We get our water from a bunch of different sources:
We’re actually in pretty good shape, because we invested in ARWA water about twenty years ago. That is water from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer. It took a while to get the drilling and treatment set up, but it’s about to start coming online.
Here’s what our water supply looks like, over the next 50 years:
The main point of the presentation is our drought stages: right now we have five, and life would be simpler if we only had three.
The five:
The three:
Jane Hughson makes an excellent point: it used to be that Stage 2 was mild, and now Stage 2 is serious. It used to be that Stage 3 was Medium, and now Stage 3 is The Worst. It’s hard to get people to update their priors. This is going to require a high degree of messaging.
(Nevertheless, it’s probably simpler to have 3 stages instead of 5.)
Updated to add: Someone pointed out to me that the new proposal never bans sprinkler systems, even during the worst droughts. This seems like a bad move. Even if there’s plenty of ARWA water, it’s still resource-intensive to clean and treat it.
…
But listen: we can be doing more. Johnson City held an Ugliest Lawn contest, to promote the idea that it’s okay to let your lawn turn yellow. We could have Yellow is the new Green signs, or some other sort of messaging about letting your lawn go fallow.
Traditional green lawns are an environmental disaster, right? Let’s change the discourse around them, and give people permission to quit watering.
City Council! Tell the water guys to include this kind of messaging, stat!
The San Marxist 