Hansen: Could our well of ‘drought guilt’ be dry?

There is a theory in cultural anthropology that you can change a population’s behavior through guilt.

If you accept that we become more cultured through education and learn best through criticism, then guilty learning is the best method to move a population toward a goal.

Which brings me to drought guilt.

The only way that we will reach Gov. Jerry Brown’s 25% water reduction mandate will be through shame. Either that or we let all of our crops go fallow and we starve, which probably is not a good idea.

So it starts at home, and in Laguna Beach that increasingly means a big home.

With a big yard.

And absentee owners who don’t know their sprinkler cycles.

Thankfully, we’re not as bad as Newport Beach, but surprisingly, Laguna is not very water efficient.

We like to think we are, but we’re not. In fact, we’re not even better than the state average.

Think about that for a second. Most other cities in the state are better than Laguna.

Seal Beach is better. Santa Barbara is better. Fountain Valley, Santa Ana and San Diego are all better. Heck, even Irvine Ranch, the evil empire of suburban development, is more water wise than Laguna.

How does that make you feel? Are you shamed yet?

In January, for example, each Laguna resident used an average of 83 gallons of water per day, according to the State Water Resources Control Board. Our brothers and sisters in Seal Beach used 38 gallons, less than half.

At first, I thought it was a typo. Maybe someone transposed the numbers: 83, 38? No. Per capita, Seal Beach always uses less than half the water that we use.

How can that be? What are they doing that we aren’t?

Well, for one thing, they have higher housing density and less lawn. They are not as manicured. They ride bikes.

Yes, there is a correlation between bikes and water. Did you know that if you drive your car less, you won’t feel the need to wash it as much?

I haven’t washed my car in about two months. The dirt is bad but I have drought guilt. If I don’t wash it in the driveway, I save up to 100 gallons of water or more. And if I go to a car wash, I use anywhere from about 15 to 50 gallons, according to experts.

But I wondered if I was alone in my worry, so I went to the local car wash and talked to a Laguna mother of four. Lisa Arthur was getting her family rig washed for the first time in several weeks. But it was finally so dirty that she couldn’t put it off.

“All of us watch our water,” she said. “We take shorter showers. What I do is a drop in the bucket, but I care. Every little bit counts.”

While wanting to do the right thing, Arthur said she was a little suspicious about the agricultural exemptions on the state level.

“I’d like to see agriculture get more efficient,” she said. “Plus, I just wonder about all the golf courses.”

She also admitted that not everyone plays by the same rules.

“I think there’s probably some people who don’t care,” she said. “If we all make some changes, we can make a difference.”

I confessed to Arthur that I was conflicted about my own car. I told her that I had a date coming up and would have to pick up a woman in my dirty car.

“Wash it,” she said, smiling. “Definitely wash it.”

But if everyone continues to wash, flush, shower, launder and sprinkle, we will continue being worse than average.

We will continue to lose to cities like Ontario, South Gate, Anaheim, Westminster, Brea, Huntington Beach, Oceanside, Pomona and Long Beach.

I could go on. If you want to see the full list yourself, go to the State Water Resources Control Board website.

Officially, the Laguna Beach County Water District has no new plan for meeting the state mandate. It is working primarily under last year’s guidelines, which are largely volunteer or fairly obvious.

•You can’t water your sidewalk.

•If you have a huge water leak, you should fix it.

•If you wash your car in the driveway, don’t keep the hose running.

•Limit your sprinklers to three times a week and only at night.

•And believe it or not, “All district customers are prohibited from using water from fire hydrants without authorization.”

In other words, things that won’t get us to the goal.

Rules that will keep us below average.

Restrictions that won’t come close to true guilt.

For that we need eco-religion — and let first dates be damned.

DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at [email protected].