In Bel-Air, someone is using 1,300 gallons of water per hour

The person emptying the complimentary bowl of lollipops into their bag isn't breaking any law, but they are breaking social expectations and making things worse for everyone else.

Although I absolutely agree that Internet vigilante culture is a bit out of control, I'm not sure what else could be done here. There have already been numerous reports of Oprah getting tankers to deliver water to her home, little significant action taken to respond to the drought because apparently California all of a sudden decides that government has limits, and people who live in that neighborhood are not going to respond to anything but ridiculously steep rate increases. Sometimes people do douchbaggy things that are completely legal. Public criticism of their actions is fair game IMO and is also perfectly legal.

I agree. After all, it's not as if this property owner isn't paying for the extravagant water usage.

And if you think that $90,000/year isn't enough to reimburse society for this water usage... raise the damn prices. And if you think raising water rates would unfairly hurt the poor... take the increased revenue and hand it out as a per-capita water tax rebate.

I don't really like the faux-investigative tone of the article either, but it's misleading to accuse him of calling for vigilantism. He drove around a rich neighborhood, concluded that he would not be able to knock on anyone's door and talk about water, and then suggested a tiered tax system so that luxury use of water is discouraged, while also noting that there are additional externalities such as runoff that aren't being accounted for.

I agree. If it's an issue, just implement a tiered system that charges extremely high rates for extremely high usage and be done with it... That's basically what Las Vegas does and it seems to be quite effective.

Laws are not the only topic of discussion in an open and free society. An open and free society may talk about any topic it wishes, including usage of shared resources.

Edit: If you disagree post a reply.

Exactly this.

I heard a report on kqed, the local npr station and the team, wife and husband were quite excited about their next step in outing the users.

It does not seem to disgust them in any way, rather, they see themselves as heroes for doing avant guarde reporting and turning the tables on the powerful, etc. And the kqed producers were quite happy with the reporting.

I dont use much water and think it's very wasteful, but this public shaming and virtual mob mentality is disgusting, but their audience who suffer from a guilt complex, lap it up with vigor.

While I agree with you, I think the shaming and bullying has emerged from the sense helplessness people feel in being able to change laws or receive justice. These days the common belief (and possible reality) is that the rich dictate the laws and we're powerless to affect change. By publicly shaming, raising awareness/rage, and generating a large undercurrent of dissent, people have found they can affect change.

Shaming people for doing things that are legal but nonetheless antisocial is the only way to avoid the situation where you have to make everything that's bad also illegal. It's a time-honored way of enforcing social norms and avoiding overly-legalistic social frameworks.

it's a yearly thing in portland to out/dox water hogs.

only 1 resident managed to go over 1 million gallons this time.

see: http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-25154-hydro_hogs.html

I agree. I think this is definitely bullying.

However, why is this not public information anyway?

They are also using inciteful and provocative language. Honestly it sounds like they want a full scale riot of estates in Bel-Air.

Between this and the electric plus fights, what on earth is going on with you goons in California. Jesus.

Water is not just a commodity or utility. IT KEEPS US ALIVE. Without water, we all die. If someone else uses more water, in this case, a hell lot more and meaninglessly wasting it, and in current CA drought condition, ultimately means less water for rest of us to drink and to keep us alive, then there's an advent problem. I'm sick to hear that people say that's OK because on one broke the law. It was like to be OK to discriminate people on basis of race and religion before the equal rights amendment. CA declared a drought state of emergency since early 2014. Doesn't that mean anything to anyone?

When I first read the article, I, too, wanted this person exposed. However, after reading your article, you are 100% correct in your analysis. It really is a type of internet-style doxxing, and you're also right in that this person isn't doing something illegal.

It's not illegal, but it is wrong in the moral sense. It is equivalent to someone parking in handicap spots and simply paying the fines. It's irresponsible and selfish, and a lot of people are cutting back to do their part. Someone coming along and abusing the system like this because of inefficiently low rates doesn't mean this person should be allowed to continue.

Aren't you using different standards for the journalist and the individual? if what the journalist is doing is disturbing, so is what the individual is doing.. if the individual is breaking no laws, neither is the journalist by outing him or shaming him. Both are acting legally within the system..

Just because it's not illegal doesn't mean it's not wrong. We are in one of the worst droughts in recent history. To do something so blatant and so selfish is completely something that should be shamed.

If your only argument is someone not breaking the law, then tell me this, is doxxing illegal? Based on my research, it is not necessarily illegal depending on context.

Atlanta's situation is actually pretty interesting. Most of the water loss is caused by bad infrastructure (leaky pipes and sewers), and they have massively pissed off pretty much everyone in three states.

The city was/is using up a very significant portion of the Chattahoochee and its reserves and tributaries, causing severe issues downstream for Florida, Georgia and Alabama communities. They also injected sewage into the water, causing silting issues. Additionally, faced with shortages, the GA state legislature proposed to run a water pipeline from the other side of the state, essentially stealing more water from other GA sources further east (Savannah area, iirc).

Last I was paying attention, GA state legislature had filed a request to take more water out of the Chattahoochee, over objections from Alabama. Went to a Federal judge, who pointed out that Atlanta's use of water from Lake Lenier was actually illegal, in excess of the original authorizations put in place when it was constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers. Oops.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Lanier

Go look up the "Tri-state water wars", pretty crazy stuff.

Driving through some of the more mansion-laden neighborhoods (Buckhead on e.g. Habersham Drive), you'll see signs near the curb saying things like "IRRIGATION WATER DRAWN FROM WELL". I presume those were meant to discourage torches & pitchforks.

I'm not sure the distinction is all that meaningful.

Thanks, but that leaves doubt whether you wrote a decimal or thousands separator.

It is close to 5000 liters.

The original data is 11.8 million gallons per year. Converting that into liters, then dividing by 365 * 24, and applying 3 sig figs to that result we get 5100 liters / hour.

So five thousand liters/hr

OK then as a crude engineering estimate to one sig fig it takes one kilowatt-hour to boil away a liter of water (Am I mis-remembering? That seems extremely low), and the sun is up half the time, and one kilowatt for one hour is exactly one kilowatt-hour. Also we'll assume lawns are 100% thermodynamic black bodies turning all sunlight into heat (LOL). At noon, to one sig fig, you get a hundred watts of solar energy per sq foot. One acre is about fifty thousand square feet to one sig fig. Finally we'll assume the yard is not slowly sinking underneath a freshwater lake... over any give 24 hour period every liter must evaporate or the inhabitants will have to learn to swim.

So the lawn (or whatever) is turning ten thousand kilowatts of solar energy into water vapor.

To get ten thousand kilowatts at noon would take about about a hundred thousand square feet, or about two acres. At noon.

I only live on a one acre suburban lot, at that continuous flow rate, assuming no runoff, the water level would rise rather rapidly over a couple weeks.

It seems believable on a five acre lot but from time to time its going to get rather swampy. Honestly I'd look for a ten acre lot.

This is assuming no runoff (unlikely) and no electrical heat (like a Jacuzzi heated by natgas boiling away water continuously). This is also assuming no wind beyond blowing steam away.

A "two or so acre" artificial lake would be a quite believable evaporation rate. Put another way, were you to find a depression in the dirt, and turn on a hose at that flow rate, the surface area of the puddle would stop growing somewhere around a couple acres.

The numbers are "engineering believable".

There's at least one 100+ acre estate back in those hills, but it's mostly wild. I dunno what the biggest irrigated lawn up there is. My guess would be less than 10 acres, but that's a guess.

Five acres is well with in the realm of possibility, almost certain.

This is aggressively conservative. The evapotranspiration rate in California is 2x - 3x that of Iowa and the average rainfall is likely close to 0 inches in LA of which almost none is usable for landscape purposes. I would not be surprised if this much water is needed for a 2 acre or smaller sized lawn.

A garden hose which is on 24/7 for an entire year?

That's a lot of garden hose.

That's pretty far on the high end of that... http://irrigation.wsu.edu/Content/Calculators/Residential/Ga...

So the nozzles on our fire engine give 125gpm. That's a pretty powerful garden hose that even 5 could compare to a firefighting hose.

I would investigate the country club and the municipality itself, with the expectation that they are using it to water grass.

One possibility is that it's not actually being used for anything. A broken pipe could leak that much water, and depending on the local geology it might reach the water table without anyone noticing.

It isn't really THAT much. After doing some short math it is about on par with a 10-12 acre farm growing corn (not a big farm at all).

The farm does produce something, however...

Decorative fountain with no recirc?

The leak is in Bel Air: typical it is not.

For instance, one prime suspect was Rupert Murdoch's urban vanity vineyard (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Moraga+Vineyard+Co/@34.084...) but they ruled it out because the zip code did not match.

How about it's OK because it's not that much? Commercial users dramatically outweigh residential, even including folks like this.

The whole Cali drought situation is farcial, encouraging citizens to cut back private use while ignoring the real big users. Under what premise is it OK for a commercial user to have more rights to paid water use than residential?

I think it also plays into Californians' need to suffer, to pretend they're helping. A nice restaurant in SF I like makes a fuss about serving water, under pretense of a drought. As if that makes one shred of difference other than pretending to do something.

Unlikely; as demonstrated in the documentary movie Signs, they don't really like water. Perhaps it's a defense system.

Because American billionaires would never waste water, right?