One subject that is mandated for California teachers is that we cover the importance of California’s water. With that coverage, we also provide procedures that each child can do at home to conserve.
It stands to reason that the more we conserve, the more fresh water there will be for the masses for years to come. I not only teach it, but I also live it.
We have taken great measures at my house to conserve water. If someone were to visit my house, they would think our property must consume a vast amount of water. All of the fruit trees, roses, succulents and other plants are thriving.
They would be wrong. Our monthly water bill is in the lowest possible tier.
![Gallon container with pipe sticking out.](https://i0.wp.com/scvnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/1-300x367.jpg?resize=258%2C316)
Gallon container with pipe sticking out.
It has not been an easy task to get such low water bills. One of the first things we did was to recycle all of our milk gallon containers. They were buried upside-down in our yard. Each tree got a 2-gallon container. Once they were buried with the lids off, we cut out the bottoms and placed some plastic pipe in each container. Two days per week, on our watering days, each tree gets 2 gallons of water and no more. The buried gallon containers take about an hour to drain. Each year we dig up the containers and move them a little farther from the trees to make the roots work a little harder.
We pump all shower water, along with all washing machine water, into large water drums. That water is then used to water the plants in our yard. Since roses will burn from soap, we have them on a drip system. The roses are the only plants in our yard that get water straight from the faucet.
![Buried gallon container with pipe sticking out of ground](https://i0.wp.com/scvnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2-300x235.jpg?resize=300%2C235)
Buried gallon container with pipe sticking out of ground
You would think with all the conserving, I would be a happy, blissful person, skipping through the yard as the blue jays landed on my shoulder, singing Disney songs in my ear. But it would not be my writing style or “me” if I did not mention something that irks me.
Each month my bill rises. It does not rise because I am using more water; I am using even less than last year at this time. It actually rises because of the projects and proposed projects of the One Valley, One Vision general plan.
I noticed in an article that the massive, 21,000-home Newhall Land project that has been postponed for legal proceedings was to receive piping up to their property boundary. This piping would be delivered from the water agency at the pure cost of the water agency. Really? It is not at the cost of the water agency; it is at my cost and at the cost of every water-paying individual.
![Cheap water pump for bathtub](https://i0.wp.com/scvnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/3-300x208.jpg?resize=300%2C208)
Cheap water pump for bathtub
We have already paid enough tax for Newhall Land with the outright theft of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. CalPers invested $1 billion in in The Newhall Land and Farming Co., only to lose it all. Everyone paid for the pension loss. Workers have had to contribute more to make up the deficit, and agencies also had to increase their contribution, which means we all paid a bit more for public services so that Lennar (the parent company) could walk away with a $1 billion dollar pension fund.
Each California taxpayer had to pay for that fiasco. As I understand it, after they took the $1 billion from CalPers, they then bankrupted themselves and bought back the project at a reduced rate.
We not only will be paying for it in taxes; we will also be sitting in traffic and burning gas as we patiently wait to drive thought a congested valley that cannot sustain such massive growth.
Our waists will grow bigger with time loss sitting in traffic, and our blood pressure will rise with that waist gain. Our medical bills will be sufficient with the medication that will be required to lower blood pressure and the other medications that come with such a sedentary life of sitting in traffic. We will pay all the way around.
I am now told the water agencies want to merge to make it more efficient for the entire valley. One agency is struggling to make ends meet while the other agency is doing pretty well.
Make no mistake: The merger is not for any reason other than to provide these massive housing projects the water they desperately need to continue. It does not matter about the cost to each and every resident. What matters is that big business thrives no matter how unethical they appear to be. The regular person follows the rules and pay for it, while the corporations break the rules and get rewarded for it.
Once again I cry out: We have to push for a valley that supports sustainable growth.
Steve Lee is a resident of Val Verde.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
REAL NAMES ONLY: All posters must use their real individual or business name. This applies equally to Twitter account holders who use a nickname.
6 Comments
All this “conservation” will not work. It will never satisfy the evil globalists at “the top” because they are insatiable and in their leftist bubble. They will always want more control, more power and more money. This is a big part of the evil globalist Agenda 21 from the rotten U.N. and socialist Europe to oppress and re-mold us to be sheep, like them, and they call these “projects” different names locally to confuse the issue and the people,like us, who are affected negatively in every little aspect of our lives,like the “Open Space” areas, where we the people are prevented from doing anything, as well as others. Everyone should contact his legislators to stop this madness from taking over our own country.
Very eye opening. Thanks Steve.
I agree with Mellie. Current residents and businesses can conserve, but you can’t add more homes and businesses that will need water. Hold off on all the building projects until this drought is OVER! Newhall Land and Farming, Sterling Ranch, The Preserve at Sloan and those variances so homes can be clustered must stop! I don’t see our County Board of Supervisors, incumbents and candidates even considering no growth due to this drought!
Well done, and well said Steve. You’ve gone far beyond what most folks out here would do to conserve water – and save money. I’ve gone 90% native/drought resistant plants and complex adaptive irrigation (drip where effective, rotors where it isn’t) on our large lot out east of you. I’m not ready to run pump hoses out the upper story windows just yet though.
As for the politics involved I really doubt pointing at one side or another addresses reality. When it comes to money and policy, both sides seem to eventually end up doing the same thing: Screwing those who aren’t sitting at the table when decisions are made. You can’t blame socialist Europe for Mike Antonovich’s support for nearly unlimited development in the Fifth District of LA County. Nor have I found any reason to believe that the SCLarita City Council is a hotbed of leftist liberals, and that includes back in Jill Klajic’s tours in the 1990’s. Most of the time, the SC CC makes the local gentry and businesses happy, as well as a lot of the regular folks.
The problem is, nobody can keep an eye or ear on all the decisions being made in corporate boardrooms, banks and government committees and agencies. Even if it were possible, which citizens are going to donate the time, money and energy to do so? With nearly 40 million people in California, there are thousands of land use and development decisions made every year.
Sure, we have laws that limit power and authority. When that isn’t working we get mad, rise up and demand change. We get our representatives to tighten up and close loopholes that allow unfair advantage. And it works for a while. And then we go back to being busy with our lives, our jobs and our families.
And it starts all over again.
“We have the best government that money can buy.” – Mark Twain
Jim I agree.
Yes the traffic will be horrendous, 357,000 added car trips per day at buildout. This project will add 269,000 tons per yer of green house gases to our atmosphere (which Newhall Land said was not a significant amount.)
But, in addition to the traffic, what is really going to hurt us all loclly is not having enough water. For many years Newhall Land has controlled how water is reported in this valley. Water reports were all managed and consultants hired by Valencia Water company, the private water company that was wholly owned by Newhall Land and Farming. Since it was private, no public records act requests are allowed, no disclosure of documents, etc. Newhall/Lennar made sure this way of operating continued by means of the purchase agreement they made with Castaic Lake Water Agency when CLWA illegally acquired Valencia Water. It is in chapter 6 of the purchase agreement. Anyone can get this agreement from CLWA and read it to see exactly how our water supplies are controlled to benefit Newhall Land and Farming.
When the Newhall Ranch specific plan was approved, Newhall Land said that the first two tracts would be served from retiring their farm fields. But something must be wrong with the water quality from their agricultural wells (their “C” wells) in the Ag fields because in the later EIRS they said the water will come from their “E” wells which are now serving the Commerce center and probably the Live Oaks community in Castaic, not the farm fields.
But there is an even bigger issue here. Things have changed. Did anyone notice that when we had to cut off water from northern California a few weeks ago, Santa Clarita Water Company wells “broke air” and served the community cloudy water? Several Newhall County Water District wells have produced NO water for the last two years. We are at close to the lowest well water levels since the worst levels ever in 1991. As we urbanize and hardscape everything, we are NOT replenishing the ground water, so we probably have even less available than before.
But here’s the major question to me. We have a huge perchlorate pollution plume in this valley from the Whittiker Bermite Industrial facility that is spreading in a westerly direction. It has closed several of Valencia’s water supply wells for which all of us will now pay to remediate. Even with remediation, production will be reduced. Why is it that we would consider supplying new houses when the health and safety of existing residents are at stake? Are we lemmings running off a cliff?
I don’t care what the EIR said in 2011. We need to look at the water issue again. And everyone in this valley should be looking at it too. As usual, the Urban Water Management Plan that is about to be approved by CLWA says there is plenty of water to double our population. Do you believe it?
If we get a water monopoly in this valley, there will be little hope of any true analysis of water issues that would protect the public and our water resources. I urge everyone to oppose a water monopoly and CLWA takeover.