California drought: Policies make homes more efficient, but water needs don't curb development

If a crippling drought wasn’t enough, California is also suffering a housing shortage.  Nearly 40 million people live here; the population is expected to grow another 10 million by mid-century. That raises questions about all the water needed to support them.

Under Governor Jerry Brown’s executive drought order this month, new housing soon will have to use low-flow sprinklers and drip irrigation to save water on landscaping. Builders like Planet Home Living’s Dave French already reap savings, and not just with plants.

French’s company is building skinny homes on small lots clustered on a steep Echo Park hillside.

He says this isn’t his first drought. “We did put a brick in our toilet when my wife and I lived in the San Diego-Encinitas area in the early 90s,” French says. “We had a big drought then, yes we did, we put a brick in the tank.”

That brick saved him probably half a gallon a flush. But French says future residents of Gaspar won’t need bricks in the new low-flow toilets he’s installing.  

Flow-restricted faucets, showerheads and water heaters all will come standard in 10 new homes he’s building. These days, houses like this, built to code in California, are about twice as water-friendly as they were in 1980.

“You have significantly less water being used in a household today than you would have 15, 20, 30 years ago,” French says. “Appliances, clothes washers, dishwashers. Everything’s much, much more efficient now than it was back then.”

Efficient plumbing in homes and retrofits for old ones are among the reasons Los Angeles has been able to add a million new residents while still using about the same amount of water it did 30 years ago.

The city’s on track to add another 100,000 housing units within the next 6 years, to meet Mayor Eric Garcetti’s goals. At the same time, Garcetti wants LA Department of Water and Power customers to continue lowering their daily water use.  To do that, Angelenos will have to find more savings everywhere.

Including the shower.

“People will stand there waiting for the water to get hot,” says LA’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Matt Petersen. “And it takes a few minutes for that, and then they get into the shower. That’s a lot of water wasted that we can make sure doesn’t happen in the first place.”

Petersen says the city is considering updating its building code.

“How do we require the hot water heater to be closer to where the use is going to be?” Petersen says. “Or using tankless hot water heaters. So that people get instant or nearly instant hot water.”

But while California and its cities are pushing efficiency in new building to high new standards, policies about water use in planned development for large new housing projects remain conflicted.

Developers do need to prove they’ve got a viable water supply to support any new residents. But state laws sometimes require only a contract promising future deliveries from a water provider. Because a water contract in California doesn’t necessarily guarantee delivery in full, and it’s subject to environmental considerations, that contract is called “paper water.”

“It’s a bit of a pejorative phrase,” says Downey Brand attorney Kevin O’Brien, who specializes in water rights. “But it does illustrate the fact that just because you receive a contract that says that your supply is X, doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s what you’re going to physically receive through your contract process.”

This year customers of the state water project were told they’re only getting 20 percent of the amount they’ve requested. Last year, it was 5 percent.

“I do think that the current drought is going to force local agencies to get even more serious about these assessments because the public is going to demand that.”

When Jeff Morgan moved to the Coachella Valley in the seventies, about 40 thousand people lived in that part of the desert. 10 times that number live there now. But Morgan, a Sierra Club activist from Rancho Mirage, is not opposed to new development. 

“We have to be realistic. People need services. And they have to make a living.”

Still, he worries the pace of growth in the valley is unsustainable.

“I don’t think they look into it as well as the should.”

Morgan drives me out to a spot along the 10 Freeway where a development called La Entrada will soon break ground, bringing in nearly eight thousand new homes over several years, and a new freeway exit.

La Entrada’s project materials tout water-saving features and drought-tolerant landscaping, built in from the start.

Morgan appreciates the need for older homes like his to conserve water. He’s planning to rip out what little grass he has. But conservation can only go so far.  He says, at some point, simple math overtakes savings.

“If you add more people, you’re going to use more water,” he says.

The population of the Coachella Valley is expected to double in the next twenty-five years.