NBC Channel 5 did a story last night on Metroplex residents who use the most water at their homes.
Rich folks are either drinking a whole lot of single malt scotch and water on ice, or they are maintaining huge, lush freaking St. Augustine lawns in the middle of freaking summer in the middle of freaking Texas.
The Top 10 list in Dallas included Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks and developer Ross Perot Jr. Hicks, for instance, used almost 9 million gallons of water in 2008 at his residence, compared to the average customer’s 100,000 gallons.
Fort Worth’s list of Top 10 residential water users is missing half the names. For some reason, folks over here are more savvy about a state law that allows residents to request confidentiality about utility usage. Why do I get the feeling that every rich person with a sprawling lawn will be requesting similar confidentiality in the years ahead?
But based on the partial information provided, Fort Worth’s rich folks seem to waste our most precious resource at a lower rate than their Dallas counterparts. So good on us. I guess.
amazes me that people will still put in thirsty and non-native grass for their precious lawns. just another example of “me me me, it’s all about me” suburbanites who don’t give a flying eff about anybody but themselves.
Perhaps I’m missing your point but Hicks et al are paying for the water correct? Then it’s nobody’s concern.
Now you lefties are trying to control a man’s lawn. It just ain’t right.
Professor Buddy. How ’bout I pay a transient to slash your tires? Has nothing to do with my being a good citizen or socially responsible or anything. I’m paying for the service after all.
Talk about “me, me, me”!! Yes, prof, they’re paying for the water. And the rich people can pay for it right up until the time we start to have to ration it because there’s not enough to go around. I’d assume from this that also drive a Hummer and hunt endangered species, because, after all, you pay for that “right,” huh? Maybe it IS just a crazy liberal thing to prefer that people in texas plant water-conserving, native grasses and plants and not require so much. if so, sign me up!
Hey Prof:
No need to argue with these types. These are the ones who think that a plant or some damn endangered mouse in California is worth more than a human. Hell, one of Obama’s czars thinks that trees should be able to be represented in court. This is obviously some kind of mental illness. Just look at douchebag’s (anthony.mariani) statement:
“How ’bout I pay a transient to slash your tires?”
I think that assholes that don’t water their lawns make the neighborhood look like crap. That isn’t socially responsible and it makes property values go down.
I bet douchebag lives in his mom’s attic.
Hey Steve,
What makes you think we’re running out of water? Have you been doing a study?
I’ll bet you believe in global warming too… So which is it? We’re running out of water… Texas is becoming the Sahara or… the polar caps are melting and New York City will be under water… pick one… you can’t have both
.
Anthony macaroni,
What a stupid notion.
…Equating vandalism (crime) with a person paying their water bill. If you want to plant buffalo grass in your lawn, then go for it. If you want to be trashy and not water and have nothing but clumps of dallis grass, then go for it. But when you want to tell other people how to live their lives and what they can do with their property simply because you adhere to an unqualified myth, then take a hike.
The Texas Water Development Board has studied our water supply and we DO have a problem. Why else would the Tarrant Regional Water District be suing the State of Oklahoma in Federal Court to buy their water? Why else would T. Boone Pickens be trying to sell us water from west Texas? According to our own Region C Water Plan, 25% of our projected water needs will have to be met by conservation and reuse.
Conservative? Stop liberal watering!
Hey Norma Rae Chruscielski,
Considering your opposition to all the frac drilling in area, I just wonder if you understand that much of your interior design work could be indirectly funded from the gas bounties that Tarrant residents have been enjoying the past few years.
Here’s the link to a story I did in 2006 that discusses local water issues and reveals certain shortcomings in the oversight of such a precious mineral:
http://archive.fwweekly.com/content.asp?article=4264
Water isn’t a mineral.
A mineral is defined as naturally occurring, homogeneous inorganic solid substance having a definite chemical composition and characteristic crystalline structure, color, and hardness.
Minerals are Aluminium, Barium, Cadmium, Gold, etc.
Remember that I’m here to help.
“Precious resource” would have been a better way to describe water, although I’ll bet Texas law classifies water as a mineral even if geologists don’t.
I’m not going to take the time to read a law book to determine if I’m right but I’m sure the professor will let me know.
Also, prof buddy, you describe mineral as a “naturally occurring, homogeneous inorganic solid substance having a definite chemical composition and characteristic crystalline structure, color, and hardness.”
Sounds like an iceberg to me. And isn’t an iceberg composed mostly of…water?
Ha! Bip! Bam! Boom! Knockout!
Not so fast Mike Tyson. I feel my ear bleeding already.
1. Texas law classifies water as a surface material such as limestone. This was decided w/ Sun Oil Co. v. Whitaker (1972)
2. Technically, ice is a mineral, but only in its solid, frozen form.
I agree that “precious resource” is a better term. One side note, I went to a Rangers game a few weeks ago and saw a big helicopter dropping off some bigwigs… It was Hicks and his cronies. (Too important to take a car) There’s no doubt he’s a wasteful ass. He spends money on all kinds of stupid stuff, water (as you’ve pointed out), helicopter fuel, and the Manchester United football (soccer) team. But… it’s a free country and he’s got the right to waste money on whatever he wants and he’ll suffer the consequences when he goes bankrupt. The only problem is that it holds baseball fans like me hostage in the meantime. Such is life. Go Rangers.
damn