By this date last summer two thunderstorms had blessed the plants in my Southern California yard and filled my brand-new rain barrels to the brim. Making things even better, a third thunderstorm spawned by a tropical storm off the coast of Mexico was on the way.
The unusual rain ameliorated a drought in California that has stretched on for seven dusty years. For several hot weeks I turned off the irrigation in my yard. I was proud then to have taken up the State of California’s rebate offer to homeowner who purchased and installed water barrels. It was such a good deal that I purchased four $100 barrels for $25 apiece – after the Metropolitan Water District’s rebate.
Since then reality has set in. So far this summer, no rain. Since late April the four 65-gallon barrels have been as dry as bones in the Anza-Borrego Desert. That’s no surprise. But I am starting to wonder if I have been using those barrels all wrong.
Weather records show that it is an aberration for rain to fall between April and November on the heavily populated strip in San Diego County bordered by the foothills of the Laguna Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Even as I deposited my water-barrel rebate check, I knew that for the past 20 years most summers in my little hidden valley have been arid. In fact, July 2015 was was by far the rainiest ever recorded in San Diego.
Yet I keep hoping for rain. I keep hoping even though the conditions that spawn thunderstorms here are about as welcome as a fart in church. The fact is it takes humid tropical air to breed thunderstorms, and nothing turns grownup Californians into whining babies quite like a spate of humidity. We like to gloat after listening to family back east moan about how sticky it is in cities like St. Louis, San Antonio or Charleston. On the other hand, we complain bitterly if the humidity tops 60 percent. It was most certainly a Californian who first bragged, “It’s a dry heat.”
So I’ve been thinking cynically about my underemployed rain barrels. My little city charges more for water as we use more of it. It’s a tiered system. The cheapest water is the first we receive each billing cycle. After we’ve used the water considered necessary for a household, the price goes up. That’s tier 2. And there’s a tier 3. It is the most-expensive water that irrigates vegetable gardens and fruit trees.
After years of drought, responsible Californians have reduced outdoor water use. I’ve cut off two irrigation zones in my yard. The Red Apple ice plant that once grew on the slopes withered and died years ago. Instead, there is dirt raked to look nice, but dusty dry soil all the same. That’s how I met city-mandated water-use cuts of 25 percent, by letting my yard burn in the warm California sun.
Yet it’s precisely because we have let our yards turn to dust that the price of water has gone up. Water agencies have argued persuasively to the public boards governing them that even though consumption has gone down they still must employ the same number of people to maintain the same canals, pipes and pumping stations that transfer our water from melting mountain snowpack to thirsty customers. Therefore, it is necessary to charge more for the water still being used.
So, next year in April while my vegetable garden and fruit trees are still green from the rainy season, I am going to use the water in the rain barrels ASAP. Then I am going to fill the barrels with the cheaper Tier 1 water from the garden hose before the summer heat arrives. I wonder how many homeowners have thought of that?