Out of the Blue: Don’t ignore the water crisis

I Wish it Would Rain

Sunshine, blue skies, please go away

My town is getting drier, every day

With it went my future, my life is filled with gloom

So day after day, I stay locked up in my room.

I know to you it might sound strange.

But I wish it would rain (How I wish it would rain)

*

The Temptations released this song 47 years ago — except the second line, of course.

The song was originally a personal rendering by Motown staff writer Rodger Penzabene about his wife’s infidelity. He wanted rain to hide his tears, ‘cause a man ain’t supposed to cry.

Today his lyrics are especially resonant, and with far graver import, for us at least (Penzabene committed suicide a week before the song’s release).

We’re drying up, Laguna. Our whole region.

And yet we seem to be on a party boat, floating down the river, and no one sees the waterfall ahead. In the July 9 issue of the L.A. Times, water scientist Jay Famiglietti wrote an op-ed called “Tapped Out in California.” He’s not just any water scientist. He’s the water scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech. Legit.

“It’s the worst drought since record keeping began in the late 1800s,” he says. “Without a few successive winters of above-average precipitation, we have only enough water in storage to get us through the next 12 to 18 months.”

And with expectations of a weaker El Nino than originally forecasted, the chance of yet another bone-dry year is looking imminent.

So why aren’t we in hypervigilant conservation mode already? Yes there are promising technologies, like sewage recycling, rainwater harvesting and desalination but these are years away from the kind of mass and scale that can solve our problems. Yet we continue to water our yards, wash our cars and flush our toilets like we are living in a monsoon. After all, it doesn’t look like a drought here. Everything is so green and beautiful we are lulled into a false sense of security. It’s a mirage.

I haven’t heard much urgency among the City Council or the candidates about the severity of this problem. Yet it’s regularly front-page news. On Sept. 26 the Times listed 14 California communities that are in immediate danger of running out of drinking water.

Imagine for a moment how our lives would be impacted if our faucets simply stopped running. No matter how much money you have, and how secure your fortress is, everything comes apart at the seams — in an instant.

I for one would love to see one candidate obsess about this problem the way Eli Grossman obsesses about overhauling the Laguna Police Department. We need that kind of single-minded, monomaniacal focus to get it into people’s heads that nothing else matters — not parking, traffic, bike lanes, sewage, views, the Village Entrance, undergrounding the power lines, crime, or supporting local business. None of it, if our pipes run dry. This is public safety issue No. 1.

The council needs to address this as the emergency it is, and enact immediate legislation to restrict water usage. We need to be in survivor mode now, because serious water conservation could perhaps buy us enough time for either large-scale innovation to happen or the return of the rains.

Maybe seeing some brown in our town would actually remind us of the reality we live in. Lawns need to be converted to drought-tolerant landscapes (in other words, natives). The only nonnatives should be edibles. At least that water would be used to produce something we need.

We need to restrict our household water use: Wash dishes more efficiently; do less laundry; install rain catchment systems and brown-water systems to irrigate our yards; take fewer showers; and as for toilet use, well you know the drill, if it’s yellow, let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down. And the city needs to evaluate its own extravagant water use to make the public realm green.

Two-thirds of our water use goes to irrigation. Yes, we need to look shiny and green so the tourists will come and our home prices stay high. But no amount of lush greenery will save us from ourselves if we’ve squandered the human body’s single most vital element. It’s gut-check time, Laguna.

BILLY FRIED is the chief paddling officer of La Vida Laguna and member of the board of Transition Laguna. He can be reached at [email protected].