Yesterday I looked for John Lane at his farm. He is constantly on the move and hard to find. Lane's strawberries looked wonderful. His kale patch, across the road in the bigger field, was laid with drip irrigation hose. What I noticed, and what Lane has surely noticed, are the small leaks, where the hose joins the main pipe.
Small leaks, a gallon here and a gallon there, are beginning to matter now that Goleta farmers will be paying more than a half-cent a gallon for water. Think of a leak as pennies and nickels lying on the ground, a nickel on each row, times 100 rows, and that's every day.
Lane will be fixing those leaks.