131–140 of 216 posts
Am curious, how have the shade balls been working out in terms of maintenance, coating wear, leeched microplastics, containment (so they don't wind up in oceans), etc? In retrospect, did it make sense compared to the $250M or so uplift it would have taken to build a conventional roof?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Crystal Springs isnt anywhere near Yosemite if that is what you are referencing. That being said it supposedly was gorgeous and almost as amazing before being filled with water
Not Crystal Springs. Hetch Hetchy, the damning of which legendarily caused John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, to die of a broken heart.
Looking at what Tehran is facing (not related to the war, water shortage), I'm wondering why california isn't investing in more desalination for SoCal, especially for LA. I see some here: https://lynceans.org/all-posts/status-of-desalination-plants... But there are only a few in SoCal and they're for smaller communities like carlsbad or santa barbara. So it is there and it is working for some, why not more? naturally…
Because California has plenty of water for residents. What California doesn't have is plenty of water for agribusiness.
And the agribusinesses do NOT want people paying close attention as all the valid solutions to water problems are basically "shut down agribusinesses in arid areas".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep, Owens valley is basically an environmental disaster created by LA. So in the grand scheme of things, buying water from NorCal is better than stealing from the Owens valley through antiquated water rights. But really, California (and really the entire Western US) needs a water rights governance overhaul. Right now the focus is all on urban water use, which is practically negligible compared to the agricultural wa…
Much easier to tell Joe homeowner he's not allowed to have a lawn than to close down the country club. Where would the rich relax then?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's some testing to see how covering open irrigation canals with solar panels which would reduce evaporation and generate power > Their analysis found that putting solar panels over the 4,000 miles of California’s open canals could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/solar-panel-cove...
> could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually To put it into perspective, 63 billion gallons is 193340 acre-feet, which is 0.5% of california's water use (a bit under 40 millions acre-feet). That's a tenth the water consumption of lawns, which is 1/15th the water consumption of agriculture.
The norcal/socal divide caused by the river is funny to me. I grew up in LA, then moved to the Bay Area for college. In LA we never really talked about where our water comes from. But we were always 'in a drought' and always taught to conserve water. My wife grew up in the Bay Area, and was told the same. But her family is from Sacramento. Up until about 15 years ago, everyone in Sacramento paid the same for water (b…
Yes, Norcal spent decades wagging fingers at SoCal about this. There were books like Cadillac Desert. Meanwhile, San Francisco drinks clean glacier water that a valley in Yosemite was destroyed to provide this and they refuse to repurpose a downstream damn that has enough capacity to do it. Physician, heal thyself.
California has insufficient water storage to meet demand, it’s not like we have huge dams lying around that we leave empty when there is water available to fill them.
You might be referring to Don Pedro dam - but we are already filling that up (modulo what we need to keep empty for flood control). SF has some contractual right they could possibly exercise to water in Don Pedro but that doesn’t magically result in California’s water supply being held constant if we stop storing water in the Hetch Hetchy. If SF gets the Don Pedro water, that means someone else that was going to get it is deprived.
Now, you could argue that the state can get by with lower storage because ag needs to consume less or more groundwater recharge or whatever, but that’s a different question.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no water scarcity in California, only misallocation. The vast majority of our water is heavily subsidized and used for agriculture, and a substantial amount of those crops are grown for export, yet agricultural exports makes up an insignificant part of California's economy. We could end all California water scarcity talk today, with no impact to food availability for Americans, by curtailing the internationa…
So why hasn’t that been done? Have some representatives and senators set limits on almond exports. Surely they wouldn’t be voted out in the next election given how farmers are outnumbered.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's some testing to see how covering open irrigation canals with solar panels which would reduce evaporation and generate power > Their analysis found that putting solar panels over the 4,000 miles of California’s open canals could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/solar-panel-cove...
> could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually To put it into perspective, 63 billion gallons is 193340 acre-feet, which is 0.5% of california's water use (a bit under 40 millions acre-feet). That's a tenth the water consumption of lawns, which is 1/15th the water consumption of agriculture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not Crystal Springs. Hetch Hetchy, the damning of which legendarily caused John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club, to die of a broken heart.
It’s a nitpick but the words you are looking for are “dam”, “dammed”, and “damming”. Damning is a very different thing entirely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Owens valley is basically dried up from the water that LA takes. It's interesting as you drive in the towns in the Valley and you see all the LA Department of Water and Power offices over 200 miles from Los Angeles. The courts had to force the LA DWP to quit taking too much water from the streams that feed Mono Lake as it was in danger of drying out.
Yep, Owens valley is basically an environmental disaster created by LA. So in the grand scheme of things, buying water from NorCal is better than stealing from the Owens valley through antiquated water rights. But really, California (and really the entire Western US) needs a water rights governance overhaul. Right now the focus is all on urban water use, which is practically negligible compared to the agricultural wa…
We created the miracle on the desert, and billions were made in real estate.