Paul M. Eldridge wrote:
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


The last I remember is that all that processed water is dumped in the
ocean. Naturally don't want to dump raw sewage but I would think it
could be recycled. There was a big plant along the beach between
Redondo and Culver City. (I used to drive that way to work a few
hundred years ago). They may well be doing some recycling now.

I often thought they should pump it out on the desert.

A town in the desert to the south east was reclaiming all their water.
After being cleaned it flowed through a series of about 5 lakes. By the
time it got to the last one it was ready for drinking again.