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Comment by plonh | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

> 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.

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...

It does rain a lot here, but there's also issues with the size of the reservoirs and the amount of water being drawn.

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.

> 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.

NYC doesn't use groundwater: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/drinking_water/groundwater....

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/ind...

https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/ladwp/aboutus/a-financesan...

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.

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").

Stealing sewage services still isn't "wasting water". It's regrettable, but I think NYC can withstand the additional budgetary strain caused by kids playing with hydrants.

> "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."

That's just all the more proof of Californian's absolute insanity when it comes to distributing water.

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.

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.

Fountains and swimming pools typically recycle their water, needing only small amounts added to offset evaporation and splash loss.

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.

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_wi...

NYC has plenty of water, brought in via aquaducts from upstate. They had the sense to build the city not in a desert.

> 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.

It's especially bothersome when their choices make it impossible for the rest of us to (e.g.) buy a toilet that actually flushes.

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.

Toto.

Check. $200 for a low-flush unit and problem solved.

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.

Well that's the fault of what ever cheap-ass contractor/landlord built/provisioned the place and was probably put in place well before California had a drought possibly even before people decided Phoenix was fit for human habitation.

I don't see what you're getting at. You're arguing that a contractor who put in a toilet (cheap or expensive... doesn't matter) 50 years ago is somehow at fault when it needs to be replaced with an unnecessarily expensive new toilet that meets California requirements?

I've heard there's an active trade in bootleg Canadian toilets in the Pacific Northwest.

50 years? You'd have to have perfect water for a toilet to last 50 years of residential use. 15-20 in my area and they will be calcified without water treatment.

A Toto Drake isn't that much more than even a cheap builder-grade unit. I've been through a number of different ones and I am a stingy tightwad; and I'd still buy a Toto. There are cheaper ones that will flush the same amount of debris, but Totos wash the bowl better; and I appreciate that as someone who doesn't like to spend a lot of time scrubbing ahem "debris". I think their flush is quieter too, but I haven't measured it.

My last house was built in 1949, and the original toilet was working perfectly. The water quality there was far from good.

Calcium deposits are what toilet bowl cleaners are for.

According to my local Home Depot, a utility-grade toilet is $79, and the cheapest Toto Drake is $189. That's more than twice as much.

If you estimate that there's roughly one toilet per person in the United States, an extra hundred bucks per person comes out to 30 billion dollars wasted for each replacement cycle (except in the very limited areas, like California, where these things actually make sense).

Not the bowl, inside the water passages, they get constricted, the toilets lose their flush action. Sure, you can religiously pour muriatic acid down the things, but that will etch away the non-glazed surfaces, and metal sanitary piping (but it's good for roots). I'm pretty happy about my Toto toilets but I'm not getting commission or anything. I wouldn't fight you over it. You enjoy your $79 HD specials and your extra hundred bucks. Try not to spend it all in one place.

I would rather that the $30 billion dollars (minimum) be spent in a lot of places, rather than being wasted on unnecessary toilets.

And no, the water passages in my 60 year old toilet weren't "constricted". It flushed fine. Likely still does.

Of course, your claim that toilets last only a few years only means more money wasted on these gizmos, not less.

But hey, you enjoy whatever sense of satisfaction you get out of spending money to solve a "problem" that is largely nonexistent, other than in California.

To echo my sibling poster that's just bad design there. My old work place had 1.25 gpf toilets and those thing could flush a giraffe (niagra conservation flaperless, i've extolled their virtues before).

Also as having grown up in the sticks in Alaska, with an electric well and significant power outs, let me just say: walking half a mile to break open some ice, draw 3.5 gallons of water and walking back is some bullshit. I love me some low flow toilets.

Neither Los Angeles nor San Francisco is in a desert.

The comment you're replying to said "California", and there is not much California population in the desert climate. For example, Palm Springs in the Sonora Desert has a population of about 50K, and Palmdale/Lancaster/Victorville in the Mojave Desert has a combined population of about 400K).

Los Angeles gets about 13 inches of annual rainfall. San Francisco gets about 20. Chicago gets about 36. New York gets nearly 50.

LA and SF may not be "deserts" in some technical sense, but it'll do for practical purposes.

LA is not a desert in the sense used by climatologists. For example:

http://www.boomcalifornia.com/2013/10/myth-of-a-desert-metro...

http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/commentary/los-angel...

LA is in the Mediterranean climate zone.

If you are willing to entertain the idea that not just Los Angeles, but San Francisco is in a desert -- I have no words. Have you been there?

People, typically not very well-informed about California geography and the Southwest, do sometimes lazily refer to LA as a desert. They seem to do this because they have heard other people do it. If you have lived here, you will see how evidently wrong this is. It's July and I can take my dog to a creek that has flowing water. This is not something you can do in a desert.

Have you been to an actual desert, such as the Mojave, the Sonora, or the Anza-Borrego?

"LA is not a desert in the sense used by climatologists."

As I said, "not in a technical sense", but that's irrelevant to the actual point under discussion, which is that cities have been built in areas that don't have anything like the amount of natural water resources necessary to sustain them.

You mean they had the good fortune that their ancestors did not land in a desert.

Or, their ancestors had the good sense to move. Or the good sense to not land there in the first place.

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.

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)

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.

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.

It would make more sense to put pressure sensors someplace where a drunken yahoo with a brick couldn't cost the city $250.

You'd still maintain the hydrant form factor. The sensor would be internal.

Dibs. Going for YC '16, "Poseidon".

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