As I sat outside enjoying my dinner at a Santa Barbara restaurant, the view was of a sprinkler spraying water directly into a storm drain. In the midst of a Stage 2 drought, this is an unacceptable waste of a finite resource. For a city that prides itself on starting the environmental movement, Santa Barbara values and treats water in few environmentally friendly ways. The city is doing too little too late, and water supplied by a $40 million desalination plant should not be an option.
Lake Cachuma was full and spilled over in March 2011. Within four years, we would not be facing a desalination plant if water conservation had been taken seriously earlier and if water supplies were more diverse. The desalination plant will require a massive amount of energy that will emit greenhouse gases and potentially harm the ocean ecosystem, and we will lose money by paying higher water rates.
The first and most difficult water conservation practice Santa Barbara needs to implement is to correctly value the price of water. Because water is currently undervalued monetarily, people can afford to waste it. One solution is to tie water rates to the level of Lake Cachuma, which supplies 79 percent of Santa Barbara’s water. The city should establish a set rate increase for each percentage drop in lake level and use tiered pricing systems that charge more to high users. The public will stay aware of water supply, and consumers will be encouraged to view the resource as a shared commodity.