What’s Up With That?

Remember the Soup Nazi in the TV series, Seinfeld? Well, we have a new soup Nazi today. It is the Water Nazis and their chant is “No water for you today.”

Unless you are an ostrich with your head in the ground, you probably know that California is in the midst of a severe long-term drought.

In Palms Springs, California and other cities you can now be a water-Nazi, or now the politically correct term, Water Watchdog.

Yes, you can turn in your neighbors who might be wasting water. Just download the Smartphone app, go spy on your neighbors, take some pictures, and upload the information. I found out about this in an email from our neighborhood busy-body social networking group.

This is the brain-child of our “green,” greedy, and special interest financed government officials want to do something about the water shortage, and they want to make a big splash in the media at the same time.

Unfortunately as Water Watchdogs they are barking up the wrong tree.

As we can figure out with little effort, the Water Watchdog program requires spending more tax money, probably more enforcement workers, inflating the already fat government worker payroll.

California has enacted rules for public consumption of water, ignoring the fact the public uses less than 17% of the state’s water supply and water consumption has been declining since 1980, a period of 35 years. We citizens have invested in low use toilets, reduced watering our lawns and gardens, installed low volume shower-heads, sink aerators, high efficiency dishwashers (which use less water than hand washing), and a myriad of other conservation efforts.

Getting facts about water consumption is difficult at best, because every stakeholder or group with an agenda has their own statistics. So I looked up some information from the USGS and the Department of Agriculture, which we should probably take with a grain of salt.

Over 74% (some guestimate it at over 80%) of California’s water consumption is the agriculture industry.

Since this is big business and our elected officials are in bed with big business, agriculture buys water at heavily discounted rates, and the taxpayers (you and me) subsidize this; not to mention we bore the burden of all the construction for dams and other public works projects over the past 80+ years.

If you want to understand the crux of the problem, the boondoggles, the runaway government, the ecological disaster, and other saddening facts, I recommend you read Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner. It is an eye opener. Here’s the bottom line – we do not have enough water or other resources to support big agriculture in California or most of the US. We certainly cannot continue to export 20% of California’s agriculture overseas. But our politicians don’t understand this and they certainly do not understand that open borders with the influx of aliens in the US only increases the problem. They don’t understand the simple fact, “You cannot eat your cake and have it too.”

So while we are taking “navy showers,” big agriculture is sucking up all of our underground and surface water at discounted rates and getting rich at the same time.

But that’s okay, just don’t forget not to let your water run while you are brushing your teeth, or your neighbor might turn you in to the Water Nazis.

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