California Drought Leads To Inventive Water Conservation Methods In Long Beach

The drought in California has reached a near-Tatooine level of dryness, and the state is looking for any way to conserve what's left of its water supply. To that end, officials in Long Beach have gotten creative about tracking down those who don't comply.

As Long Beach Water Department director of operations Tai Tseng described to HuffPost Live on Wednesday, the city has been mostly successful thus far in its water conservation methods, but its also found a way to keep consumers honest.

"Ninety-eight percent of our residents are complying with these restrictions, but there are a few that are not," Tseng said. "We have a comprehensive media system to determine who these residents are. Once we determine who these residents are, we can actually install a smart register on their water meter that allows us to have five-minute interval water usage data from that resident and then allows us to figure out if they're violating our water-use restrictions."

There's clearly nowhere to hide your water-lavish lifestyle in Long Beach, so it's probably best to just follow the rules.

Watch the full HuffPost Live conversation about what's working in California's drought response here.

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