From today's New York Times comes the story of home owners in California taking the law into their own hands. No, they aren't becoming caped crusaders, but instead are building and maintaining their own illegal graywater recycling systems for their homes. One group of clandestine plumbers, calling themselves the "Graywater Guerrillas," is trying to spread the word about DIY graywater systems. Why go underground? From the article:

“The [California plumbing] code is so overbuilt that I’m beginning to think it’s better to just have everyone do it bootleg,” said Steve Bilson, the founder of ReWater Systems, a company that has installed around 800 code-compliant gray water systems at a cost of about $7,000 each, and who worked as a consultant on California gray water legislation in the 1990s.

As a result, many homeowners have installed unpermitted, illegal plumbing, relying on techniques developed by covert researchers like the Greywater Guerrillas. (It is difficult to know how many, since these systems are not registered with any government or organization, but Ms. Allen said that based on her observations there are probably around 2,000 homes equipped with gray water systems, a few legal but most illegal, in the Bay Area alone.)

The Dirt knew that graywater systems were hot, but not this hot.

Beware, south Floridians: on April 15 (Tax Day! edit: the day before Tax Day!),  South Florida Water Management District officials will start fining water restriction violators to the tune of $25 per infraction, all the way up to $500 for repeat offenders. Why? The area is suffering from one of the worst droughts in 70 years.

From the Sun-Sentinel article:

So far this year, an average of just 2.61 inches of rain -- 4 inches below normal -- fell in the 16-county district that stretches from Orlando to the Keys...

"We're into a rather serious situation," said Fred Rapach, director of the district's Palm Beach County service center. "What we are trying to do is send a message out."

Looks like LAs in Florida and beyond may want to suggest graywater irrigation systems to clients. Cheap, plentiful water seems to be getting harder and harder to come by.

In an attempt to conserve water, the city of Santa Monica, California, is offering grants up to $20,000 to individuals, property owners, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and agencies to fund "California-friendly" water-conserving landscape projects.

From the City of Santa Monica site:

Grant request designs must include water-efficient irrigation systems, plus one or more of the following features:

• California native plants

• Non-native water-efficient plants

• Stormwater management systems

• Graywater systems

• Other innovative water-saving features in the landscape

Applicants have until the end of March to submit the forms to be considered for a city grant. The reasoning behind the low-water landscape grants? Santa Monica is attempting to cut its water use by 20 percent by 2010.

In a sobering report, a panel from the National Research Council states that the Colorado River's flow will decrease dramatically in the coming years. The stated culprits? Population growth and global warming.

The report also discusses water management and conservation methods in the West, but ultimately dismisses them: "'The point that we make is that the technological and conservation operations, although very useful and necessary, will not in the long run constitute a panacea for coping with the limited water supplies in this desert area,' said panel chairman Ernest Smerdon, dean emeritus of the University of Arizona College of Engineering and Mines." [from the Rocky Mountain News article on the report]

The Colorado River basin stretches over seven western states and supports both farming and some of the largest cities in the United States. Read the NRC's full report free online.