10 ms·

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 th

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...
  - Crito 11y ago
    Stolen water is conceptually distinct from wasted water. People who use hydrants without paying for them are technically stealing that water, but they are not "wasting" it in any sense that actually matters to New York. Unlike in California, there is no risk of one day turning on your tap and having nothing come out. They, unlike California, are not running out of water. > "Hopefully, the water sprayed from the hydrant is treated before being released. Most groundwater in LA is treated" 1) NYC does not use groundwater. The vast majority of their water comes from an extensive system of reservoirs, tunnels and aqueducts, gravity fed straight into the city. 2) Because their water comes reservoirs located in wilderness regions of New York, their water is naturally filtered and is pure enough to drink with next to no treatment. They only add chlorine to that water. 3) The water you get from a legally tapped fire hydrant is no different from the water you get from an illegally tapped fire hydrant.
    - mturmon 11y ago
      You missed my point regarding the groundwater. My point is that the runoff from the hydrant must be treated before being released, and that treatment has a cost, which is reflected in the sewage rates. Your other points regarding the origins of NYC water don't affect my argument: despite the apparent effortlessness of getting the water to that Bronx hydrant, said water has a price which is substantially the same in NY as in other areas like CA. Perhaps that value is of interest when deciding whether there is any significance to spraying loads of it out through a hydrant, versus being parsimonious (i.e., "waste").
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)

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...
- Crito 11y ago
  Stolen water is conceptually distinct from wasted water. People who use hydrants without paying for them are technically stealing that water, but they are not "wasting" it in any sense that actually matters to New York. Unlike in California, there is no risk of one day turning on your tap and having nothing come out. They, unlike California, are not running out of water. > "Hopefully, the water sprayed from the hydrant is treated before being released. Most groundwater in LA is treated" 1) NYC does not use groundwater. The vast majority of their water comes from an extensive system of reservoirs, tunnels and aqueducts, gravity fed straight into the city. 2) Because their water comes reservoirs located in wilderness regions of New York, their water is naturally filtered and is pure enough to drink with next to no treatment. They only add chlorine to that water. 3) The water you get from a legally tapped fire hydrant is no different from the water you get from an illegally tapped fire hydrant.
  - mturmon 11y ago
    You missed my point regarding the groundwater. My point is that the runoff from the hydrant must be treated before being released, and that treatment has a cost, which is reflected in the sewage rates. Your other points regarding the origins of NYC water don't affect my argument: despite the apparent effortlessness of getting the water to that Bronx hydrant, said water has a price which is substantially the same in NY as in other areas like CA. Perhaps that value is of interest when deciding whether there is any significance to spraying loads of it out through a hydrant, versus being parsimonious (i.e., "waste").

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)