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Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

newscientist.com

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Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#121

Post by Spooky23 »

aziaziazi wrote: post #54
Spooky23 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s really high. There’s either a big problem in your city, or they are making generous estimates to justify asking for more capital. 10-15% is more typical. In my region, the street trees are usually getting sewer water. Residential service in older houses are usually clay pipes with lead solder that the tree infiltrates. It’s not a problem until the clay pops and roots clog it. It varies a lot by region and juri…

OP numbers aren’t only a city problem, IIRC [0] the numbers are close here in France. There’s a startup that try to tackle it : www.leakmited.com/en I applied there 3 month ago and they never responded. Can’t blame them but I’m a bit sad: it’s the dream impact-job. [0] 20% apparently https://www.eaufrance.fr/repere-rendement-des-reseaux-deau-p...

Good catch. I mentioned it to one my wife’s former coworkers and he laughed - I guess our city is in particularly good shape. Mea culpa.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#122

Post by delecti »

teachrdan wrote: post #117
prasadjoglekar wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one example of why I've stopped listening to climate change alarmists. Instead of doing the grunt work of local utility maintenance, it's so much easier to blame "climate change". The climate may be changing, but it's a convenient excuses to not do anything. Another example - in NYC a few years back, several people died when floodwaters entered their basement homes. Mayor De Blasio: Climate change. Local resi…

> This is one example of why I've stopped listening to climate change alarmists. I'm not sure if I understand your logic. People who advocate to stop climate change (alarmists?) literally never use is as a convenient excuse "not to do anything." If you could provide an example I'd be happy to take that statement back. Instead, the point is that, due to climate change, we're having more and more instances where someth…

Yeah, if anything I think that people alarmed about climate change tend to skew left, and left-leaning people also tend to feel that the government should do more, in general. "This is a problem and we should ignore it" is the opposite of alarmism.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#123

Post by kulahan »

Manfred wrote: post #119
schiffern wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Since street trees can’t get much of this from rainwater, which falls on concrete and drains into the city’s sewers, Poirier says the most likely explanation is ... I feel like this is burying the lede. What can be done to reduce leakage? Seems like a better question is, why didn't we design our urban and suburban hydrology to water those trees , instead of shunting rain to an already overburdened storm system? This…

Because it’s cheaper not to do it.

I see this response a lot, as if it's insightful or useful, but it really isn't. There are good times to save money and bad times to save money, and it's almost never the sole point of consideration. There are lots and lots of things we could spend more money on. Is that the goal?

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#124

Post by kulahan »

londons_explore wrote: post #103
Jenk wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That double wall thing is a red herring. The water system already protects against intrusion because the water itself exerts pressure on the pipes. Thus leaks are typically of the water getting out and not contamination of the water (most of the time, anyway.) Contamination rarely happens outside of the source of supply, and not somewhere along the pipeline.

And the sewage pipes...?

Are you worried the sewage may become contaminated?

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#125

Post by kulahan »

devnullbrain wrote: post #45
btbuildem wrote: post #42

The city where I live estimates that we lose somewhere between 25% and 30% of drinkable water to leaky infrastructure. We've had something close to a drought this summer -- unseasonally long periods without rain. You can see the young trees on the streets and trees in the middle of large parks suffer from it - wilted leaves and leaves dropping earlier than usual. BUT, large old trees seem to be thriving - full canopi…

Older, bigger plants have roots that go deeper and have access to more water. You can see the same effect in gardens, where new plants wilt sooner than established plants (and the care instructions advise frequent watering for the first couple of weeks).

Tree roots stay surprisingly shallow for the most part. Generally, 90% of the roots are in the top 2' of soil.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#126

Post by Manfred »

kulahan wrote: post #123
Manfred wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it’s cheaper not to do it.

I see this response a lot, as if it's insightful or useful, but it really isn't. There are good times to save money and bad times to save money, and it's almost never the sole point of consideration. There are lots and lots of things we could spend more money on. Is that the goal?

Any cost to a city that doesn’t have immediate utility to the people governing the city has to fight an uphill battle against everything else. And a in a lot of cases all available money is already allocated. In such an environment people generally don’t choose to make long term investments. Cheaper is easier to sell politically. And if large projects like a subway get greenlit it’s usually for an unrealistically low budget and the project ends up costing 2 or 3 times more because it’s easier to raise taxes based on sunk cost than careful planning.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#127

Post by cowsandmilk »

Manfred wrote: post #119
schiffern wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Since street trees can’t get much of this from rainwater, which falls on concrete and drains into the city’s sewers, Poirier says the most likely explanation is ... I feel like this is burying the lede. What can be done to reduce leakage? Seems like a better question is, why didn't we design our urban and suburban hydrology to water those trees , instead of shunting rain to an already overburdened storm system? This…

Because it’s cheaper not to do it.

Citation needed. Curbs are expensive. Sewer pipes are expensive (for the last 60 years, Montreal has separated rainwater and wastewater sewers in all new construction).

Montreal likely doesn’t do it because it would lower the density of buildings.

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#128

Post by cowsandmilk »

bluGill wrote: post #73
lupusreal wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should anything be done to reduce leakage? They take water out of the St Lawrence and, as much isn't diverted by trees, it goes back in (cleaner then when it came out.)

Because trees will clog those pipes eventualay and then we must dig them up. Pipes that don't leak don't attract roots and so last longer

You have to dig them up to fix the leaks…

Re: Trees on city streets cope with drought by drinking from leaky pipes

#129

Post by gnopgnip »

SoftTalker wrote: post #111
gnopgnip wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In practice the seller. Because they can’t sell to anyone without fixing it. But it’s negotiable.

But the buyer gets the benefit of the repair. I'd probably push for at least a 50:50 split (or, have the line inspected before listing the house for sale, and if it needs repair add that to the asking price).

The seller gets the benefit if they can’t sell it to anyone else
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