[sologoub]

And at the same time we are being prohibited from paying for more water production (desalination) by the coastal commission and various activists: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-12/resident...

Paying for desalinated water should absolutely be an option. If a household can’t afford it, then a necessary normal amount should be provided, but let others fund the infrastructure we need.

Politicians and activists keep saying there are other solutions, but all seem to target the most efficient users and not the 80% (agriculture) that actually can make the difference. Even our own water officials admit that there is not much to be gained by being even more efficient with toilets and such.

Another crazy point - apparently for liability reasons, recycled water that’s not potable quality (meaning just fine for watering, but you shouldn’t drink it or use in a pool) cannot be delivered to consumers. They fear consumers will screw up and connect it to potable pipes. There is a pretty simple solutions there too - they are called back flow prevention devices.

[Melatonic]

Grey water like you talk about could be huge. Really big.

Desalination could be interesting but is pricey to scale.

What I want to know is how expensive or unfeasible it really is to just make a long ass pipeline from some other part of the US that gets stupid amounts of rainfall. We do it with oil - isn't water easier?

[sologoub]

In 1991 there was talk of a Columbia river project. This article basically sums up the attitudes: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-21/columbia-ri...

[ok_dad]

The amount of water we use is several orders of magnitude greater than oil. I believe I once saw a calculation that you would need like 10 96 inch pipes just to serve California households let alone agriculture.

[jjav]

> Another crazy point - apparently for liability reasons, recycled water that’s not potable quality (meaning just fine for watering, but you shouldn’t drink it or use in a pool) cannot be delivered to consumers.

If you mean delivered by pipe into the home, that's harder since there's only one water main so it'd be a major project.

But at least in my California town, there is a distribution site where I can go pick up gray water for irrigation for free.

[sologoub]

We have that too, but to water our trees that would mean I need a truck and at least a 250 gallon tank. Hardly an efficient or green solution since I’d be burning quite a bit of fuel to do this.

[Gibbon1]

I feel the problem with the coastal commission and activists groups is a deep oppositional culture which is unhelpful when it comes to actually fixing things. And then there is the 'can't do' disease that's infected the American mind.

[diggernet]

Can you imagine the cost of retrofitting a city with a second water distribution system?

[ac29]

Sure: its already done many places. Look up "purple pipe" systems.

As far as money, here is a recent addition where 2.5 miles cost $17.5M: https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/05/05/apple-campus-and-area...

Its expensive, but maybe less expensive than you'd think. The goal is to connect large commercial users, not individual households.

[diggernet]

Interesting, hadn't heard of those.

But that $17.5M seems to be mostly pump stations and running the pipe along a road. I was thinking more of getting from that pipe into all the existing buildings and houses, and to the various places it is used (I assume primarily toilets).

On the other hand, I agree with the throwaway... Bring me some nice fiber along with that purple pipe!

[sologoub]

You don’t want purple pipe in the house, just at the street for your irrigation.

[throwaway09223]

I think the cost/benefit for purple pipe is generally not worthwhile, but I'm often in favor because dig projects have a secondary effect of giving cities opportunity to upgrade telecom/fiber infrastructure.

[sologoub]

As others have said - we already have it. I literally have it in my street, but it can only be connected to by commercial or city (think schools) entities. So the incremental cost of connecting me and my neighbors is very small and allows amortizing the original investment over even more customers. Capacity might be a question, but from what I’ve seen it’s the same size as the water main.

[Layke1123]

All it takes is for one bad apple to not install them correctly or use badly defected ones, and boom, people drinking water they should not. Sometimes, regulation IS the answer.

[sologoub]

It’s a solved problem - backflow prevention devices will not let water from one user to flow to others, with inspections, etc there is no issue. Want recycled water? Pay for inspections and protective devices. Business users have been doing this for years.

A given property has one potable water entry point - the water meter. So no, it’s not one bad apple and all get bad water. Also, there is no regulation here, just fear of liability by water boards.

[Workaccount2]

I can't imagine the cost to install a backflow device on every single lone connection.

[tuatoru]

A lot of domestic water meters have a simple backflow prevention valve built in.

Though most of them are not easily testable like the commercial connection backflow prevention valves. If the property has non-potable water as well as potable water under pressure, then one or more commercial grade BPVs are necessary.

[ehnto]

They're suggesting the homeowner requests and pays for it I believe.

[sologoub]

Exactly! Don’t want it? No problem. Want it? Pay please (and we can work in subsidies for those that need them)