Reply #76: I have news

[depakid]

LA's probably one of the most wasteful places I've ever been- particularly in terms of available local resources. I know, because I lived there on and off for many years before getting wise and leaving permanently.

What cities are more absurd? How about Phoenix and Vegas.... they're not close to sustainable with their current population base- and yet they just keep growing like bacteria in a petri dish. Can you say" "overshoot and collapse?" or "boom & bust?"

People in the Western sunbelt -and LA more than most- never learn...

BTW: I lived through much of this. Did you?:

In Drought I, in 1977, an emergency city water panel concluded, "This really is war." The Department of Water and Power banned watering lawns in the heat of the day, hosing down sidewalks, driveways and parking lots, and serving water to restaurant customers unless they asked for it — it took almost half a gallon of water to wash a water glass.

Leaders took Drought I very seriously, so we did too. The city wanted a 10% water cut. We gave 20%.

As for Drought II in the late '80s and early '90s, the bans of the 1970s were still on the books, and L.A. started sticking the violators with fines. Santa Monica went so far as to ban new swimming pool permits. In Santa Barbara, a brown lawn was a sign of patriotic sacrifice — except to a Texas billionaire who paid $25,000 in fines to keep the grass green at a Montecito estate he rarely visited. But as soon as rainfall decently allowed, the politicians overruled the water experts and eagerly pronounced an end to the crisis: Go back to your old habits.

With Drought III upon us, I called the DWP. Those regulations are still in place, right? No hosing down, no free-running car-washing hoses? And you'll be enforcing them, right?

Yes, they are, but no, they won't.

MORE: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-morrison17may17,0,3021729.column?coll=la-opinion-rightrail