Using More Than Six Units a Month is Sooo 20th Century!

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The average Cambria household (as if any of us are average) has about two people. (Actually, somewhere between 1.61 and 2.2). The CCSD says that most households use 12 units bi-monthly. Using my handy-dandy excel water calculator (available in the aboutcambria.com library), That is 8,976 gallons for 2 months. A two person household using 12 units every two months is using about 74 gallons per person per day (gppd). ¹ I’m always on the lookout for hints to what other communities use, for comparison, because many in town, including some on the CCSD Board, complain about how little water we have available. In fact, the water master plan calls for allowing a 50% “quality of life” increase in the amount of water allocated per household or 110 gppd.

I’ve read a lot of articles and websites and professional publications about water use over the last 10 months. I’m always on the lookout for references to “average” water use – wanting to compare Cambria water use to use in other communities. This nearly always means using my handy-dandy water calculator because almost no one puts the quantities in like terms. I’ve seen numbers as high as 300 gpd and the LAO’s 1 acre foot per 5-8 people in a year (178-112 gppd) and as low as 50 gppd. Of course, these are all non-drought, U.S. or California numbers. Most of the non-U.S. water use numbers hover at 50 gpd or less.

Of course, as Americans, we are not really known for our judicious use of resources. But the resources aren’t unlimited and as our population grows that reality becomes more obvious. It speaks to a certain selfishness that we want to use as much water as we want while maintaining a building moratorium. No new homes means we can continue to use water how we want. Five new homes with full-time residents would increase the water we’d need to draw from the aquifers by 1 acre foot per year – if every household was using 6 units per month.

Allow me to put this into perspective another way: The total annual residential demand for 3977 households using 6 units per month is 657 acre feet per year. The total annual residential demand for 4650 households (the maximum number of connections the CCSD plans to serve) using 5 units per month is 640 acre feet per year.

There are, of course, factors that complicate these numbers. Here are some of them:

• the Coastal Commission requirement that 20% of our water use be reserved for visitor-serving purposes
• limits on the amount of water we can pull from the aquifers in the dry season, when water use is usually higher
• our high percentage of “second” homes that aren’t always occupied (25%)
• the MTBE threat to one of our aquifers that limits how much we can use
• the possibility that we won’t have enough water to extinguish a fire or keep one from burning the entire town to the ground
• the policy of the CCSD Board that every household should be free to use 9 units per month
• the permits allowing 1230 acre feet to be pumped from aquifers that are only producing 800 acre feet or less per year

Frankly, if I were on the CCSD’s wait list, I’d be more than a little irritated and consider Cambrians rather selfish that they wouldn’t be more sharing with the water…only 748 gallons less per month (25 gphd), per household and the water shortage is far less severe and I could build my home. Of course, I’d have to use native landscaping to keep my water use low and employ other water-saving technologies, but I really want to live in Cambria, so it’s worth it to me. Cambrians, on the other hand, don’t seem to want to share unless they can use MORE than they currently use. It actually makes me a bit nauseated to think of it this way. They era of conspicuous consumption is over. A new era of global awareness and respect for people and resources has taken its place. Some are still not on board, or misunderstand the messages, or maybe just haven’t heard. We’d need another 6 or 8 planets if everyone on Earth used resources the way most Americans do. We have only one and we have to start acting like it.

New technologies are coming to the marketplace each day that use less water, less energy, fewer resources. Case in point: the dual flush toilet. The first time I saw this new toilet (on the new satellite channel Plant Green), I thought “Man, why didn’t anyone think this up sooner?” There are 2 flushes – one for “light” use and another for a more substantial flush. One company that offers these toilets for sale even has a water savings calculator, so you can figure your return on investment and your water savings. Visit EcoTransitions to find out more.

In the coming months, look for more information on water conservation without pain here on AboutCambria.com. It’s time we got hip to the new paradigm and let go of our selfish old ways.

¹ The water use and household numbers and other information presented in this post come from the CCSD’s urban water management plan and the CCSD’s water master plan draft EIR.

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