Don’t Lecture Us On Conserving Water!
“Los Angeles needs to change course and conserve water to steer clear of this perfect storm” – Mayor Villaraigosa, June 2007
The Los Angeles Times reports on Villaraigosa’s and other city policymakers water usage:
- Mayor Villaraigosa – 386,716 gallons (2.83 times more than my household!)
- Rocky Delgadillo – 423,368 gallons (a staggering 3.1 times more than my household!!)
- Jack Weiss – 254,320 gallons (1.86 times more…)
- Bill Rosendahl – 230,384 gallons (1.68 times more…)
- Tony Cardenas – 219,912 gallons (1.61 times more…)
- Greig Smith – 219,164 gallons (1.60 times more…)
- Dennis Zine – 194,480 gallons (1.42 times more…)
- Wendy Gruel – 190,740 gallons (1.39 times more…)
- Jose Huizar – 142,120 gallons (1.04 times more…)
- Eric Garcetti – 88,264 (.64 times my household)
- Garcetti’s household use is less than than the average two person household.
- Janice Hahn – 83,776 (.61 times my household)
- Hahn is an empty nester which explains her frugal use. If any of her kids live with her then her water use is perfectly average.
- Bernard Parks – 35,156 (.25 times my household)
- Parks is another empty nester. He and his wife are very frugal with their water use.
Now I have a hard time imagining going through 200,000 plus gallons of water but I’ll try.
I’ll imagine when I finally own that ten acre parcel with a swimming pool, tennis court, nine acres of lush green shady yard with a babbling creek, fountains, and gophers (a convenient scapegoat to blame my wasteful water usage on); or a massive condo with all those cool water features.
Once I’ve reached that nirvana, I’ll then begin cutting back 10% so that our policymakers can issue more building permits for the next 20,000 housing units in LA. That’s really what this is all about, more housing. So until then… Dear city leaders, don’t lecture me on conserving water until your habits and your planning policies match your rhetoric.
By the way.. our family of four used a piddling 136,510 gallons in 2006. That about 34,127 per member and includes the modest use of a washing machine, watering our lawn every other day and a dripping kitchen sink faucet.
The average LA household uses 163,000 gallons per household or 56,576 gallons per person. My household is well below average by both measures. Yours probably is to. Just take a look at your water bill and near the bottom you’ll find your daily average.
If the city decides someday to force water conservation on it’s residents by raising water rates, then they should triple the rates on people who use greater than 200,000 gallons per year. That’ll teach them to manage their gophers more closely!
Kudos to the LA Times and Duke Helfand - Officials go with the flow – 8/10/2007
[...] thing. The mayor himself uses so much water that some might considered him [...]