Municipal water is pumped and treated, and that consumes a significant
amount electricity as well as other resources.

Since you speak of LA, according to a report prepared for the
California Energy Commission, in southern California, an average of
1.3 kWh of electricity is used to process each 100 gallons of water
consumed. If we use the 100 gallons per person, per day, average rate
of consumption others have mentioned here, the supply of water to a
four-person household would require just a little over 1,900 kWh/year.

Looking at the full picture, in 2001, total water-related energy use
in the state of California came to 48,013 GWh -- that's 19.2 per cent
of the state's total energy use of 250,494 GWh. I think you will
agree, the numbers are not exactly trivial.

Source:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2006publica...0-2006-118.PDF

Cheers.
Paul

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 03:48:42 GMT, Rich256 wrote:

So? What should be done with the water? Let it flow into the ocean?

It isn't being used up. If you are depriving someone downstream of
drinking water that is something else. But if you can recycle and use
it for your pleasure I really can't see anything wrong with that.

Not like burning up several gallons of gasoline to drive to a beach.

Los Angeles brings water hundreds of miles and when it has been cleaned
up it dumps it into the ocean. Same with most sea side cities. That
seems to me to be a waste.