Water hogs: Central Florida's celebrities, average Joes waste s...

I like articles like that. Reading the news is a learning process. I did not know that the rich and famous used more water. I should have guessed, they use more of every thing else. Their homes have more bathrooms, that should have been a tip off. I'll bet they overload the sewer system too. Boone Pickens said the cornering the water supply[fresh] is the next frontier to be conquered. A group of missionaries went to Mexico, just across the border to build a house for the poor. The house had no indoor facilities, no water, period. Tiger's usage of the fresh water alone could supply that area and well beyond with the first drinkable water they've ever had. No wonder so many immigrants are flooding over the border, A little water would probably keep them"south of the border." Wow, wouldn't that be something.

Many people could cut down on their water usage if homeowners' associations weren't so gestapo-like about green yards. Residences should look at adapting their yards to something a little bit maintenance intensive than St. Augustine.

Catch up with the times, Homeowners Associations!

Puh-leez wrote:

Many people could cut down on their water usage if homeowners' associations weren't so gestapo-like about green yards. Residences should look at adapting their yards to something a little bit maintenance intensive than St. Augustine.
Catch up with the times, Homeowners Associations!

I'm sure you meant to say "(less) maintenance intensive". A good point, however.

1. Shut off the water when you soap up in the shower. Turn it back on to rinse.
2. Turn off the spigot after you've wet your toothbrush and toothpaste. Turn back on to rinse your mouth and brush.
3. Carefully watch water levels in your washer, or buy a unit that adjusts water level based on the weight of the clothes (usually front loaders).
4. Run your dishwasher on a light cycle for fewer dishes, or wait until it's packed to run a full cycle.
5. Buy a sprinkler with a timer.

The above steps should save you a few hundred gallons a month. Watch your water bill go down.

Since we are on water restriction what is going to be done to stop them from using the water, or do they get a pass because of who they are.

So Rep Dorworth's "watering has gone to good use on a yard that's difficult to keep green".After having "to replace sod a number of times" perhaps he should consider Mr Lee's advice to landscape "only with plants that thrive in Florida's climate". A little less arrogance and a little more leadership may be in order.490

You have heard what a bear does in the woods, but apparently a tiger does not. Even so, 109,000 gallons is a lot of flushes.

Lower the threshhold for expensive water from 30,000 to 15,000 gallons and you will see quite a reduction in useage except for the very rich. For the chronic wasters install a device that shuts their water off when they use 30,000 gallons in a month. Simple.

Typical liberal tactics. 1. Class envy(those evil rich!) 2. Demonize them(water hogs)
Having said that, many of those ideas for saving water are good and I am forced to use them because the city of Tavares gouges us unmercifully for water and even worse for sewer, which is linked to water usage.
But the water problems can, and probably will be fixed with desalination plants integral with nuke electrical generation plants at some time in the future. If the tree huggers will allow more nukes.

How about the commercial users? Publish their waste. I drive by the west Oaks mall during the heavy rains from the storms a couple weeks ago and their massive sprinkers are still on!

We long ago put in a shallow well that gives us all the water we need to irrigate the yard with on a three day interval. I cannot imagine using city water except perhaps a little hand watering where the sprinklers missed during a drought. I agree with the "rich bashing" statements from Bruce Tavares. Too many little jealous punks are quick to jump on the class envy band wagon and spout off at the mouth about people who have more than they do. Their theory is that America is a country where you are guaranteed "stuff". These people who have "stuff" got that "stuff" the old fashioned way, they "earned it". Instead of sitting around in the coffee shop using the free Internet complaining about what Tiger Woods and others have, maybe you ought to do an inventory of your own miserable lives and assess what you might need to do to prepare yourself to get a better job that pays more money? Maybe that party trip through the liberal arts college where you picked all those courses that avoided any real study isn't cutting it with interviewers? Maybe they weren't really thrilled you volunteered for Gore and Kerry when you listed that as your "work experience"?

There is no excuse for waste. Not all rich waste. But many do. Wasters cause all of us to suffer. Tiger Woods is notorious and so his useage is reported. Just because he has a lot of money does not relieve him of the responibility to be a good citizen. The Tiger is a Pig in water useage.

Ordinary Citizen wrote:

Lower the threshhold for expensive water from 30,000 to 15,000 gallons and you will see quite a reduction in useage except for the very rich. For the chronic wasters install a device that shuts their water off when they use 30,000 gallons in a month. Simple.

THAT is the answer. Lower the flat minimum usage rate. I'm moving to FL from PA and I am an elderly person, living alone. I have ever exceeded 1/3 usage of the bill that is the mimimum. Basically, I'm being penalized for low water usage. I wish they would lower it. There is much, much waste.

step 1 worship celebrities and sports figures

step 2 pay them more than anyone else

step 3 watch them destroy the environment

step 4 grab another beer before the next game

A few random thoughts:

I didn' realize homeowner water usage was a matter of public record (or did the Slantinel obtain the data by other means?)

As usual, the Slantinel fails to put things in proper context. I don't really care what the gross amount of water used is. What is the 'per square foot' amount used for each property? If Dwight has a property 20 times bigger than mine, then I see no problem with him using 20 times as much water.

The idea that everyone only gets 30K gallons and then they are shut off is obsurd. It amazes me how people obsess over rich peoples consumption of things. I bet if they published the amount of property tax Tiger, Grant & Dwight paid in last year to the county coffers, people wouldn't be crying about how unfairly high it was.

I'm not saying these people don't waste water and they shouldn't be criticized for it. But, my neighbor waters her lawn 3 times a week during rainy season. In drier months, she waters it twice a day, 3 times a week. Conservation starts with everyone.

Even if you got the top 25 water users to cut their consumption by 25-50%, it wouldn't put a dent in our water problems. What we need is everyone to cut by 10-15%

The same Sentinel that champions millions in dollars to subsidize millionare sports athletes now complains when they use a bunch of water and pay for it. Way to focus on the little picture.

Bruce Tavares wrote:

Typical liberal tactics. 1. Class envy(those evil rich!) 2. Demonize them(water hogs)
Having said that, many of those ideas for saving water are good and I am forced to use them because the city of Tavares gouges us unmercifully for water and even worse for sewer, which is linked to water usage.
But the water problems can, and probably will be fixed with desalination plants integral with nuke electrical generation plants at some time in the future. If the tree huggers will allow more nukes.

I'm a conservative and I very much disagree with your position. Class envy has nothing to do with wasting our natural resources.

I say they should be allowed to use more water but not unlimited. They should have a cut-off point that when they do go too high it stops flowing. Put that at something like 100,000 gallons. They should also have a scale that they really have to pay big for using more water than the average person. And that should go for those who own more than one house and they don't rent or lease out the other homes.

Maybe we will have to get to the point soon of throwing them in jail for a while if they continue to abuse these few resources we have. Fine someone who's rich for speeding and they laugh at you. Throw them in jail and they start to think about not doing it again.

Most of the people this article is about could own their own desalinization plants and sell off the amount they don't use to make even more money. Now that's the capitalist way of doing things.

And what's scary is that we just had recent articles about our local governments allowing companies to come in and bottle up water that we are being practically rationed now. Add this article to that one and it makes you think our government could care less if we run out of water or not.

Tired of it All wrote:

We long ago put in a shallow well that gives us all the water we need to irrigate the yard with on a three day interval. I cannot imagine using city water except perhaps a little hand watering where the sprinklers missed during a drought. I agree with the "rich bashing" statements from Bruce Tavares. Too many little jealous punks are quick to jump on the class envy band wagon and spout off at the mouth about people who have more than they do. Their theory is that America is a country where you are guaranteed "stuff". These people who have "stuff" got that "stuff" the old fashioned way, they "earned it". Instead of sitting around in the coffee shop using the free Internet complaining about what Tiger Woods and others have, maybe you ought to do an inventory of your own miserable lives and assess what you might need to do to prepare yourself to get a better job that pays more money? Maybe that party trip through the liberal arts college where you picked all those courses that avoided any real study isn't cutting it with interviewers? Maybe they weren't really thrilled you volunteered for Gore and Kerry when you listed that as your "work experience"?

WOW! You are obviously so much better than the rest of humanity. How do you do it? You are amazing!

A few decades back while a resident of Vero Beach and living in a house getting it's water from a well I was introduced to a little thing called salt water intrusion. This is natures way of regulating how much water you can pull from the aquafier. She doesn't care if you are Tiger or Bubba. Bruce from Tavares answer of Desalination plants is a very expensive proposition. The point is we need some leadership that will say enough, it is no longer legal for you to be a wasteful pig even if you have a bunch of money. I must say I love the idea of tossing the scoundrels in jail proposed by Diogonese. Tigers mug shot-Priceless. "Whaddya in for?"
"Over watering sir".

Are you kidding me? Raise the rate from $5.00/gal to $5.30/gal to send a message to the abusers of water! Who in their right mind thinks someone with the financial resources such as Tiger Woods has would give one hoot about a 30 cent per gallon rate hike? It's time the buck stops here folks. These people need a reality check of epic proportions. We have been in a water crises for many years now and our local and state authorities have done absolutely nothing and have continued to ignore it other than to raise our rates in our homes and to force us, the real "average Joe's" to reduce our usage while at the same time they have continued to allow developer's uncontrolled expansion of home and business building in our communities. They have admittedly allowed certain private "celebrities" and business (such as Golf Courses for instance) to continue their elaborate and uncontrolled usage of water knowing that we are in short supply of water. How irresponsible is that? What a despicable society we've become!