The annual cloud cover known as "June Gloom" arrived on time today, and it's a good thing -- because this is the day the city has imposed radical new restrictions on water usage, due to California's ongoing drought.
Beginning today, automatic water sprinklers may only be operated on Mondays and Thursdays--and it is ILLEGAL to do so any other day of the week. We are also prohibited from watering lawns between the hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., watering for longer than 15 minutes per station, using water on our driveways or allowing runoff into city streets and rain gutters due to watering.
You are now breaking the law if you allow a leak to go unrepaired, and restaurants are breaking the law if they serve water without being asked.
Anyone discovered breaking these new water regulations are subject to huge fines.
On top of that, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has instituted new "Shortage Year Rates" on its customers. The goal is to reduce water usage by 15%; as long as you comply with your water allotment (calculated as 85% of your average seasonal usage), you won't have to pay more (they are calling this the "first tier" rate). But anything over your allotment gets hit with an expensive "second tier" price tag.
DWP has been trying to reassure everyone that the reduction can be made through simple changes like reducing your watering to twice a week (a suggestion codified by the new sprinkler restrictions) and taking five-minute showers.
I have been obsessing over this for a couple of months and so have been driving the family crazy by adopting the role of "shower police:" sticking egg timers in the bathrooms, replacing our shampoo and conditioner with "all-in-one" product and banging on the door when my husband or daughter has been running the water too long.
I understand the need for the reductions; California city residents have ignored our state's water issues for far too long, and this drought is a true crisis -- and may be something we have to live with for a very long time, as the globe continues to heat up.
But I can't help but think that the five-minute shower rule was thought up by a man -- a bald one, at that. I doubt that my husband (who is follically challenged) has noticed the change to all-in-one shampoo. But my hair is less manageable without my favorite conditioner. And allowing myself just a minute or so for shaving my underarms and legs can be downright dangerous.
As for the rest of the family: Have you ever tried to restrict a teenage girl to a five-minute shower? It isn't pretty.
Then then there are those times when you just NEED to indulge in a long, hot shower, either for emotional or psychic reasons. I've long suspected a primal link between water and creativity. I cannot count all the times a solution to a longtime problem has just kind of hit me while I was taking a shower.
I'm not alone: I know a lot of people who have described washtime epiphanies. And I remember reading about famed Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who found it useful to have a typewriter set up in his bathtub.
I'm hoping that if we all stick to five minutes 90% of the time, our water allotment will be able to accommodate the occasional long shower.
Here is where we're kind of lucky to be going through our home renovation right now. With half the kitchen packed up (and the rest of it to get demolished soon), we've been relying on paper cups and plates... except for my husband, who refuses to drink wine out of a paper cup -- with good reason. At any rate, I'm not washing a lot of dishes right now and won't be until our new kitchen as been installed. I checked our water usage for the last month and it's WAAY below our allotment. So maybe reducing those showers and abiding by the watering restrictions will be enough.
Not that the change will be easy: My husband made a mistake while reprogramming the sprinkler system yesterday and it did not go on this morning. I've turned the whole thing off and we're going to have to go back to the drawing board and hope it all works on Thursday.
In the meantime, I was happy to note that today's June Gloom came with drizzle -- so the lawn shouldn't be hurt too much by the water shortage.
July will be another matter entirely,
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