Author: Rachel Kaplan
On Friday, Sept. 11, the California State Legislature failed to pass a five-bill water reform package. The bills are labeled by backers as the most comprehensive water legislation in decades.
According to the L.A. Times, the package would have paid for new infrastructure and ecosystem restoration as well as projects for water recycling and desalinization.
The major issue of contention that prevented the bills from passing was the amount of money required to implement the bills.
As the cost of renovation to Los Angeles’ water system is high, the parties were split on how to fund such a bill package.
According to the L.A. Times, Republicans pushed for one big bond while Democrats proposed two general obligation bonds. According to the Sacramento Bee, water conservation lay at the heart of the issue.
Unlike Republicans, Democrats did not want to build more dams without assurances of more statewide water conservation.On campus, Occidental uses 100 million gallons of water per month, according to Michael Stephens, Associate Vice President for Facilities Management.
“With regard to water conservation awareness and measures taken across campus . . . as a member of the College Sustainability Committee I can say that these [topics brought up by the California water bills] are exactly the issues the committee is addressing,” Stephens said.Some students emphasize the importance of conservation. “Because we have water here, we should conserve it because it’s lucky [we have water] because we live in a desert,” Candy Lubar (sophomore) said.
Conservation efforts can be seen at Facilities with regards to leaks and cleaning. “We treat water leaks as emergencies whether they come from plumbing, HVAC [heating, plumbing, and air-conditioning], domestic water or irrigation sources,” Stevens said. “We use LADWP [Los Angeles Department of Water and Power]-approved water brooms and pressure washers to clean concrete stains, graffiti [and] windows.”
Some students see water usage on campus as a problem. “It’s kind of silly when the sprinklers are running to such an extent that there are puddles” Marla Potterveld (sophomore) said.
According to Stevens, an estimated 70 percent of water used at Oxy is for irrigation. Larger efforts are being made on-campus as Oxy searches for its own water supply.
“[B]uried under the asphalt of the parking lot across from the soccer field on Upper Coons road is a rainwater runoff capture system that percolates runoff back into the earth,” Stevens said. “We have investigated larger runoff recapture systems but have not found anything practical yet.”
Groundwater, which is what Stevens refers to, is water that fills empty space in the ground and can be used as a water supply. “Water from bathing and laundry is called gray water and it can be reused for irrigation, but city regulations require such water to run through a completely separate set of pipes,” Stevens said.
City laws and Occidental’s vision remain incongruent. California continues to work on what it needs to do while Oxy focuses on sustainability.
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