Submitted by: Kathy Hawkins
“We
are using it specifically for an enforcement tool to go after those
customers who we’ve gotten lots of complaints about,” Wattier said.
Over the past two years, NTEB has brought you numerous stories about
the drastic loss of privacy associated with the installation of smart
meters to control water and electric services. But as you will see, they
are really just about control.
LONG BEACH —
Water authorities are using a new tool in a major effort to crack down
on people and businesses wasting water in light of new water
restrictions issued by Gov. Jerry Brown to fight the drought.
The
Long Beach Water Department says sprinklers at a McDonald’s restaurant
on Bellflower Boulevard went on for 45 minutes at a time, twice a night,
for an undefined number of nights. Complaints continued to mount as
water pooled and wasted. The department, however, could do little about
the wasting.
The
smart meters, created by a company called Innov8, cost $300. They
connect to Verizon’s wireless network and upload statistics about water
use every few minutes; that information can show the frequency and
length of time a homeowner is watering
their lawn, or help identify a leak or other issue.
That was before the smart meter.
Since
its installation in February, Long Beach Water Department
General Manager Kevin Wattier says he saw an immediate spike by tens of
thousands of gallons, each time McDonald’s overwatered their property.
“It collects the data every five minutes, then after midnight,
the cellphone that’s built in here comes on, makes one call, and calls
it in to the database that we and the customer, through a password
security system, have online access to their consumption,” Wattier said.
“The accuracy is just incredible, because we get the data the next day.”
Using this data, Wattier knew the precise moment to send his employees to videotape the infractions to use as evidence.
“We are using it specifically for an enforcement tool to
go after those customers who we’ve gotten lots of complaints about,”
Wattier said. Wattier says he believes the smart meter will be used in
both businesses and homes to track water waste across Southern
California. source
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(Via Breitbart) Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) said Californians will face heavy fines for taking long showers.
Brown
said, “This executive order is done under emergency power. It has the
force of law. Very unusual. It’s requiring action and changes in
behavior from the Oregon border all the way to the Mexican border. It
affects lawns. It affects people’s — how long they stay in the shower.
How businesses use water.” (more)
“Some people have a right to more water than others”...
 (Via The Blaze) Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina said Monday
that California’s water crisis is the result of “liberal
environmentalists” who are “willing to sacrifice other people’s lives
and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology.”
“With
different policies over the last 20 years, all of this could be
avoided,” Fiorina said on Glenn Beck’s radio program. “Despite the fact
that California has suffered from droughts for millennia, liberal
environmentalists have prevented the building of a single new reservoir
or a single new water conveyance system over decades during a period in
which California’s population has doubled.”
Fiorina said that as a result, 70 percent of California’s rainfall “washes out to sea” year after year.
“How is it possible that we don’t hear that story on the news at all?” Beck demanded.
“Isn’t
that interesting?” Fiorina responded. “It is a man-made disaster.
California is a classic case of liberals being willing to sacrifice
other people’s lives and livelihoods at the altar of their ideology. It
is a tragedy.”
Fiorina
said Congress also has the power to ease some of the water restrictions
for farmers, but the restrictions remain in place to protect certain
forms of wildlife.
“In
California, fish and frogs and flies are really important — far more
important apparently than the 40 percent unemployment rate in certain
parts of central valley,” Fiorina said. “So the Senate and the president
could waive some of those water restrictions. They have been asked to
do so, and they have refused to do so.” (read more)
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