7 ms·

This is good government as a public service, better than viewing the public as criminals-in-waiting: >Since 2007, the New York City DEP has multiple programs t

by plonh 11y ago

This is good government as a public service, better than viewing the public as criminals-in-waiting: >Since 2007, the New York City DEP has multiple programs to combat the illicit opening of the city’s hydrants. With very few exceptions, you can go to pretty much any firehouse in the five boroughs and ask for a spray cap. The fire department will come to the hydrant of your choosing, open it up for about 12 hours, and install a cap that creates several thinner streams of water, like a giant lawn sprinkler. This cap uses only about 25 gallons of water per minute > And the DEP has a team called the Hydrant Education Action Team (HEAT), arrays of volunteer teens who go around their neighborhoods telling people about the dangers of opening hydrants and the benefits of spray caps.

pavel_lishin 11y ago
I live in New York, I've seen kids on our block, and their parents, playing with one of those - including a shower-head attachment! - pretty much every day this week. It looks great - it's hot and humid as hell right now, a lot of families don't have an air conditioner, and there's not exactly a lot of public pools around (and forget water parks, or swimming in the rivers.) This seems like a pretty good way of making sure people are happy and healthy.
- setpatchaddress 11y ago
  From a native Californian perspective, it just looks insanely wasteful of water. These are fed from some non-potable source, at least? ...Read TFA, nope. OK then. It is insanely wasteful of water.
  - msandford 11y ago
    > OK then. It is insanely wasteful of water. It's only a "waste" if the water is scarce. People rarely talk about wasting air (except to call someone dumb) because the air is virtually unlimited. For example in the UK it's damn near impossible to waste water because it rains so consistently. Water isn't scarce. You can't really waste it, because there's always plenty more. Even if you could pipe the water from NYC all the way to CA it'd be prohibitively expensive. So the only way this is "waste" is if it's depleting the aquifer faster than it replenishes. That's possible of course. But unlikely, because NYC has been huge for hundreds of years now. If they're depleting aquifers it's only very slowly.
    - benev 11y ago
      Here in the UK we do have pretty regular problems with the water supply, to the point that hosepipe use is sometimes regulated. There's even a website you can check to see if there's currently a hosepipe ban: http://www.hosepipeban.org.uk/hosepipe-ban-current-situation/ http://www.hosepipeban.org.uk/hosepipe-ban-current-situation... It does rain a lot here, but there's also issues with the size of the reservoirs and the amount of water being drawn.
      - msandford 11y ago
        Point taken! I visited Scotland in the spring and there was water trickling everywhere. I should have qualified my statement much better. The other error I made was extrapolation from Scotland to the whole of the UK. Here in the US it takes a lot of travel to go from one "region" to another, and the conditions change slowly. But I could see that the whole of the UK doesn't necessarily have uniform conditions either.
    - joshuapants 11y ago
      > So the only way this is "waste" is if it's depleting the aquifer faster than it replenishes. That's possible of course. But unlikely, because NYC has been huge for hundreds of years now. If they're depleting aquifers it's only very slowly. This is exactly the case. NY/NJ are depleting the groundwater faster than it comes back, but not at a great rate and it is nowhere near a problem yet.
      - rayiner 11y ago
        NYC doesn't use groundwater: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/groundwater.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/groundwater....
    - mturmon 11y ago
      Some numbers: The current water rate for NYC is $3.81/hcf. For sewage, $6.06/hcf. The current water rate for LA is $5.23/hcf. For sewage, about $4.23/hcf. One "hcf" is 100 cubic feet, or about 748 gallons. Hopefully, the water sprayed from the hydrant is treated before being released. Most groundwater in LA is treated unless the rain overwhelms the treatment facility. This implies that in either case, the cost is about $10/hcf. This would be one way to put a price on running water -- and to me, it implies that this counts as "waste". Sources: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwaterboard/html/rate_schedule/index.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwaterboard/html/rate_schedule/ind... https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-financesandreports/a-fr-waterrares/a-fr-wr-schedulearesidential?_adf.ctrl-state=y6bvv7hj8_4&_afrLoop=572112725106765 https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-financesan...
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    NYC receives several hundred billion gallons of rainwater each year (source: USGS). That's just counting the ~30% of the rain that actually makes it to its streams and aquifers, discounting the portion lost to evaporation and transpiration. If it's not a scarce resource, they can waste 25 gallons a minute running some free sprinklers.
  - cpncrunch 11y ago
    The spray cap doesn't seem insanely wasteful. Or at least, no more wasteful than a public fountain or swimming pool. The benefit seems to vastly outweigh the cost. Also, I'm guessing that NY has sufficient reservoir capacity to handle it, and the reservoirs fill up naturally when it rains, so you're not wasting a finite resource anyway.
    - dredmorbius 11y ago
      Fountains and swimming pools typically recycle their water, needing only small amounts added to offset evaporation and splash loss.
    - FireBeyond 11y ago
      It's not. 25gpm versus an open hydrant that can (if connected to a decent water supply) give you 1000gpm+ is far better. Here (in WA state) on the other hand, no sprinkler caps, and no real need for them. Indeed our biggest issue is special security on them and FDC connectors because people will steal the caps for scrap metal.
  - GauntletWizard 11y ago
    Perhaps you should live in an area habitable to humans, then. New York's reservoirs are overflowing [1], and that's after they dump water. [1]http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/maplevels_wide.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/maplevels_wi...
    - ossreality 11y ago
      WOW. You have the balls to post eugenic nonsense (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9970695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9970695) from an account easily tracked to your real identity. Those are some big, big balls. Congrats.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    NYC has plenty of water, brought in via aquaducts from upstate. They had the sense to build the city not in a desert.
    - joshuapants 11y ago
      > They had the sense to build the city not in a desert The hubris of the people who built up the southwest United States in particular astounds me.
      - Turing_Machine 11y ago
        It's especially bothersome when their choices make it impossible for the rest of us to (e.g.) buy a toilet that actually flushes.
        kw71 11y ago
        I have a pretty new loo that uses 1.0 gallons per use. I haven't had any problems that I've heard about, thankfully, even on the "worst days." I think that some of them are designed better than others. As an experiment I dumped a half gallon of water into it and it flushed. Of course the bowl didn't fill up after but this makes me think that my loo would work with one of those reduced water flush mechanisms for when the waste is liquid. I've seen some retrofit kits but they won't fit my loo.
        fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
        Toto.
        mturmon 11y ago
        Check. $200 for a low-flush unit and problem solved.
        Turing_Machine 11y ago
        Except that you're now out of pocket an extra hundred bucks, even though you live in an area that has no water shortage, nor has any prospect of ever having a water shortage.
  - Crito 11y ago
    Somebody really needs to add aquifers and watersheds to the California public school curriculum. The amount of Californians that don't seem to understand these basic concepts is honestly staggering. I've had Californians accuse me of contributing to their drought by leaving the sink running while washing my dishes in Seattle. Seriously California, not everyone has to share your misery.
    - Turing_Machine 11y ago
      Right. Also, the proportion of people who think water is a one-time use thing is depressing. They don't seem to have a clue that used water evaporates and falls as rain. (yeah, there are exceptions in regions where they're using "fossil" water, but that's not the general case)
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  Yup, and we have an annual summer program to give air conditioners away to elderly people and such. Why not also a little water, especially considering the difficulty of stopping it.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
I wonder if you could replace hydrants with intelligent nodes. They'd still have mechanical openings for fire department hookup, but they'd call have spray caps on permanently, and could be remotely controlled, monitored, and even opened for yearly hydrant flushing without staff venturing out to each hydrant. You could even monitor water pressure through the entire hydrant system.
- pavel_lishin 11y ago
  It would make more sense to put pressure sensors someplace where a drunken yahoo with a brick couldn't cost the city $250.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    You'd still maintain the hydrant form factor. The sensor would be internal. Dibs. Going for YC '16, "Poseidon".

by plonh 11y ago

pavel_lishin 11y ago

I live in New York, I've seen kids on our block, and their parents, playing with one of those - including a shower-head attachment! - pretty much every day this week. It looks great - it's hot and humid as hell right now, a lot of families don't have an air conditioner, and there's not exactly a lot of public pools around (and forget water parks, or swimming in the rivers.) This seems like a pretty good way of making sure people are happy and healthy.

setpatchaddress 11y ago
From a native Californian perspective, it just looks insanely wasteful of water. These are fed from some non-potable source, at least? ...Read TFA, nope. OK then. It is insanely wasteful of water.
- msandford 11y ago
  > OK then. It is insanely wasteful of water. It's only a "waste" if the water is scarce. People rarely talk about wasting air (except to call someone dumb) because the air is virtually unlimited. For example in the UK it's damn near impossible to waste water because it rains so consistently. Water isn't scarce. You can't really waste it, because there's always plenty more. Even if you could pipe the water from NYC all the way to CA it'd be prohibitively expensive. So the only way this is "waste" is if it's depleting the aquifer faster than it replenishes. That's possible of course. But unlikely, because NYC has been huge for hundreds of years now. If they're depleting aquifers it's only very slowly.
  - benev 11y ago
    Here in the UK we do have pretty regular problems with the water supply, to the point that hosepipe use is sometimes regulated. There's even a website you can check to see if there's currently a hosepipe ban: http://www.hosepipeban.org.uk/hosepipe-ban-current-situation/ http://www.hosepipeban.org.uk/hosepipe-ban-current-situation... It does rain a lot here, but there's also issues with the size of the reservoirs and the amount of water being drawn.
    - msandford 11y ago
      Point taken! I visited Scotland in the spring and there was water trickling everywhere. I should have qualified my statement much better. The other error I made was extrapolation from Scotland to the whole of the UK. Here in the US it takes a lot of travel to go from one "region" to another, and the conditions change slowly. But I could see that the whole of the UK doesn't necessarily have uniform conditions either.
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    > So the only way this is "waste" is if it's depleting the aquifer faster than it replenishes. That's possible of course. But unlikely, because NYC has been huge for hundreds of years now. If they're depleting aquifers it's only very slowly. This is exactly the case. NY/NJ are depleting the groundwater faster than it comes back, but not at a great rate and it is nowhere near a problem yet.
    - rayiner 11y ago
      NYC doesn't use groundwater: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/groundwater.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/groundwater....
  - mturmon 11y ago
    Some numbers: The current water rate for NYC is $3.81/hcf. For sewage, $6.06/hcf. The current water rate for LA is $5.23/hcf. For sewage, about $4.23/hcf. One "hcf" is 100 cubic feet, or about 748 gallons. Hopefully, the water sprayed from the hydrant is treated before being released. Most groundwater in LA is treated unless the rain overwhelms the treatment facility. This implies that in either case, the cost is about $10/hcf. This would be one way to put a price on running water -- and to me, it implies that this counts as "waste". Sources: http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwaterboard/html/rate_schedule/index.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/nycwaterboard/html/rate_schedule/ind... https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-financesandreports/a-fr-waterrares/a-fr-wr-schedulearesidential?_adf.ctrl-state=y6bvv7hj8_4&_afrLoop=572112725106765 https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-financesan...
- dangrossman 11y ago
  NYC receives several hundred billion gallons of rainwater each year (source: USGS). That's just counting the ~30% of the rain that actually makes it to its streams and aquifers, discounting the portion lost to evaporation and transpiration. If it's not a scarce resource, they can waste 25 gallons a minute running some free sprinklers.
- cpncrunch 11y ago
  The spray cap doesn't seem insanely wasteful. Or at least, no more wasteful than a public fountain or swimming pool. The benefit seems to vastly outweigh the cost. Also, I'm guessing that NY has sufficient reservoir capacity to handle it, and the reservoirs fill up naturally when it rains, so you're not wasting a finite resource anyway.
  - dredmorbius 11y ago
    Fountains and swimming pools typically recycle their water, needing only small amounts added to offset evaporation and splash loss.
  - FireBeyond 11y ago
    It's not. 25gpm versus an open hydrant that can (if connected to a decent water supply) give you 1000gpm+ is far better. Here (in WA state) on the other hand, no sprinkler caps, and no real need for them. Indeed our biggest issue is special security on them and FDC connectors because people will steal the caps for scrap metal.
- GauntletWizard 11y ago
  Perhaps you should live in an area habitable to humans, then. New York's reservoirs are overflowing [1], and that's after they dump water. [1]http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/maplevels_wide.shtml http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/maplevels_wi...
  - ossreality 11y ago
    WOW. You have the balls to post eugenic nonsense (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9970695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9970695) from an account easily tracked to your real identity. Those are some big, big balls. Congrats.
- rayiner 11y ago
  NYC has plenty of water, brought in via aquaducts from upstate. They had the sense to build the city not in a desert.
  - joshuapants 11y ago
    > They had the sense to build the city not in a desert The hubris of the people who built up the southwest United States in particular astounds me.
    - Turing_Machine 11y ago
      It's especially bothersome when their choices make it impossible for the rest of us to (e.g.) buy a toilet that actually flushes.
      - kw71 11y ago
        I have a pretty new loo that uses 1.0 gallons per use. I haven't had any problems that I've heard about, thankfully, even on the "worst days." I think that some of them are designed better than others. As an experiment I dumped a half gallon of water into it and it flushed. Of course the bowl didn't fill up after but this makes me think that my loo would work with one of those reduced water flush mechanisms for when the waste is liquid. I've seen some retrofit kits but they won't fit my loo.
      - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
        Toto.
        mturmon 11y ago
        Check. $200 for a low-flush unit and problem solved.
        Turing_Machine 11y ago
        Except that you're now out of pocket an extra hundred bucks, even though you live in an area that has no water shortage, nor has any prospect of ever having a water shortage.
- Crito 11y ago
  Somebody really needs to add aquifers and watersheds to the California public school curriculum. The amount of Californians that don't seem to understand these basic concepts is honestly staggering. I've had Californians accuse me of contributing to their drought by leaving the sink running while washing my dishes in Seattle. Seriously California, not everyone has to share your misery.
  - Turing_Machine 11y ago
    Right. Also, the proportion of people who think water is a one-time use thing is depressing. They don't seem to have a clue that used water evaporates and falls as rain. (yeah, there are exceptions in regions where they're using "fossil" water, but that's not the general case)
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
Yup, and we have an annual summer program to give air conditioners away to elderly people and such. Why not also a little water, especially considering the difficulty of stopping it.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

I wonder if you could replace hydrants with intelligent nodes. They'd still have mechanical openings for fire department hookup, but they'd call have spray caps on permanently, and could be remotely controlled, monitored, and even opened for yearly hydrant flushing without staff venturing out to each hydrant. You could even monitor water pressure through the entire hydrant system.

pavel_lishin 11y ago
It would make more sense to put pressure sensors someplace where a drunken yahoo with a brick couldn't cost the city $250.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  You'd still maintain the hydrant form factor. The sensor would be internal. Dibs. Going for YC '16, "Poseidon".