i want to help working on this. what prompted this dig? i was actually running into this from a completely different angle yesterday without knowing there was a connection
>>6560870 Watch the Water seems about right
"Changing foliage and red leaves scattered across green lawns makes the 500-person town of Spreckels look almost New England-like in the fall. 

But green lawns may go the way of Salinas Valley sugar beets if Tanimura & Antle, the owner of Spreckels Water Company, gets the green light to bill customers based on usage. Residents today pay a flat rate – less than $22 a month – which has been in place since 1993. T&A is now seeking approval from the California Public Utilities Commission to start billing customers using meters they’ve already installed. 

http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/local_news/proposed-water-rate-spike-in-spreckels-means-newer-pipes-drier/article_40026147-3ab0-5dfd-97cc-cfd50d491961.html
spreckels and PG&E
The rate war and dogged competition forced the San Francisco Gas and Electric Company to merge with all of its rivals–except Spreckels who would not merge, but offered to sell his new company. The San Francisco Gas and Electric Company had no choice but to buy, at a handsome profit for Spreckels. The successor company of all these smaller companies is now the Pacific Gas and Electric Company! https://rosamondpress.com/2019/02/24/adolph-spreckels/
Claus Spreckels (born July 9, 1828 in Lamstedt, Kingdom of Hanover; died: December 26, 1908 in San Francisco, California) was perhaps the most successful German-American immigrant entrepreneur of the late-nineteenth century.[1] When he unofficially retired in 1905, his estate was valued at approximately $50 million dollars (approximately $1.3 billion dollars in 2010$).[2] The “sugar king” of Hawaii and the West was one of the ten richest Americans of his time. When adjusted for inflation, his personal fortune ranked him fortieth on a list of the wealthiest Americans of all time.[3] The career of the “money-making genius”[4] consisted of building and breaking monopolies in sugar, transport, gas and electricity, real estate, newspapers, banks, and breweries. Ruthless and jovial, progressive and exploitative, he represented fundamental American virtues: independence and liberty, courage and risk-taking – yet continued to return to Germany year after year to recover from his taxing life in the West.