Dangerously Dry Rainy Season

It Never Rains In Southern California, and for at least this latest rainy season, that once very popular song title has been very true. Although there was a tiny little bit of well needed precipitation in May and June, it''s has been far too little, and for this rainy season, too late. In some parts of the west, but particularly in southern California, this year''s rain fall has been far below average. So, the spectre of drought conditions once again raises it''s ugly head. Some portions of California, the west''s most populous state and where most of the laundries are, is now predicted to suffer from severe drought if there is a second dry year. More than half of the laundries in the west could be affected. We still have a lot of water in reserve, and so we are not in any immediate danger of dying of thirst, but we know from experience that a lack of rain fall gives an opportunity for some water boards and districts to raise their rates and create rules that make operating a laundry more difficult. Another rain shortage year like this one, and drought will be declared. If water districts and boards react, as many have in the past, there will soon be calls to conserve water by limiting the amount of water that can be used by a business or home. It''s called water rationing and it applies to all types of business. Laundries, car washes, some manufacturers and eateries could be severely restricted by the amount of water allotted. For coin laundry operators in So Cal, this is a ''been there, done that'' situation. They may once again face a need to explain to local water boards and districts that laundries practice water use efficiency all of the time. Even when there is no shortage, the rising cost for water with accompanying high sewer rates dictate water efficiency, or you don''t survive. Maybe there''s not much that coin laundry owners can do about drought conditions, but they can at least try to contact their local water officials to educate them on certain facts of life about the importance to the public of keeping coin laundries open. The ideal situation is to have several laundry operators in an area work together to inform their water officials about how efficiently coin laundry owners use water. They should also relay information about how the public will react by increasing their use of coin laundries during a drought. When regulators put big penalties on exceeding water use limits, the public reacts by using coin laundries as a way to save their own allotment for such preferred uses as gardens, lawns, car washing, longer showers or for whatever their personal preferences are. It is better, in the public mind, to spend a bit at a laundry to save their own water quota. This public reaction to water shortage causes immediate increases in laundry water use and the penalties for exceeding water quotas can place coin laundries in financial jeopardy. On the bright side, water rationing gives a laundry operator the best chance they ever will have to raise vend prices. Drought conditions and water use allotments are things that are written up in the press, and so everyone knows the problem. They will react better and accept a price increase. Serious advice to laundry operators. Every laundry owner should make every attempt to tell water authorities about the public health benefits of coin laundries. Find out when the water board meets and show up to ask this question. Where else do the young marrieds, poor, elderly, transients and lower income families go to do their laundry? If there were to be heavy restrictions on water use, with heavy fines for exceeding those restrictions, some coin laundry businesses would have to close as soon as their water quota for the month was used up. Having those coin laundries closed would deprive many laundry clients of their ability to get their laundry done. That is a genuine public health issue, and water executives would have to consider what the consequences would be for the public before deciding what their water conservation policy should be. But, will they consider policies beneficial to laundries if no one shows them the benefit? This is an instance where local coin laundry owners will have to act on their own to make sure that the water officials are contacted and made aware of the public health aspects of the coin laundry industry. Water Board members may not be big time politicians, but since they are usually elected to office, they respond like politicians. None of them want to be accused of taking actions that hurt the young marrieds, students, elderly and poor by reducing access to the coin laundries they must use. If the laundry people use is not open, being closed to save water, it could create a genuine public health problem. Remember, each water board member is a politician and some of them have ambitions to rise higher in the pecking order. They don''t want to be seen as doing things to hurt the poor and homeless in their area. While there may not be anything a coin or card laundry operator can do to beat any actual drought conditions, it is possible to defeat the worst aspects of it through taking time and energy to meet the elected officials running their local water agency and educate them on how laundries save on water use. As an example, in one town, one man owned two laundries. He went out of his way to meet the water board member who covered his area. He told him about water savings done by laundry operators. That water board actually exempted laundry businesses from the water rationing the board imposed. It was the only district of the 29 in the county to do so. The member of the board remembered the visit and the earnest effort by that laundry owner. He had asked the staff to consider laundries as allies in the water conservation war, and that is the way the rules were written. Unfortunately, the owner''s two laundries represented most of the coin laundries in that small water district. Too bad it wasn''t a major water district with enough coin and card operated laundries in it to show major measurable results. But, his efforts showed the way for all of us in this industry. Contact those in water management and tell our true water conservation story. Do it. We will all feel better.