How To, Why To Save Water

A Grace Phillips garden from www.gracescapes.com

By Grace Phillips

RECENTLY, the Metropolitan Water District reduced water allocations to Southern California by about 20%. While we in Santa Monica are cushioned, the City will probably ask for further voluntary 10% reductions. That raises the question: Can you afford to reduce your water use? I have come to realize that it is very difficult for Santa Monica water users to answer that, because when you get your water bill, you have no way of knowing whether you are a good, careful water user, or a major water waster.

So, I thought I would share some information to help you figure out what kind of water user you are, and some more information on how to be a better one.

PART ONE: Some Interesting Factoids

Santa Monica gets more than 80% of its water from far, far away. Pumping water up and over mountains and through the desert…

Is Obama’s Gain the Great Basin’s Loss?

NOT EVERY American politician happens to be fluent in Mandarin. But Utah Governor Jon Huntsman is; he served his LDS mission in Taiwan. He is also no stranger to international industry. His father founded the Huntsman Corporation, which became a global chemical company whose products most of us know in the form of the Big Mac clamshell container. So President Obama’s choice of the Republican governor of Utah for ambassador to China is no surprise.

But regionally in rural Utah, Nevada and California, Gov Huntsman has an arguably rarer fluency — with western water. Utah’s West Desert counties running parallel to the Eastern Nevada valleys targeted by the Las Vegas pipeline plan have no more influential ally than the Mormon Governor. Those counties staunchly oppose the Las Vegas pipeline. In a tour of the West Desert last year, Gov. Huntsman told ranchers assembled in Delta, Millard County, “I want you to know…