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"Guardian of Water" sculpture by Donal Hord in front of the San Diego County Administration Building. Photo by Courtney Johnson . |
Primary polls, pontification, prognostication and political palaver are in no short supply leading up to today's Texas and Ohio contests. The news networks are once again driving the storyline with conjecture and hypotheticals. I'm content to just wait until the votes are counted and the fog lifts. In the meantime, I feel it my civic duty to pass on a startling bit of information that might have a practical effect on San Diego's water crisis .
I know just enough about plumbing to be dangerous. But I work with a veteran plumber not afraid to follow a hunch, to carve up drywall in search of leaky culprits, to fire up the Sawzall blade or strap the chain cutter around suspect cast-iron pipe if the case calls for it. Plumbers are like surgeons who have never been to medical school, don't use X-rays and work on patients who can suffer massive complications, but never die. Experience and luck are plumbers' best friends on tough jobs. I am qualified to discuss the plumbing job that requires almost no experience, skill or time – what is referred to in the business as a Teddy Bear's Picnic. There is no picnic more teddy bearish than changing that leaky rubber stopper chain linked to the handle on your toilet tank – the bad flapper.
Hybrid vehicles, perfect recycling, solar panels and energy efficient light bulbs represent the glamorous side of conserving the environment. But nothing sexy ever really happens inside your toilet tank – until now. An unscientific survey (mine) reveals that about one in 10 toilets suffer from a bad flapper, the number one cause of running toilets. A mildly bad flapper can fill a bathtub (about 80 gallons) of water every day, 365 days a year. Jiggling that handle is no cure. Buy a good flapper and chain for less than $10, get elbow deep in that fresh tank water and invite yourself to a teddy bear's picnic .
These bad flappers are like little al-Qaida cells hiding in your bathroom, conspiring to deprive you and future generations of Californians of our most precious resource. Be alert for suspicious toilets – warn your neighbors, friends, home owners and apartment dwellers. We must find and follow these bad flappers to the gates of hell. Sí se puede! Sí se puede!
