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California declared drought free for first time in seven years

reuters.com

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Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#61

Post by whalesalad »

Varcht wrote: post #35
ceejayoz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The changes in behavior those surcharges are intended to cause remain important, especially as future droughts are quite likely.

Oh the quality of life behaviors of residents that use a very small percentage of the water? Residents use 10% of the water, 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the smelt, etc.[0] [0] https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

Bingo. Asking the citizens to 'cut back' has always rubbed me the wrong way. We (citizens washing our cars or watering our lawns) are a mere drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the actors in the state.

Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#64

Post by 24gttghh »

p1esk wrote: post #58

Santa Barbara county still reports "stage 3 drought condition": https://www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/pw/resources/system...

https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/california which was updated 3 days ago. No drought, simply 6.6% "D0-Abnormally dry".

Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#65

Post by TomVDB »

Varcht wrote: post #52
ceejayoz wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the smelt That's a funny way of saying "we didn't want to dry up the rivers", isn't it?

It is sort of a trope in CA, oh and it's the deltas, are you saying that stinking up their bathrooms with un-flushed urine and being charged a surcharge to save 10% of 10% of the available water is logical? Isn't it really just a "feel good" thing?

I don't think it makes sense to look at the total supply of water and use that as a starting point of the savings. The total supply of water is only useful in the context of a discussion of multi-billion dollar infrastructure improvements to expand the ability to transport water from one place to the other.

What really matters is the amount of water that can be channeled to your place of living today.

And then having small changes like non-flushed toilets help increase awareness about water shortage. If that ultimately makes people replace their lawn with desert plants, I think it's a win.

Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#66

Post by jayd16 »

docker_up wrote: post #45
whymsicalburito wrote: post #18

Tell that to my water bill, the drought surcharge is still over 50% of the bill...

The reason for the surcharge is Orwellian. The water company asked us to reduce, reuse and recycle. We complied. We did such a great job, that they increased rates because we weren't using enough water and they weren't making enough money. It's insane.

I'm not sure Orwellian fits. Really the price should be a flat rate because its not about the marginal cost of providing water.

...but then that leads to the idea that you can use any amount of water and it's fine so they have a punitive use charge to change user behavior.

But because of the extra revenue, they can lower the flat rate. ...but that gets you in trouble if the punitive charges decrease.

So you have to adjust to a relative usage surcharge which is basically where we're at but it just looks like "why lower if they raise the rates?". ...well because it's relative to everyone else's usage.

Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#67

Post by 0xffff2 »

c_r_w wrote: post #10
jayess wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “The reservoirs are full, lakes are full, the streams are flowing, there’s tons of snow,” said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “All the drought is officially gone.” https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rain-california... EDIT: Sorry, you're referring to aquifers, not reservoirs.

Yep. I personally know folks with a small ranch outside of Sacramento who had to dig down 90 feet to find water for their well. Hard to imagine that being replenished by a few rainy seasons.

Even in places where water is more plentiful that's not a particularly deep well.

Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#68

Post by SovietDissident »

Yes, but have the bozos in Sac learned anything? Have we built new water infrastructure to support a population 3x the size vs. when the original, now-ageing infrastructure was built? Was there a cessation of 40% of freshwater being drained into the oceans to preserve the habitats of baitfish and other environmentalist causes? No---we told farmers they were evil because they grow almonds, told people they need to conserve/pay more for water, and have not fixed any fundamental problems. Instead, the now-suspended train to nowhere was Jerry Brown's contribution (though nowhere near as bad as giving gov't workers collective bargaining "rights" in the 70s, fleecing taxpayers till the end of time), whereas his father's legacy was building actual infrastructure.

There is going to be another drought---there has always been drought in California---and nothing will have been fixed. Maybe since the central CA aquifers were significantly drained (they actually sank!) in this drought go-around, next time the farmers will well and truly go out of the business, to the delight of the anti-business pink-haired SF crowd who doesn't realize that despite seeing a vast expanse of water on the horizon every day they walk to work through human excrement to the Twitter Ministry of Truth, the freshwater actually comes from Hetch Hetchy, dammed in the 1930s, and built for a population of the mid-20th century.

The whole water crisis happened due to political and central planning incompetence---no one has been held accountable and nothing has been learned: expect a repeat.

https://www.city-journal.org/html/scorching-california-13704...

Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#69

Post by ivalm »

sbierwagen wrote: post #43
chabes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Los Angeles has a system of cement washways that move large amounts of rainwater to the ocean to prevent flooding that used to happen semi-regularly. If they stored that water in reservoirs, they wouldn’t need to get so much of their water from the various aqueduct systems used today. Such a system could effectively buffer the negative impact of droughts, while still serving the purpose of flood prevention during wet…

You probably wouldn't want to drink the stormwater that's washed off of LA pavement.

But after minimal treatment you probably could use that water as "industrial", which is most of the water use anyways (since industrial water is ok for agriculture).

Re: California declared drought free for first time in seven years

#70

Post by losteric »

SovietDissident wrote: post #68

Yes, but have the bozos in Sac learned anything? Have we built new water infrastructure to support a population 3x the size vs. when the original, now-ageing infrastructure was built? Was there a cessation of 40% of freshwater being drained into the oceans to preserve the habitats of baitfish and other environmentalist causes? No---we told farmers they were evil because they grow almonds, told people they need to con…

Words are cheap. How are you taking action? Are you taking action?
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