LeakBird

(Photo Courtesy of Treehugger.com via AP/David Zalubowski)
Tenants who fail to report leaking or running toilets to Landlords or property managers cause water billing nightmares.  Usually, the best a Landlord can do is figure out in which unit the leaking toilet condition occurred, schedule a plumber to fix the problem, foot the exorbitant water bill, then [...]

(Dec. 6, 2008, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Watershed problems and solutions run downstream. “The fun part about water is that it is so interrelated,” Dolman said. “As soon as you make a decision to do right by storm water – slowing it, spreading it, sinking it – you solve multiple problems. You reduce flooding in the [...]

(Nov. 25, 2008, The Olympian)
A new house in North Carolina that uses innovative water-saving appliances and construction design was recognized Tuesday by federal environmental leaders as the nation’s first to meet standards of a new program promoting water efficiency.
The 2,560-square-foot model home in the Briar Chapel community, just south of Chapel Hill, includes numerous water-efficiency [...]

(Nov. 22, 2008, The London Free Press)
London city hall wants to hike water rates by eight per cent in each of the next four years, but those plans are on a collision course with politicians loathe to burden taxpayers reeling in a tough economy.
The plan would add $29 next year, and $132 by 2012, to [...]

(Nov. 8, 2008, The Wisconsin Journal)
A Nov. 11 hearing before the Public Service Commission on a proposed 12 percent increase in Madison water rates has taken on new importance as the city’s water utility enters a period of budgetary belt-tightening.
The rate case also is important because it heralds the utility’s first steps toward a conservation [...]

(Nov. 7, 2007, AZCentral.com)
Phoenix residents almost certainly will be paying more for water and wastewater next year.
The 8.5 percent proposed increase will hike the monthly base bill to $52.84. The money will be used to pay for construction costs to meet federal safe drinking-water standards, rehabilitation and replacement of aging water and wastewater lines, treatment [...]

(Nov. 6, 2008, Palo Alto Daily News)
In coming months, one of the most important issues the Los Altos Hills City Council may have to tackle is how to reduce water use.
Residents consume up to 40 percent more water than the annual 79.2 million gallons allocated by the San Francisco Public Utility Commission, said Patrick Walter [...]

(Nov. 7, 2008, Financial News and Daily Record)
“This year is particularly poignant because we are talking about water,” said Romesberg, whose Arlington campus sits on the St. Johns River. “It is so timely and we are hoping to provide students with good discussions so they can learn there are alternatives available. On the legality side, [...]

(Oct. 30, 2008, The Mercury News)
SAN FRANCISCO—San Francisco officials have approved a $4.4 billion plan to upgrade the Bay Area’s largest drinking water system, which draws water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park. The city’s planning and public utilities commissions approved the upgrade Thursday, saying it’s needed to keep the system safe in [...]

(Oct. 29, 2008, The Guardian)
The UK “imports” more than half the water it uses, if you include water used to produce imported goods – including wheat.
The world is heading for an “ecological credit crunch” far worse than the current financial crisis because humans are over-using the natural resources of the planet, an international study warns [...]

(Oct. 28, 2008, San Diego Union-Tribune)
Water districts in more urban areas of the county such as San Diego, Encinitas and Del Mar made big strides to reduce their use of tap water over the summer.
But increased conservation by residents and businesses in those communities was essentially offset by rural districts, where farmers didn’t conserve [...]

(Oct. 26, 2008, The San Francisco Chronicle)
Gov. Schwarzenegger is calling the year’s lack of rain and snowfall a drought of epic proportions and points to the low lake levels to prove it. The answer, he says, is passing a $9.3 billion water bond next year to build a peripheral canal and several new reservoirs in [...]

(Oct. 8, 2008, MarketWatch)
Research indicates that more than 85 percent of water leakage in residential plumbing systems is found in the toilet and a majority of toilet leaks are caused by faulty or worn flappers. A silent leak in a [...]

(Oct. 23, 2008, Chicago News beta)

ALBANY, New York, September 2, 2008 (ENS) – New York Governor David Paterson is calling on the federal government to help New York’s municipalities maintain lakes, rivers and streams.
Federal support for water infrastructure has plummeted roughly 70 percent over the last two decades, delaying critical maintenance and contributing to Clean [...]

(Oct. 22, 2008, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Metro Atlanta could use up to one-third less water instead of spending millions of dollars on new reservoirs, according to a report released Wednesday by a national river advocacy group.
Washington-based American Rivers offers nine solutions to the region’s water crisis in its report titled “Hidden Reservoir: Why Water Efficiency is [...]

(Oct. 22, 2008, The Los Angeles Times)
Reported from The Imperial Valley — On a rocky patch of desert, federal and state officials Tuesday began construction on a $172.2-million reservoir that will store water from the Colorado River that otherwise would be “lost” to Mexico.
The reservoir will mean more water for coastal Southern California, southern Nevada [...]

(Oct. 20, 2008, MarketWatch)
Water conservation efforts overwhelmed by continued population growth.
Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) and allied organizations have initiated an ad campaign to draw attention to America’s looming water shortages and the role that population growth plays in the problem. The advertisements will appear in major national publications.
“California and other parts of the country [...]

(Oct. 13, 2008, Pakistan Daily Times)
* President wants resolution of Chenab water issue through dialogue
* Pakistan will challenge violations of Indus treaty
* President vows to protect national interests, hopes India will ensure implementation of water accord
President Asif Ali Zardari warned on Sunday that any Indian move to block Pakistan’s water supply from the Chenab River [...]

(Oct. 10, 2008, Time Magazine)
You’ll save on water. You get to choose how much flush you need: one button for a tinkle, another for after a Thanksgiving dinner and perhaps both several times for when you have contractors in the house. Americans have not taken to dual-flush toilets, as they are known, says Toto’s [...]

(Oct. 10, 2008, San Diego Tribune)
The goal of Level One is to cut water use by 10 percent by making sure that residents repair water leaks, don’t wash driveways with water, and don’t irrigate their landscaping between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Under a Level One water watch, hotels and motels also are required to [...]

(Oct. 10, 2008, San Jose Mercury News)
A projected water shortfall by 2030 is prompting renewed conservation efforts in San Jose, and the city council adopted a plan on Sept. 23 that will support some new conservation strategies — including potentially higher water rates…
About half of the city’s targeted water savings is expected to come [...]

(August 30, SF Chronicle) “In the middle of the night, when most of Berkeley is sleeping, hundreds of underground objects are listening for sounds that people can’t hear.
“They haven’t been planted by terrorists, spies, FBI agents or mystics. Instead, the East Bay Municipal Utility District is installing the acoustic devices, known as “loggers,” in an [...]

David Zetland recently wrote an article for Forbes magazine entitled, “The Water Shortage Myth“, which basically echoed the economistic idea that until water is no longer an undervalued scarcity, but rather priced accordingly, as in the case of crude oil, at perhaps 3x the current water prices across the US, public utilities will waste their [...]

What with the new higher water rates for San Francisco set for Tuesday, July 1, 2008, I thought it’d be useful to describe how your water bill is calculated by the SFPUC, and demonstrate how easily your water bill could double or triple due to a running toilet or two.
An SFPUC water bill is made [...]

The new water rates are about to kick in in San Francisco, on July 1, 2008. The water rate across the board goes up $.40 per unit.  On the wastewater treatment side of things, T1 goes up $.28, T2 goes up $.71, and T3 goes up $.81 per unit.
What does all of this mean?  Well, [...]

For the first time ever, certain developments are being curtailed or slowed in California because there isn’t enough water to support them, reported The New York Times:
“The water in our state is not sufficient to add more demand,” said Lester Snow, the director of the California Department of Water Resources. “And that now means that [...]

“In my mind, money is always the biggest motivation for everybody. If you stick it to their pockets, they will fix the daily stupid things,” said the water works chief of Jamestown, Rhode Island last year, regarding Jamestown’s successful water conservation program.
And that is just what will [...]

Check out the US Drought Reporter and you’ll notice the Southeast in particular is suffering.
Yesterday the Associated Press ran a story that showed despite efforts toward water conservation, water rate hikes are being seen all throughout the Southeast:
In Glen Ridge, a small South Florida town of 275, water customers are facing a 15-percent surcharge.
“We’ve been [...]

There’s a growing rift between those who set water policy and developers who must follow these policies to the ‘t’, and it’s not going to get any better any time soon. There was an interesting article in the San Diego Union-Tribune on Thursday, titled “Builders Facing Water Pressure“, about this very issue.
When the economy [...]

The heat is on, it seems the fuzz are coming, as an article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday, May 14th, declaring “East Bay Begins Water Rationing”
Some of the more frightening truths:

“Residents of single-family homes throughout much of Alameda and Contra Costa counties are required to immediately reduce water use by 19 [...]

Last week’s SF Chronicle ran a timely and fascinating story by Kelly Zito on water rationing and the future of California’s water supplies.
I was amazed to learn that 80% of California’s water goes to agriculture, whereas 20% goes to urban areas, and that more water, because of increasing demand, is beginning to be supplied to [...]

Last year property management and real estate behemoth CitiApartments purchased my 17-unit-or-so Victorian apartment building, which is kitty-corner to the upper east end of Dolores Park in the Mission in San Francisco. Lately my toilet, which must be from the 80’s (built some 30 years ago, in a time when natural resources seemed infinite), [...]