Water Cops
Mayor Villaraigosa announced the return of the drought busters, a concept from the early 90′s to cajole and even strong arm residents into using less water. According to Villaraigosa, “Drought busters helped decrease water usage 25-30 percent, 15 years ago,”
The Daily News reports that “15 drought busters (will be) dispensing warnings and water conservation advice, instead of tickets.”
“Don’t think this mayor and this council won’t be prepared to use citations and require mandatory conservation efforts, if necessary.” said Villaraigosa
However, the mayor himself uses so much water that some residents might consider him to be a felon.
The Los Angeles Times reported in August (Officials go with the flow) that Villaraigosa annually uses 386,716 gallons! The average Angeleno uses only 55,576 gallons.
The LADWP Drought Busters should visit the mayors home on a daily basis.
No amount of conservation will make up for the demands that will be created as the city continues approving permits for the tens of thousands of high rise housing units like this that are going up all over the city.
Watering your lawn is not a crime… approving building permits for twin 47 story condominium complexes is.
http://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/cms/ladwp001149.pdf
The document above describes water rates in Los Angeles. Poor pricing of water is the real culprit.
“Drought Busters” – that is ridiculous. It is like communist commissars. Proper application of economic theory can solve LA’s development problems much more effectively than can a religious/socialist call to environmentalism/conservationism.