Patrick Mahoney: Builders use plenty of water just to keep down dust

As I look out over my dead, brown lawn watching the contractor across the way using good drinking water to wet down the dirt where he is building new homes, two things come to my mind: One, why can’t they have a regulation that “all building projects use reclaimed water to hold down the dirt”? Any large landscaping project should use only reclaimed water. Two, how about another regulation that states “all new dwellings must have tankless water heaters installed.

While we’re at it, why not offer rebates to people who want to trade in their old water heaters for a more efficient tankless heater?

These suggestions could save us hundreds of millions of gallons of water in few years. Listening Sacramento?

This story was originally published August 31, 2015 at 6:11 PM with the headline "Patrick Mahoney: Builders use plenty of water just to keep down dust."