12.
Cape Town is South Africa's second-largest city and a top international tourist draw. Now, residents play a new and delicate game of water math each day.
They're recycling bath water to help flush toilets. They're being told to limit showers to 90 seconds. And hand sanitizer, once somewhat of an afterthought, is now a big seller.

"Unwashed hair is now a sign of social responsibility," resident Darryn Ten told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/africa/ca...index.html

How do you think an american city would respond under similar circumstances?

Fuckin’ shithole. 😏

I grew up in Phoenix, Az. It is now illegal for new homes to have a front lawn. Xeroscaping is mandatory. Same in SoCal. Some days it is illegal to water your lawn/ plants. We are not far behind Cape Town. Or maybe, we are far behind.

I've been running the water into a 5-gallon bucket to wait for warm water for a shower. The gallon and a half or so that I collect is used for flushing water. I've done this for decades. We had to completely quit watering our lawn with the new(er) water restrictions in southern California, because the only way we were going to get a 20% reduction was to do so. I have contemplated building a cistern that takes runoff from the street gutter, because of all the runoff from other people's sprinklers, and using that for flush water. Leaves and all.

(January 25, 2018 at 1:00 am)Fireball Wrote: I've been running the water into a 5-gallon bucket to wait for warm water for a shower. The gallon and a half or so that I collect is used for flushing water. I've done this for decades. We had to completely quit watering our lawn with the new(er) water restrictions in southern California, because the only way we were going to get a 20% reduction was to do so. I have contemplated building a cistern that takes runoff from the street gutter, because of all the runoff from other people's sprinklers, and using that for flush water. Leaves and all.

I keep eyeing the water in the year around creek that runs along my Northern boundary with larceny in my heart.  When it runs into the culvert that goes under my street it stays underground until it gets to the bay in about a mile.  Seems such a waste when my garden could be a lush paradise if I had a certain water supply.

Apparently there are laws against capturing runoff for reuse in many places now.  If I do start .. detaining .. the creek water, I'd need to get a large cistern to store it in.  I've talked to an expert here on these forums who has given me a pretty good idea of what is involved.  The thing is people love to walk up the creek from the park behind us and someone would report me or mess with it if I tried to leave a pipe down to a sump in the creek all the time.  So I'd probably have to have something I could lower at night to pump water up.  Then disappear it during the day.  Not sure how often.  I'd have to work that out.

This is a picture of the creek after a heavy rain a few years after the park was built.  Our place is just the other side of all that ivy down stream, beginning where you see that tall shiny silver metal pole just right of the red lamp pole.



This is a picture taken when the creek was daylighted back around 1982.  The Santa Fe train used to run through here and the creek was buried in a culvert under the tracks.  The creek where it goes past our lot has never been built over, though the land has been filled and leveled using crude rip rap.  

File all of this under "too much info".




This is our bank now which I recently fenced in and started planting.  It gives me a backdoor entrance to the park.

(January 25, 2018 at 1:00 am)Fireball Wrote: I've been running the water into a 5-gallon bucket to wait for warm water for a shower. The gallon and a half or so that I collect is used for flushing water. I've done this for decades. We had to completely quit watering our lawn with the new(er) water restrictions in southern California, because the only way we were going to get a 20% reduction was to do so. I have contemplated building a cistern that takes runoff from the street gutter, because of all the runoff from other people's sprinklers, and using that for flush water. Leaves and all.

Why don't you buy a machine?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/24/tech/innov...index.html

(January 25, 2018 at 12:18 am)Khemikal Wrote:

Quote:In Cape Town, South Africa, they're calling it "Day Zero" -- the day when the taps run dry.
A few days ago, city officials had said that day will come on April 22. This week, they moved up the date to April 12.
Cape Town is South Africa's second-largest city and a top international tourist draw. Now, residents play a new and delicate game of water math each day.
They're recycling bath water to help flush toilets. They're being told to limit showers to 90 seconds. And hand sanitizer, once somewhat of an afterthought, is now a big seller.

"Unwashed hair is now a sign of social responsibility," resident Darryn Ten told CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/africa/ca...index.html

How do you think an american city would respond under similar circumstances?

How would Americans respond? Somewhere between and , depending on their politics.

Scary stuff. Here it rains a lot, and we collect rain water to use as communal water dispensing. There's no such thing as ground water where I live.

(January 25, 2018 at 7:22 am)Sal Wrote: Scary stuff. Here it rains a lot, and we collect rain water to use as communal water dispensing. There's no such thing as ground water where I live.

Where's that sal?

(January 25, 2018 at 7:26 am)Cod Wrote:

(January 25, 2018 at 7:22 am)Sal Wrote: Scary stuff. Here it rains a lot, and we collect rain water to use as communal water dispensing. There's no such thing as ground water where I live.

Where's that sal?

Faroe Islands.