tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post3144752763097355895..comments2024-03-19T07:48:54.021-06:00Comments on Gus Van Horn: 6-20-15 HodgepodgeGus Van Hornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-53762608346034334492015-06-20T18:23:55.344-06:002015-06-20T18:23:55.344-06:00C.,
Quite an interesting mouthful, that. My hopes...C.,<br /><br />Quite an interesting mouthful, that. My hopes for an end to Cali's man-made drought are slim-to-none for the short term.<br /><br />GusGus Van Hornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05126749051688217781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8839412.post-34679336050558296882015-06-20T10:22:41.788-06:002015-06-20T10:22:41.788-06:00Hi Gus,
Back in the 80s I ran across a proposal t...Hi Gus,<br /><br />Back in the 80s I ran across a proposal to use a bio-sewage system using water hyacinths. Apparently San Diego ran (or runs) a 1 million gallon per day system and Disney World/EPCOT runs one about 1/3 that size. The effluvia is clean enough to drink. <br /><br />I don't know what the top scale would be for this approach to sewage treatment and perhaps the capital, area required, or time necessary are prohibitive in regard to the volume that urban areas generate. But I would be unsurprised to find that some regulation or lobbying group has made the widespread use politically infeasible. <br /><br />Speaking of regulation, there are some states where it is illegal to use rain barrels; that you are stealing water from senior water rights' holders by not allowing it to run off or sink into the aquifer. Now personally, I think that if something lands on your property, it's yours to use, barring a prior property claim. And if the water rights' people want to argue that that water is theirs prior to ending up in runoff or the aquifer, then shouldn't I be able to sue them for flood damage caused by 'their' rain?<br /><br />Last point about the absurdity and inhibiting effects of regulation and associated rent-seeking. One of my customers had a mountain cabin on property deeded from their great-grandparents. A stream runs through it; that is, they own the property on both sides of the creek. He put a small generator in where there was sufficient 'fall' to make it worthwhile. <br /><br />Idaho Power found out about it and took him to court to have it removed. Not because he was interfering with any project they had or were about to undertake and not because there is some mystical electricity reservoir that belongs to Idaho Power and that he was somehow depleting. Nope. Idaho Power has an exclusive FRANCHISE to generate electricity using hydro-electric technology in this state. He wasn't selling it to anyone, but I guess this is I Da Ho's* version of Wickard v Filburn. You know, the institutionalized practice of straining gnats and swallowing camels. <br /><br /><br />*a reference to the political prostitution that goes on in the incestuous dance between lobbyists, utilities, and whorish politicians.<br /><br />c. andrewAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com