But yeah, it's the people not turning off the faucet while brushing their teeth that are the problem! Who do they think they are? Don't they know we're in a desert?! /s
Example from the article: "326,000 gallons (1.23 million liters), is enough water to supply one or two households for a year."
No! That is enough for >16 households a year in this rich part of northwestern Europe [0]. In a naturally dry area, consumption should be substantially less, not 16 times more.
Lowering residential water consumption to these reasonable levels gives an immediate 18.80% savings on total water consumption. That's nothing to sneeze at.
Forcing responsible water use upon non-agricultural users might also encourage a critical look at agricultural water consumption.
[0] https://www.vmm.be/data/gemiddeld-leidingwaterverbruik-gezin...
... is incorrect, by at least a factor of 10.
From the relevant wikipedia article [1]:
"Many homes in Sacramento didn't have water meters until recently. They now are gradually being installed after [...] law mandating meters statewide by 2025." In other words: we pretend to care a little, but actually, we don't.
The famous French saying is more honest: "Après nous le déluge". Loosely translated: "We'll be long gone before the flooding starts.". Both very applicable and not at all...
What we shall tell the children?
[0] http://www.irwd.com/images/pdf/save-water/CaSingleFamilyWate...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Urban/resi...
For comparison a 20'x20' lawn uses about 120 gallons/day.
One acre of alfalfa requires ~12k gallons/day and sustains 0.4 to 0.8 heads of cattle.
[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/water-footprint-food-...
And in the desert, most people don't have grass lawns.
Agriculture costs are incredibly complex. The true cost of food is socialized, in the form of free/cheap land and water, subsidies, tax breaks, and fixed prices. I don't want to pay the true dollar price for food any more than the next person. I recognize that there's a societal benefit in socializing/externalizing the cost of food production.
That shouldn't stop us from acknowledging the true cost and trying to fix it. If we're looking to conserve water, the very first place we should be looking is agriculture. Maybe we shouldn't be growing rainforest crops in the desert. Maybe we shouldn't be draining our reservoirs and aquifers for crops that are exported. Maybe agribusinesses making record profits should feel the pain of higher water costs before we tell people they can't take a shower.
The fact that people now wish that the water was collectively owned by the state, does not make it so.
If people want water to be collectively owned, they need to collectively purchase it and buy out the farmers.
In the past, cities did just that. Like in the California water wars when LA went to the owens valley and set up shell companies pretending to be farmers and used them to purchase all the private rights, then turned the area into a barren wasteland. [1]
In some instances where farmers are not using their own water, they have contracts with the state to provide X gallons at Y prices. If the state wishes to break those contracts, they need to pay for breach of contract.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars#Obtainin...
There is already some math in the thread regarding how its almost 2 magnitudes more of water use for a cow for a month over a lawn for a year