Rain to date

There's a series of storms coming in which make me hopeful that this year we will finish the wet season with somewhat normal rainfall. Our completely dry November was anomalous but the 1+ inches of rain that I noted on 12/14 seemed to get the garden back on track. Irises divided early in November are doing well and the rest of the garden has perked up. For native plants, I find that now (or better yet right before or after a light rainfall) is a really good time to water: The extra water coupled with the timing just makes the plant "think" that it just had a better soaking than Mother Nature actually delivered. Rainfall totals below are in inches as recorded in my backyard.

Date       Amount  Cumulative
10/5/2021   0.08    0.08
10/26/2021  0.45    0.53
12/7/2021   0.02    0.55
12/8/2021   0.05    0.6
12/14/2021  1.15    1.75
12/16/2021  0.48    2.23
12/17/2021  0.04    2.27

Water consumption in the presence of leaks

water consumption

The whole house was replumbed Oct 28-30 due to numerous obvious leaks that I found and plugged.  From the data I conclude that there must have been 12 hundred cubic feet (hcf) of water lost over the previous 3 months due to leaks, since my baseline usage is about 7 hcf.

All of that went into the soil under the house which happens to be be quite porous, fortunately.  Too bad the leaks didn't occur during winter when they would count towards my baseline consumption for water allocation purposes, a touchy subject with me since my normal 6-7 hcf/month is already at the low end of local usage.

Rainwater Colander

Here's a "rainwater colander", an inline downspout rainwater diverter, a product I first stumbled across at my Home Depot while looking for a downspout extender to better direct rainwater into my garden. It snaps in to your existing gutter downspout (provided you use one that is sized for your downspout). It's "designed to filter out debris in rainwater collection barrels and systems" including surge tanks and "can connect to a garden hose to water plants directly".

The image shown is Amerimax brand, available at Orchard Supply Hardware and elsewhere for around $10 or less.  This seems to be the least expensive that's readily available.

Rain barrels in other places

I saw a rain barrel a week ago that appeared to be completely justified by local weather and usage patterns.

Surge tanks vs. rain barrels IV

I'm sure I left you dangling in a previous installment with the question of how rainfall intensity affects the usability of surge tanks.  I talked about rainfall intensity without actually answering the question, but we can now get to the answer that I am sure you've been waiting for.

A recent discussion on radio station KPCC asked rain barrel owners what they would do with ALL THAT WATER.  The answer was that their tanks were overflowing, they were too heavy to move, and no one knew what to do with the water.  They were talking as if they were going to hoard it for a hot summer day!  It was a gigantic Duh moment, but they were too blinded by ALL THAT WATER  - all 55 gallons of it - to take a leap to the most logical place which is to reject rain barrels and embrace surge tanks.

Meanwhile, a friend who is an actual meteorologist stopped an earlier post in this blog by to say that most 30 minute southern California rain bands could be accommodated by a surge tank.  That's really the bottom line, isn't it? If you can't flow rain water directly from your gutters to some place where it will infiltrate, then it might pay to have a surge tank type of set up. Let's see if she's right with a little garden engineering. 

It's also nice to make some estimates, since the possibility is that surge tanks needn't be gigantic 55 gallon drums and therefore might be more seemly in the garden.

This post is again mostly stream-of-consciousness garden engineering, which I am pretty sure has a limited appeal.  It may also be wrong.  Therefore you may find this analysis simple or simple-minded.

Surge tanks vs. rain barrels III - storm intensity

In order to answer questions that I have about how large a surge tank is needed to accommodate a certain number of local storms, we need to know about rainfall intensity.  Intensity tells us how much rain we get in a unit of time.

Intensity has a simple answer when considering the duration of a storm as your time interval.  If a storm lasts T hours and it drops 1" of rain, then 1"/ T is the average rate of rainfall.  However, real storms of consequence don't behave like that.  Typically they start out slowly, have a peak rate of rainfall, and then taper off.  From what I've been able to tell, there are two main ways to estimate storm intensity: Using a model hyetograph or using Intensity Duration Frequency (IDF) graphs.

You can have good policy or you can have good customer service

I live in a community that was given a 36% water use reduction target by the state.  Since I've always been careful with my water I thought that I would get credit for good behavior.  Not so, and poor policy is to blame.  So far as I can tell, my water allocation is determined by simple-minded application of the rule: Cut water usage from the 2013 average by 36%, but don't let the allocation drop below 6 hcf per month for any household.

Of course this benefits people who wasted water historically and penalizes those who conserved.  I was one who conserved, and so my water allocation was set at the floor of 6 hcf per month.  I've added a third person to my household, am now housing a teen, and water use is consequently up. Naturally, I petitioned to have a larger allocation.  I got it: Now I have 7 hcf per month, which adds up to about 57 gallons per person per day.  We would have to be reasonably eagled-eyed conservationists to hit that number, which is possible, but what about the fairness issue?  It doesn't take a super genius to intuit that most people aren't being held to similarly low requirements.  If we're all suffering together, then solidarity, brothers and sisters!  But if you are holding me to a tougher standard then f*** off, I'll sue.

A little Googling let me determine that the average usage in my zip code in the middle of last year was 24 hcf (bill insert in 6/2014).  Applying the state-mandated 36% reduction target to the average usage is 15 hcf, more than twice my increased allocation.  This is consistent with a neighbor's report (they are newly arrived in the neighborhood) that their allocation is 14 hcf.

Finally, I received a letter containing this graphic in my mail:

In case you are curious, the entire first page, minus my address information, is shown below in a clickable image.

So I'm using about half the amount of similar homes and I'm being chastised instead of lauded?  Really, I'd like to turn on a hose into the street just to protest.  The curse words flew but after I calmed down I called California Water Service where the nicest customer service person defused me.  She placed re-application for an additional allocation increase into review by management because that's what happens when you've been give the generous upper of 1 hcf already.  Apparently the backlog of management review cases is so large that it will take us into 2016, at which point something will happen.

The something they are probably hoping for is that El Nino will bring sufficient rain that our reductions will not be extended by Governor Brown (they are scheduled to end in February).  The something that I am afraid will happen is that I'll continue to be held to a higher standard than my neighbors and I'll have to participate in a class action lawsuit to change an obviously flawed policy.

What can we say about Los Angeles area rainfall this winter?

I've received 8.35" of rain in my back yard this year.  Since I have a few years worth of data on rainfall in my back yard, and decades of data from the nearby Los Angeles area, I feel that I can draw a few conclusions.

1. Rain barrels still suck.  I've said this before and here's a short synopsis of why with the caveats.  This last winter we had 17 storms come through that dropped measurable precipitation.  That's 17 opportunities to catch rain water.  The typical home rain water harvesting setup involves 50 to 100 gallons of storage.  So that's perhaps 1700 gallons of rain water you could have saved and used after the storm has passed.  Go figure out how much that actually saved in money versus the cost of the installation.  I've done that already for you, and it's not worth it.  Wouldn't you like to use that water during the summer on your vegetables?  Don't bother, you can't realistically save 50 to 100 gallons for that long.

Caveats: When storage is abundant (several times the amount of rain that your roof sheds in one storm) then it might make sense.  There are under-house bladders and cisterns that seem to meet that criterion.  When storm frequency is greater then it might make sense.  When storm season is longer it might make sense. If you have occasional summer storms then it might make sense.  The climatic conditions aren't likely to change enough in California even in the face of  global climate change.  Really, don't bother with a mere barrel or two.

2. Rain water retention still makes sense.  When you are storing the rain in the ground (eliminating run off using swales, or rain gardens, or permeable hardscape, or however you do it) then it's easy to store large amounts and you don't have to fuss with infrastructure costs or maintenance other than your garden.

3. This winter was typical for Los Angeles.  Everyone's crying drought, but the native plants living locally got a normal amount of rain.  Do you think this is surprising?  The most frequent amount of rainfall that the greater Los Angeles area gets is 8-10 inches per year.  Over the past decades of rainfall data that I've analyzed, we received 8-10 inches of rain in 16 of them.  For comparison, we received 6-8 inches of rain in 8 years, and 10-12 inches of rain in 9 years.  Folks, the LA area is RIGHT ON TARGET for the rain we received this year.  It's dry here, but for our native plants THIS WAS A NORMAL YEAR.  Let's not try to make Los Angeles a subtropical paradise by importing water and concentrate instead on showcasing our California paradise.

LA Times on water

The LA Times has three articles on water in California.

The first, "As wells run dry, Central Valley neighbors find common ground" talks about ground water pumping in the Central Valley, the rise of almond farming as a last ditch financial gambit despite its heavy water inputs. Its accompanied by some nice black and white photographs. Perhaps this caliber of article is what we can (happily) anticipate with the Times new publisher?


A second article, "Climate change won't dry up Southern California, study finds" takes a more local approach and summarizes recent UCLA climate predictions.  Contrary to earlier predictions, average rainfall in S. Ca. is not expected to change all that much due to climate change.  However, the pattern of rain may shift. This sort of modeling is important because planners need to know how to build water infrastructure now for the decades to come and local planning is all about doing ground water recharge with local rainfall.  All good stuff, until the next model comes along that upends it all.  Still, I think that the model fidelity generally improves with time so this is, for now, the most believable scenario.


The third, Gardeners, nurseries struggle to adapt as drought cuts their business: In four decades of tending people's yards, this year has been [gardener] Ortega's roughest: Clients put off landscaping projects, scaled back his duties or simply let their yards go altogether, costing him thousands of dollars. As one of California's worst droughts continues, gardeners across the region have been faced with a choice: Become more water-savvy or risk being left behind. 

The story continues that gardens are transforming to drier landscaping and gardeners have to stay current or risk losing their livelihood. How long is this going to take?
"The change will be gradual, but soon, you're going to see more and more people transition their yards," Muir [spokesman for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District] said. "And those gardeners who don't adapt will see their opportunities become more sparse." It's tough to say how long it will take to phase out the ideal of a lush, thirsty garden; water policy experts say it could be decades.

native plants...lawn removal rebates...design firms specializing in drought tolerant...intransigent plant growers and nurseries that would rather go out of business than adapt...Payne Foundation... It's all there.  Have a read. 

Actually, it's the intransigent grower/nursery owner that is the most interesting to me. Their interviewee is willing to watch his business evaporate rather than change, even though he knows what to do. Why? Because "It would take too long to grow the seedlings, too much effort to relearn all the plant names and growing habits."  Don't let the door hit you on the way out, gramps. 

I'm voting no on Proposition 1, California's $7+ billion water bond

Some good might come of the bond, but I'm willing to wait until policy makers have it right, or at least better, before I say yes.  Here's the reasons that resonate with me to say no, based on my reading:

Using general obligation funds rather than ratepayer funds to pay for water supply is inherently a subsidy and often sends the wrong cost signal to consumers. Paying the full cost of water supply through one's utility bill provides a better incentive for conservation and efficient use. There are exceptions to this statement, and the one I would have liked to see addressed is the the Delta Conveyance, but that is explicitly prohibited from being funded by the terms of the bond (probably because it is so controversial in N Ca.  Voters at some remove can see that the way the state currently gets water from the Delta ought to be fixed, somehow.)

No one knows how the California Water Commission would evaluate proposals to spend the 2.7 billion dollars allocated for the "public benefits" of new storage (surface or groundwater). While there is significant political pressure to allocate the funds for certain proposed (and controversial) surface storage projects, including Sites and Temperance Flat reservoirs, many believe those projects cannot pass any reasonable economic hurdles. 

Requirements of the bond can be read to favor improvement of or new surface water storage facilities rather than ground water storage, desalination, or waste water reuse.  This is an area in which the bond is not very clear and we will only learn the criteria against which proposed facilities are ranked after the bond is approved, if ever.

The bond doesn't do enough for conservation of water, arguably the most effective approach to the current drought.

The bond doesn't address our current drought in any other meaningful way.

Urinate in the shower to save a wee bit of water

This is not my personal recommendation; the BBC is reporting this water saving approach.

University students are being urged to urinate in the shower in a bid to save water.

The Go with the Flow campaign is the brainchild of students Debs Torr and Chris Dobson, from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich.
They want the university's 15,000 students to take their first wee of the day while having their morning shower.
Mr Dobson, 20, said the idea could "save enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool 26 times".
The pair want those taking part to pledge their allegiance on Facebook and Twitter and have offered gift vouchers to the first people to join the challenge.

"...endangered by climate change and manly and shit"

On The Public Record is back with a three part commentary on California water issues.  Recommended reading.
Are farmers in the SJV more deserving of my sympathy than the failing restaurateur down the street being squeezed by food prices? He and his family work 14 hour days too. Do they deserve my sympathy more than Syrians drawn into a civil war started when Syrian farms started failing from drought? Do SJV farmers deserve my sympathy more than migrating birds that are starved of food and resting places as they migrate this fall?

...You could [write about] rugged resource extractors on boats that their grandfathers built, idled by drought, pulling up to some nostalgic ice cream parlor in the Delta. The story could be the exact same, only with mournful ship bells clanging for atmosphere. That group is the direct competition for water with growers, equally picturesque and endangered by climate change and manly and shit. Why care about one and not the other?

Goodbye, Canada

I learned that there's a Mediterranean climate in Canada's coastal islands in the vicinity of Victoria. A Garry oak woodland on many of the islands is in decline. It shares characteristics with oak woodlands in California.

Rain catcher design proves too costly

I'm looking at arbor / pergola and trellis designs that I like and collecting them over on Pinterest.

Follow Brent's board Arbors and Trellises on Pinterest.

This one from Lowes caught my eye because it is simple and has a number of design elements that I might like to consider.  It also has a bill of materials and costs for each part of the construction.  Overall, this is just the sort of useful garden construction advice that I like to see online.  Bravo to Lowes.

However, one of the design features of the arbor is a "rain catcher" which is a section of 6" PVC pipe stood on end and fed by a downspout.  Go to the article linked above to see the construction details or just take my word for it. The BOM is reproduced below showing a total price of $125!!

Two years at Cleo's Bath

2011 was a banner year for water in California and in June of that year I took a hike in the Sierra up to a little place called Cleo's Bath. The water was ice cold, having just melted from snow not too many miles up stream.

It also wasn't safe to swim in since it was running too rapidly. I waded in at a shore just down stream and my feet quickly went numb. In 2012 I returned to the same spot at the same time and saw this:

That's the same tree in the foreground. You can see that flow is greatly reduced in 2012. That day we didn't mind too much because it led to great fun:

Water Reliability 2020 - desal is alive and well

At the recent SCESC informational meeting I was given a little information on Water Reliability 2020, a program sponsored by the West Basin Water District (a local water wholesaler who probably sells to your water retailer if you live locally, except for Torrance residents).  The intent of the program organizers was to get a written commitment from me to support a three-pronged conservation, reclamation, and desalination plan that West Basin is promoting to reduce our local reliance on imported water.  Once you commit to support this effort they place your name on their website in a scrolling marquee.  Normally I'm in favor of this sort of corporate environmental commitment, but I didn't sign because the program sounded too good to be true, the description was simplistic, it wasn't the main reason I was at the informational session, and the session leader didn't seem extremely conversant with water issues.  So I didn't ask for more information nor did I sign a postcard in support. Instead I went poking around on the web for more information. I didn't find anything that would stop me from supporting the effort, but read below for the details.

Could AB 1881 be made retroactive?

Over at On The Public Record, there's some freewheeling conceptual thoughts about the impending drought situation in California.  In comments, Emily Green suggests that Assembly Bill 1881 be made retroactive. Not having a particularly good memory, I went and looked it up.  AB 1881, signed into law in 2006, mostly has to do with outdoor water use efficiency and it mandated that by Dec 31, 2010, that all municipalities have an ordinance on their books that was at least as strict as a suggested model law.  Most new and rehabilitated landscapes are now subject to this water efficient landscape ordinance. Public landscapes and private development projects including developer-installed single family and multi-family residential landscapes with at least 2500 sq. ft. of landscape area are subject as well.  Homeowner provided landscaping at single family and multi-family homes are subject to the [State or local standards] if the landscape area is at least 5000 sq. ft.  As it turns out, I blogged about it earlier, mostly with a hopeful thought that it would make a difference, as I recall.

There's already retroactive component for landscapes larger than 1 acre, which I suppose applies to public parks and the landed gentry, but the language says that they "may" be subject to a water audit, not that it is compulsory.  Also, existing landscapes get additional latitude with regard to water used - about a 10% bump up from AB1881 standards for new construction with regards to the evapotranspiration rate and a [presumably very] relaxed set of water use criteria dating from 1992. 

I have discovered a proof of how truly remarkable the water savings could be if it were made retroactive which the margins of this post are too small to contain.* Perhaps we need wait only three centuries for a complete explanation.

Creek Watch app

A fresh update of the Creek Watch app reminded me that I ought to actually use it, so tonight I took a stroll along the Dominguez Channel and made a few reports.

From the friendly app:
"Creek Watch enables you to help monitor your watershed. Creeks and streams are a vital part of watersheds; they provide water to drink and sustain plant and animal life. However, they can also be a pathway for pollution to spread, and they are often too numerous for water boards to monitor without help.

Creek Watch provides an easy way to lend a hand by reporting on any waterway you pass. We then aggregate reports and share them with water control boards to help them track pollution,
manage water resources, and plan environmental programs.

Creek Watch is an IBM Smarter Planet Project developed by IBM Research-Almaden. To learn more visit http://www.creekwatch.org."

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

Rain 0.01"; season total 17.42"

A surprise shower hit last night bringing our rainfall total to 17.42".  Here's what the rainfall looked like in my back yard for the past several years. 

As you can see, this year was second overall in rainfall total for the years that I have tracked, but still only about 2/3rds of the largest rainfall in 2004-05.  This is an illustrative data set since it captures the full range of rainfall that California tends to get.  It also illustrates the frequently recurring or maybe constant drought theme in our state - only in years of greater than average rainfall (and snowpack) do we have a real surfeit of water given the public appetite.

Worldwide cost of tap water

Water is too cheap!

A little further down in the blog when I conclude that rain barrels are only the leading edge of a water public relations campaign and that they only make sense if they are given away free, I made a casual comment that water is cheap. "Tap water costs next to nothing" is the exact quote from my most recent Rain barrel vs. soil rant. A comment from Diane of Food, Fun and Life in the Charente was that tap water was too expensive to see extensive outdoor use in France and the UK.

Wikipedia supports this, citing 6% of total residential water used outdoors (lawn watering and washing cars) in France. This is much lower than California (The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California estimates that, "in hot, dry areas, landscape irrigation can account for as much as 70 percent of the summer water use in single-family homes."  This is probably a histrionic upper limit for PR purposes, but it can still serve as a point of comparison: 6% is a factor of 10 less than 70% so the real numbers are probably not in alignment either.) But is it really a cost issue that keeps outdoor water use in France much lower than in southern California or is it a cultural and horticultural issue?