Suburban Atlanta Man Dissolves Into Press Release
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 11.19.07
This updates Lloyd's "Wretched Excess" post: A Georgian Consumes A Niagara.
With enough dough, you can do anything to excess. Waste water. Hire a PR firm to defend your position. Or, become a community role model by completely changing your landscape design and lifestyle to create a resource efficient and attractive dwelling. Holding. Breath. Endlessly......... Uhhhhhh.
The Cobb County homeowner who guzzled his way to the top of the county residential water users list has enlisted a public relations company that made a statement Wednesday on his behalf.Chris G. Carlos, through the Ledlie Group of Atlanta, issued a statement Wednesday in which he says in the future he will consume less than the 440,000 gallons his October bill says he used.
"I honestly didn't realize the extent of my water use and regret I didn't act sooner. I want to be a part of the solution to the water crisis," Carlos said in the statement. "I am going to take whatever steps are necessary to substantially reduce my water consumption. This includes seeking the advice and guidance of conservation professionals in exploring all possible water saving measures," the statement said.
Carlos' 14,000-square-foot home is on 3.8 lush acres in Atlanta Country Club and includes a pool. The 440,000 gallons he used in a month would fill the average backyard pool 58 times.
Via:Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Cobb top water guzzler says he'll try to cut back, Single-family home used 440,000 gallons in one month." Image credit:AJC.com, "Atlanta Country Club home of Chris Carlos, Cobb County's largest residential water user."
With the horrific drought in the Atlanta area, I'm surprised this guy is able to get away with this high a usage!
If water were billed on a steep enough sliding scale, he'd have learned to conserve a lot sooner. At some point, though, during a drought, the water department should be legally authorized to stop providing water to a person who consumes (wastes) a ridiculous amount of water.
Drought or not, no household should go through that much water. It's horrible.
I like that he's saying he'll be more aware...but how about knocking down that house, recycling everything and building a 1500 sqft home that would accommodate his needs! Then build 20 other homes with the recycled material.
Brutal...we need to have Maximum size limits of 2000 sqft for homes rather than minimum requirements of 2000 sqft. How backwards can the U.S and Canada be?
Big things won't make you happy...the rest of us are wondering what you're making up for. ;)
As a current resident of Atlanta myself this is particularly disgusting to me. Unfortunately this guy is a hyperbole of most Atlantans current attitude and habits. People hear we are in a drought but the only way they respond is to be mad that they can't get their cars washed. I completely agree with the sliding payment scale for water and the legal shutoff of water to mass wasters like this guy. Water is also ridiculously too cheap, less than a cent a gallon. This makes no sense considering Atlanta has one of the worst sewer systems of any major city in the country. The extra money is more than needed.
I like the sliding scale water-bill. Per person per s.f. living space would be good so larger homes would require larger families to make it worthwhile. One person living in 14,000s.f. would be hit the hardest while apartments and multi-family units (which provide lesser of an eco-footprint) would be cheapest. I hope this guy is used as an example for other non-caring selfish individuals.
This guy is actually a great teacher, a model of thoughtless use of water. And a dinosaur. The days of supersized mansions are over. But Atlanta is littered with them.
I'm more for a cutoff than a sliding scale. This guy wouldn't care about the price. He's already paying ridiculously high taxes. Spending more money is a badge of honor for people as asleep as this.
I have to agree that this case shows just how incredibly foolish the typical consumer oriented average american often is.
These people think they can have huge houses, drive SUVS, waste acre after acre of land, spend more energy mowing and watering it, disrupt the ecological balance of the region and thus disrupt the natural rainfall and groundwater absorption of the land by paving it and taking away the trees, and that none of it will come back to haunt them.
Yet it has, does and will. In fact it can be proven that this is a recurring pattern throughout history and has lead to the collapse of several civilizations in the past.
It is the direct example of what happens when a society becomes decadent, lazy, apathetic, uneducated, greedy and self serving.
The yuppies of the world are killing us all.