Based on this story about regulating water usage in Nevada (reprinted in the Star Tribune today), it sounds as though Nevada is one state in the Colorado River Compact that's trying to do something — though maybe not enough — about that dire situation.
There were a couple of facts in it that sent me off to my own record-keeping filing cabinet.
According to the story, the average home in Nevada (I think that means single-family home) uses 130,000 gallons of water per year. The bill under consideration in the state would give the state's water authority the ability to limit water usage by residents of SFHs to 160,000 gallons per year per household.
So that made me wonder, What is my household's water usage, compared to either of those numbers?
We are not average, I imagine: just two people instead of whatever Nevada's average is. We're not in a desert (though we did have a drought last year), so maybe we don't need to drink as much to replace what we lose. We don't cook a lot or do laundry as much as the average family. No swimming pool. (Just a lot of plants.)
But even with all of those caveats, I was shocked at how much lower our usage is than the Nevada average: we use less than 43,000 gallons. Which still seems like a lot to me! And of course, that's with both of us essentially here almost all the time: no work or school outside the home in this later covid period. So 130,000 is the average in Nevada? And it's projected that a fifth of the households out there will crash through the 160,000 limit?
Whew.
While I'm writing about Nevada's efforts on the water front, I should add something about a 2016 story from Mother Jones about water use in California that I just heard about. It's called Meet the California couple who uses more water than every home in Los Angeles combined, and it made my head spin.
Aside from all the water they're using, their entire empire appears to be an exemplar of manufactured demand in late capitalism. And then they turn around and give away small amounts of their extracted wealth to create a "Sustainability Institute" named after themselves.
Whew.
3 comments:
I bet you do have a file cabinet!
Those homes in Nevada must have well-watered lawns? Lawns have got to be a significant portion of that number. Your average lawn in a climate like that will want a good watering every day before dawn, I think.
I think the article said they had banned lawns... although that may have been recently, so not counted in the averages?
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