Water Police Training Workshop (Sacramento: live, costs, law)

[NewToCA]

Pretty funny piece from the Cal Watchdogs, Sacramento is apparently encouraging folks to spy and rat out their neighbors:

...neighbors are encouraged to educate and even subtly spy on neighbors. “Learn about the City’s free water conservation services, cool new ways to save water and how to help your neighbor’s save water by becoming a Water Conservation Ambassador,”


Water police training workshop | CalWatchDog

[Samoi137]

Rat out? Spying? People have "ratted out" businesses for letting sprinklers go on and on. I see posts all the time about people wantingto know where to complain about neighbors dumping trash, parking illegally, etc. State law said Sac must have water meters-- by 2025. Overuse by one person adds tothe costs of others. This was an issue 30 years ago and more. Sometimes people have sprinklers turned on for too long. But if you feel the ethical thing to do is not "rat out" the people, that's certainly your choice.

[NewToCA]

I have no problem at all with individual water meters, in fact I think they are long overdue and should have full installation within the next year or so.

As far as folks and water use, let them pay for what they use. If you want to discourage high usage, then simply have tiered billing rates.

I see zero linkage between this issue and illegal parking and dumped trash...none at all.

[Bulldogdad]

Originally Posted by NewToCA

I have no problem at all with individual water meters, in fact I think they are long overdue and should have full installation within the next year or so.

As far as folks and water use, let them pay for what they use. If you want to discourage high usage, then simply have tiered billing rates.

I see zero linkage between this issue and illegal parking and dumped trash...none at all.

Works where I live.

[ryuns]

Water meters are a no brainer and tiered usage rates are a big part of discouraging over-watering. But as long as they're not in, then compliance enforcement is probably helpful. I'm a big believer in internalizing negative externalities of our actions through additional costs, but the mechanism to do that is sometimes imperfect (cap and trade, eg), or not there at all, like places that don't have water meters.

But, gah, that website is just terrible. Apparently the writers never got further in English class than reading "1984". It's possible they found a copy of some Ayn Rand books on cassette, but that's probably being generous. It is impressive, though, that they manage to follow Godwin's Law with such consistency.

[NewToCA]

The site is pretty extreme in their sentiment, but I've found that in reading the more extreme sites on both sides of a topic I can gain some decent insights. Takes a good bit of critical reading, but the information is interesting (as long as you understand it needs to be "filtered").