ebmgh.com

I really like the newspaper or TV stories where they publish a list of the top water users in an area. Where I live, in California, we’re coming out of 3 years of drought, and water managers have been gnashing their teeth trying to figure out how to get people to cut back. Some say, just raise everybody’s rates. There are a couple of problems with that. For the über-rich, the price of water is no object. Bill Gates used 4.7 million gallons in 2001, and had a $24,828 water bill, and I don’t suppose that troubled him much. But perhaps we can “name and shame” them out of their profligacy? If nothing else, it sends a few publicists scrambling.

These stories must be a breeze to write. Just send in a written request to the water utility. If they drag their feet or refuse, have your legal department remind them that these are public records, and threaten them with Freedom of Information Act request or whatever the equivalent is in your state. Publish the list, and as much data on the property and residents as you can find. Use your archives, wikipedia, Google Earth, and Zillow. Express outrage and indignation. Conjecture on whether or not they even look at their water bill, or merely have their accountant pay it. Try to contact them for comment. Dutifully print the statement from their publicist saying how surprised they are, they had no idea, they’re looking into it immediately. Print a detailed map (bonus points for a Google map mashup in your online edition).

My favorite story was the one in the Las Vegas Sun in 2008. The city is entirely dependent on water from Lake Mead, the big reservoir on the Colorado River behind the Hoover Dam. Problem is, the reservoir has been half-empty for years, and some scientists have openly conjectured that it might never refill, what with climate change and all. In the midst of all this, Vegas’ imperious water czar Pat Mulroy launches an improbable scheme to build a 10-foot pipeline to tap groundwater aquifers in the arid lands north of the city. You can guess how well that went down with the local ranchers and wildlife lovers. Amidst this backdrop, you have a prince from Brunei who uses 17 million gallons per year. That would ordinarily be enough for like 200 American families, or about 10,000 in Kenyan. Right after the prince in the list is Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, and a fellow Tufts alumnus. Oh, for shame, Jumbo, for shame.

Here’s a roundup of some of the stories I’ve found.

• Las Vegas, NV
• Sacramento, CA (boring because it includes institutions. We already know that power plants, colleges, parks, and jails use a lot of water.)
• Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX
• Vancouver, BC Canada
• San Diego, CA (another dull one because it includes institutional water users)
• Jacksonville, FL
• San Antonio, TX
• Kansas City, MO
• Austin, TX
• East Bay, CA (only reports water use for the agency’s board members)
• Seattle, WA
• Cobb County, GA (suburbs north of Atlanta)
• Santa Fe, NM (I especially like this one because they repeat the story every year.)
• Scottsdale, AZ (This one is no fun, because it doesn’t name names. Apparently, “a 2006 state law prohibits entities from revealing the names of top water users.”)