A decade or so ago I did one of my famous newsroom rants when we uncovered one of those lovely little City Hall secrets that had been in the works for several years.
Without public discussion, they were well on their way to engineering a water recycling program but only for homes on the Valley floor and poorer parts of the city over the hill.
The screaming headline TOILET-TO-TAP alone was enough to bring it to a halt.
Well, no surprise toilet-to-tap is back on the lips of the mayor and with all the fanfare accompanying all great leaps forward, he will announce its revival at 10 a.m. today at the Tillman Reclamation Plant, which is in the Valley of course.
The plan is called "Securing L.A.'s Water Supply," which sounds sort of like securing our borders with 1,000 miles of fence without adopting an immigration policy or making our kids safe in school without doing anything about gangs or pedophile teachers. You know your water's safe because you flushed it down your toilet yesterday.
Now, the reason we need this breakthrough technology is that the mayor and his backers want the city to grow by half a million people as fast as possible to refill the city treasury and keep contractors and construction workers fat and happy. That this will make traffic congestion, air pollution and the quality of life worse is of no consequence.
"Blade Runner" city here we come.
I know this is too harsh but sometimes I can't help myself. I can't stand being manipulated and treated like an idiot who's too dumb to even know what time it is.
"L.A.'s future depends on our willingness to adopt an ethic of sustainability. If we don't commit ourselves to conserving and recycling water, we will tap ourselves out," Villaraigosa told the Daily News. "This plan makes a basic promise to our kids. We are going to recycle and conserve enough water to meet 100 percent of new demand."
We're going to drink toilet water for the kids' sake? Aw. c'mon Antonio.
We're going to drink water so some people can get rich. We're going to drink toilet water because we put growth at any cost ahead of the quality of life. We're going to drink toilet water because we don't have the imagination or will to embrace regional water policies and conservation efforts
It's like everything we do.
We don't solve the traffic congestion problem by tougher regulations on trucks in peak hours, we put billions into the ground for subways that don't take us where we want to go. We strip neighborhoods of a say on development so we can put up massive apartment complexes that encourage crime and poverty. We fix our schools buildings but not what goes on in the classroom. We build monuments to billionaires' egos, not community centers for ordinary people to enjoy.
Honestly, I don't know if Antonio and his pals are right when they say recycled toilet water is cleaner and healthier than the water the Sparkletts man delivers to my house.
But I do know this: Before we turn on the tap to toilet water, before we build a subway-to-the-sea, before we trash our residential neighborhoods with "density bonus" developments, we all need to sit down as equals and talk about who we are, where we are and where we're going.
And that's why the leaders of this city need to come down from their mountaintops and leave their mansions and work to develop strong community organizations that can balance out the discussions about what's good for L.A.
Is that asking too much?
For, the record, here's the full text of the mayor's press release which mentions recycling but not the mayor's flip-flop on drinking it:
MAYOR VILLARAIGOSA, LADWP TO LAY OUT FAR-REACHING
20-YEAR WATER STRATEGY FOR LA
Water demand expected to grow 15 percent by 2030, while water supplies more tenuous
LOS ANGELES - Unveiling a plan to ensure water continues to flow in Los Angeles despite a worsening outlook, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will join LADWP leaders and environmentalists to lay out a long-term strategy for the City to meet growth in water demand over the next 20 years at 10:00 AM on Thursday, May 15, at the Japanese Garden, 6100 Woodley Ave., Van Nuys, California, 91406.
While dry seasons and the toll of climate change continue to threaten Los Angeles' future water supply, population growth is expected to drive up water demand in Los Angeles by 15 percent by 2030.
Developed by the Mayor's Office and LADWP, the "Securing LA's Water Supply" plan calls for an aggressive, multi-pronged approach to meet this increase in demand, combining short-term steps to conserve water with long-term investment in water-efficient technology and water recycling.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the Naitonal Enquirer.
You really have to admire Antonio's gall.
When he was getting ready to run for mayor, he hated toilet-to-tap. Now, with a straight face, he declares, "This is a new day and a new plan that will deliver only the cleanest and safest water to the people of Los Angeles."
There's nothing "new" about the plan. It's all about politics.
"And we are going to implement this plan differently by making community engagement a centerpiece."
Let me translate: There is no pesky city councilman in the wings ready to run against me -- and Ron Kaye's gone from the annoying Daily News -- so we can do what Jimmy Hahn should have done a decade ago.
..the water.. IT'S PEOPLE!
yuck..
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Whose city is this anyhow? Who are the public servants? The elected officials who are supposed to be working FOR THE PEOPLE. It is not the other way around unless we allow this miscarriage of justice to continue. Do we as Americans want royalty. dictatorship, politicians to rule us or are we born free? Please, please, fight back. Vote for good judges on June 3 and for Armineh Chelabian if you are in the 40th AD. Those in the 23rd SD, please vote for Rick Montaigne. They are saying he hasn't a chance because the Democrats are automatically going to vote for Pavley. etc., who are "termed out" pols who have had their turn at messing up California finances. Well, all Democrats are not going to vote automatically. Let us help them see how important changing the political map here in California really is. Yes, it will be business as usual if WE DO NOT CHANGE our automatic voting habits. Don't say you don't care. A lot of families and working people are depending on the voters this year, now more than ever. TJH
What in the heck is wrong with instituting (some?) mandatory water rationing - now, before it is too late? Yes, I know the City never learns from its own mistakes by saving for a rainy day...but, we don't have to think like them.
Instead, let's beat the DWP at its own game...eliminate watering your lawns or figure out how to reduce your water consumption by a noticeable amount.
By the way, I like seeing a lush green lawn accenting our neighborhoods too. I know the desert scrub look isn't exactly the LA look...but, wait - don't we live in a semi-desert?
Like I said, beat City Hall at its own game -otherwise we will only end-up paying for costly "toilette" water without the benefit of seeing a fancy glass bottle bearing a designer's label.
Here's a solution - let's voluntary start cutting back on our water usage. That's a good way to start taking back Los Angeles gallon by gallon.
Where do Keith Brackpool and Ari Swiller come into play on this "pisser"??
Red Spot in CD 14.
80% goes to commercial agriculture and raising livestock, while another 10% at least to city and private golf courses, parks, roadside plantings, car washes, etc. All these should use recycled waste water, with DIFFERENT PIPING than what goes into homes to brush one's teeth. This is done in most other countries.
Sure, let's teach conservation, set timers when it's not the heat of day, use water-efficient plantings and toilets, washers, etc., where possible -- but getting my teen to brush his teeth and shower often enough, taking time away from Grand Theft Auto IV, is a chore as it is. I don't want him to think of putting toilet water in or on his body, too. Kids like him, and a parent who washes their car once a week for a few minutes while letting the excess shoot onto the lawn, isn't, either.
Meanwhile, every luxury home agent points to the lavish full-blast bidets and multi-head showers as a selling point, and development is continuing unabated. NEW developments should have more stringent requirements, and to some extent they do; the "Green" requirements ARE a positive step. So is encouraging going solar, the City's doing some good things. But there's too much punishment on the same old middle class again, especially homeowners, who have legit worries about using this wastewater to drink when there's huge other waste going on.
Tillman is near the MTA Bus Way and the 101 freeway. Other communities use reclaimed water to irrigate landscape. I think Burbank uses most of it's reclaimed water to irrigate landscape on the I5 freeway. Why should we drink gray water which may contain chemicals, even in parts per trillon concentration when there are lots of non potable uses that will help us concerve LADWP water now used for things like irrigation?
Why didn't the City and County come together to run graywater piping for the plants on the Bus Way when they were building the busway? Graywater brought along the busway would have irrigated the bike path along the Tujunga Wash between Vanowen Street and Chandler. Both the State and the City use LADWP water to irrigate those long strech's.
And, gray water could be used for whatever other non - potable uses the city has. Use it for watering new trees, flushing streets, jetting sewers, holding down dust at constuction sites and washing vehicles. Load a helicoper with gray water and drop it on fires.
Had the City built Tillman in Sun Valley, the reclaimed water could have been used to cool the San Fernando Steam Generating Plant. Gray water from the Los Angeles / Glendale reclaimation plant is used for cooling by the Glendale Steam Generating Plant. The rock products companies in the area could have used gray water mix concrete and make finished concrete products and cinder blocks.
Waste Methane gas could have been burned by the SFSG the same way waste gas from Hyperion is burned by the Scattergood Steam Plant.
I think Tony Vilar once again wants the taxpayers to shell out for the City and MTA's poor planning and resource management.
By the way, who do you want to be the next Mayor? Four more years of Tony Vilar will destroy this city. I just sent a check to Walter Moore.
The City and Mayor and even pro-community pol Zev Yaroslavsky keep telling us we have to prepare to add "two Chicagos by 2030."
BUT they fail to tell us what SCAG tells the City Council and every City and County official who will listen, complete with power point presentations and statistics: ALL of the net population growth is from Hispanic, mostly illegal, immigration and their enormous birth rates. The "anglo" population and middle class in general are in a NEX EXODUS of at least several hundred thousand a year, taking their stable tax base with them, that the masses of uneducated, lower income or under-the-table illegals with their multitudes of kids, can't replace. OF course all of our government levels, from city to county to state, are running huge deficits and will continue to do so unless there's some miraculous soaring of real estate prices by next year. Just look at the schools as a reflection: only 11% of LAUSD is White or Asian, and about an equal amount is NOT eligible for food stamps, free meals, etc.
The giant apartment complexes Ron mentions, are for this immigrant/illegal population, and are in fact projects in all but name, and will be havens of crime and gangs and the usual social disasters despite the fact that Sr. Reyes and company intend to invade the westside and Valley with them. Ruining stable neighborhoods with these projects won't change the habits of these occupants: look what happens with new schools, expensively landscaped parks in their areas, etc. The buildings NIMBYs are fighting now, well-planned complexes with maybe 5-10% housing affordable to teachers, etc. -- a desirable thing -- is NOT what they really have to worry about.
This is also a huge environmental issue since, PC to admit or not, these immigrants come from a culture with no sense of environmental concern: Whether you look at Tijuana or Tijuana Norte/ East L A (or Indian cities except wealthy enclaves and "defense colonies" or ANY Third World country), you see environmental degradation. Bugs crawl in the sand on the beaches north of Ensenada, attracted by litter, the oceans and lakes are filthy; here in Baja Norte, people throw trash in the streets which goes straight into gutters to our oceans.
See Steven Leigh Morris' article in the current L A Weekly, "Westsiders Oppose the City's Plan to Put Affordable Apts. in their midst," or similar title. The map showing WHERE these projects can go is alarming: literally everywhere there's a bus stop within 1500 feet or 3 blocks. Being three blocks from a bus stop makes them "on a transit corridor" for planning purposes, so they don't need to build parking spaces, either.) Who will build these projects, that ruin the city? Why, just look at East L A and the Housing Auth. there for a clue.
Bleeding heart liberals like Rosendahl who approves anything with "affordable housing" in it, and wacky Orwellians like Planning Director/ former Councilman Mike Woo -- who WANTS to create gridlock, thinking that will force families onto buses and the Red Line that goes nowhere, are all for these destructive plans, too. (There ARE suitable places for these like Garcetti's Hollywood & Highland, etc., and low-income ones can go on outskirts where they don't destroy existing Zoning, Community Plans and communities. But that's not Sr. Reyes' idea of "social justice.")
Sorry, but there's NO addressing environmental and population crises our city must face without facing upto the consequences of illegal immigration.
Oh please. Although toilet-to-tap makes great headlines for a newspaper, other cities definitely have it. Get past the yuck factor and research it.
I personally, am in favor of it although during the secession movement, I would never have said that out loud. It was too much fun watching and besides the movement needed all the help it could get.
Rationing is okay, but who the heck is going to enforce it? There are no "toothbrush/over-watering-your-yard police".
So I wouldn't vote for Armineh Chelibian or anyone else until I've heard what their solutions are.
Actually, we have much bigger problems than some "immigrants" coming..
SCAG = full of BS. They're still basing their figures on the lifestyles of the 50's when average families had 4-10 kids. Hey SCAG, it's 2008. Let's get with it.
You should blame the rampant over-development in this City. That is squarely where the blame belongs.
Your good 'ole boy white network can't whine & shout on one hand that "the mexicans are coming" while signing off all available open space to your buddies who want to buy it and build hundreds of thousands of houses for them with your other hand.
6:18, nice try, but I'm not part of any "ole boy network" yet I know facts on the ground, and your denying them won't help. So Mexicans no longer have large families? Puhleeze... One indicator: they make up half the total population of L A but 73% of LAUSD and growing proportionately far faster than any other group due to their birthrates. Check out birth records, too.
No, SCAG isn't quoting stats from the 50's -- in those days, whites and others were still flocking TO California. Now, everyone I know back east or in the South, thinks it's insane to put up with the hassles, state of the schools, taxes and and demographics -- they're so far ahead in all these respects.
Sure, we have a handful of suburban- feel high end areas (where a $2.5 million house would go for $500-700 elsewhere in the most upscale areas, from NY State just outside the city to suburban Atlanta and anywhere you can think of) with excellent schools, responsive police and access to mass transit/ subway or Bart "into the city" if they want to get out of their cars. Even suburban S F and S D are far ahead. Now, not only are those people not wanting to come here, but even black and Hispanic middle class are moving out.
The building by the "old boy network" is mostly very upscale, with the main complaint there, being that they're not affordable enough for anyone below the very wealthy; or they're for empty nesters with equity, the DINKS (double-income, no kids) downtown and by the beach, etc. They're what have all the attention, and community activism, along with large upscale developments, from the very tony Century City and Beverly Hills condos to posh tracts in the Valley. Look at the defeat of Las Lomas recently and any other large-scale development, even the expansion of Mission HIlls hospital, the scrutiny they get. This scrutiny is for state-of-the-art designs for people of the same socioecomic class.
Sr. Reyes as Head of PLUM is openly and constantly making it clear his projects are for "social justice" for the poor with large families bursting out of their hoods, and he blasts "the hillside federations" (he used up his whole time during the Council discussion on MLK weekend, where they asked for a moratorium on killing, to claim these awful westside white people were preventing social justice in MLK's spirit).
And in a session discussing distribution of parks across the city, he attacked "those who would put property values over social values," and their White Knight Zev Yaroslavsky, as the enemy he and his associates fully intend to steamroll over.
"If they won't agree to what they should, to let our kids live where they should, in a place which could absorb all that energy, it's in our power as legislators to make them." He even blamed the westside for obesity among his and Perry's and Wesson's districts, claimed the westside had so many parks, and his area so few, "if there aren't enough parks where the people are, we'll move the people to where the parks are." He trotted out statistics from the 20's to 40's about discriminating against Mexicans, as Alarcon often does -- making it clear there's a "we're getting even" undertone to his "vision."
He attacked those who claimed that parks in the barrios and hoods just bred gang activity, which belies the facts he admitted in an interview in the Times soon after, explaining why his area had to have parks with high walls and elevations to discourage drivebys. Look also at the $6 million-dollar park built in Glassell Park 5 years ago: residents fear it, gangs took it over. The city put up surveillance cameras, and the first night, gangs shot them out. (Read Sam Quinones' series on Glassell Park a few months ago in the Times; and just ask any resident why they've moved out if they could, or any cop what the facts are.)
They're misusing the city's broad interpretation of the controversial and broadly reviled AB1818 to mean that they can put Section 8 projects for their populations smack into other districts that are "underpopulated" by their Mexican city standards, and make clear that they fully intend to. White the targeted victims are distracted fighting the "ole white guy network" upscale projects.
Sorry Ron, this time I'm on the mayor's side. While I am not crazy about the recycled water idea, if the technology exists (and it does), then why not use it?
However, I'd very much like to see other water conservation measures pushed much more agressively while we are learning how to rephrase the term "toilet water".
For example, we need to learn what to put in our front yards besides grass. Cement, gravel and bark are all ugly, but there has to be all kinds of ground cover that is both attractive and uses less water than grass. The city buildings should be the FIRST to replant their lawns with ground cover.
The wide, expansive, expensive lawns we all grew up with really came from back east where they get a lot of rainfall. When people moved out here they wanted lawns like they had back home. That's why SoCal has front lawns. That is the only reason. It's a fashion trend carried over from back east.
It doesn't have to be that way. SoCal can and should create its own gardening style for the 21st century.
Before you go and drink L.A.'s reclaimed water, check out this Associated Press report from 2006
http://www.foxreno.com/news/6599886/detail.html
Some of you might argue that the Viagria might be a bonus for Chatworth's booming porn industry. And antidepressants in the water are just the thing we need to keep us emotionally bouyant as L.A. "goes down the drain".
As a couple of commenters noted, there should be separate pipes for the 90% or more non-potable water uses like agriculture, municipal watering, and car washes, vs. potable, like in most civilized countries, where they're labeled accordingly. Even if reclaimed water is technically potable, it turns off a lot of people, and last person is right, too, there are already enough drugs from birth control pills that make peoples' hormones go wacky to anti- depressents, and worse, in our water supply -- which ocme out from our waste. So we're already drinking it and the picture ain't pretty. Can't trust their claims, until we start seeing more male boobs or something really creepy in a decade.
Harsh? You weren't harsh enough!
And...I didn't know Tonio was clever enough to think up a good pun like "we'll be all tapped out."
Oh, I forgot, he has a stable of highly paid consultants to do it for him.
The moment this country wakes up to charlatans like Mayor V. will be when there is a devastating event in a sanctuary city. When he big one hits L.A., and social services tends to illegals before tax paying citizens, all hell will break loose. And Mayor V won't be able to stop it.
It is a fact that this city is the most unprepared of any in the country, in the event of a terrorist attack, a major outbreak like SARS, etc. Even the Council knows it, but since it's dominated by the Mexican Faction with the support of the left, white- guilt bunch from the 60's (Rosendahl and Hahn whom we all know too well), naturally they won't admit that all healthcare facilities have been collapsed by the burdens of illegal immigration. Their usual solution: more taxes on the people who've propped up this city so far.
Ron, can't someone tell us HOW much exactly illegals are costing us locally and statewide? (Clearly, our "leaders" don't want to give us the figures we're owed, fearing a public revolt.) Only Antonovich talks about it, and mentioned a figure of a Billion a year, but even that sounds too low, when Private Hospitals are losing over $7 Billion/ year from unreimbursed costs. Which WE then pay for with our insurance, one reason (besides corporate greed by HMO's) that our HMO's offer such a low standard of care with so few doctors participating in most plans.
BTW, part of Arnold's proposed cuts in healthcare would be non-vital services to illegals who've been here less than 5 years, but HOW would hospitals verify that status, if the cops and government allegedly don't have it available now? Unless the state issues ID cards verifying legal/ illegal status and number of years managing to be in the country without being deported (something that would be rewarded under his plan, for lack of a better alternative), fees lost from the state would just mean our County would pick up more of the tab, since our "leaders" are committed to offering free healthcare to anyone in the state, especially from the Latin Hemisphere, since we're "the Capitol of Latinismo," which Alarcon told a multi-national Latino Healthcare Conference he hosted at City Hall a few months ago. The more the state cuts back on illegal services, the more other states do so even more drastically, the MORE our County and WE will pick up the slack.
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