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California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

nytimes.com

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Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#141

Post by bronson »

stonemetal wrote: post #122
pizza wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While a pipeline network may not be millions of miles from one end to another, it's certainly possible that the sum of the lengths of all the pipes in a tree-like network may be much greater than the length of the network's longest path.

If they build desalinization plants wouldn't they just pipe the water into existing infrastructure? At worst that would mean piping it over to the other side of the state where they usually get their water from snow pack and what not, no need to completely duplicate their water distribution system just because they have a new source of water.

Desal plants are at sea level on the coast. Most headwaters are thousands of feet above sea level and hundreds of miles inland.

Water infrastructure is almost entirely gravity fed. Even if we could justify the immense energy usage, we can't drive existing pipes and canals in reverse.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#142

Post by emodendroket »

pjlegato wrote: post #125
teamhappy wrote: post #65

The first picture that pops into my head when I think of California is sprinklers on people's lawns. We don't really have them in Germany. I mean, of course we do, but people are hesitant to put them up because the first thing that will happen is your neighbours standing at the fence judging you for being so goddamn wasteful (seriously). Now, I'm not a huge fan of judging people (that's a lie), but I can't help but n…

> I can't help but notice that americans (seem to) completely lack this sense of responsibility/playing your part/restraining yourself for the greater good/whatever Of course there are exceptions, but in general Americans are much more oriented to the rights of the individual and much less to collectivism and the 'greater good' than Germans. We tend to view collectivism as an inherently oppressive and dictatorial mod…

I think the image of Massachusetts as a bastion of "leftist" or liberal thought and ideals comes mostly from people who have never lived here. For various historical reasons the state is dominated by Democrats but many of them are comparatively conservative.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#143

Post by dougmany »

pjlegato wrote: post #97
chaostheory wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need food. We don't need wasteful, water hungry lawns and we can make inefficient toilets and showers a little more water efficient with some cheap mods.

Lawns and toilets are such a tiny part of water usage in California that even if you got rid of all lawns and toilets altogether, it would not make any material difference to the water shortage. All residential usage of all types in CA amounts to ~9% of water usage. Talking about lawns and toilets is a purely theatrical feelgood measure designed to make people think they're pitching in and helping. We need food of so…

Landscaping typically accounts for half of all residential water use. To some the value of a lawn is close to zero. Saving 5% of all water use by eliminating something with close to zero value is a huge gain.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#144

Post by vijayr »

jstalin wrote: post #2

We learned yesterday that 80% of water consumption in California is by agriculture[1]. Yet this executive order does nothing to reduce agriculture's use of water[2]. It only refers to use of urban water, lawns, landscaping, and cemeteries. Agricultural users just need to submit vague "plans." 1. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/30/how-growers... 2. http://gov.ca.gov/docs/4.1.15_Executive_Order.pdf

Sad part is, a huge portion of agriculture is to feed animals which then become our meat. It is just not sustainable. The best way to conserve water is to eat less meat. This book has lots of interesting numbers - http://www.amazon.com/Meatonomics-Rigged-Economics-Consume-S...

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#145

Post by drzaiusapelord »

jconley wrote: post #43
olliej wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trees they're trying to keep alive have ridiculously high water consumption, almonds for instance consume 10s of litres of water for each _individual_ almond. They need to stop growing trees like that in a desert, which is what they're doing. The wells they are digging are tapping into the underlying aquifers that are the last resort, so they are in fact getting _free_ water while complaining about the cost. In e…

I know this is all straw man, but interesting stuff... Many crops use much more water than Almonds [0], I guess they're just fun to pick on. It'd be interesting to see a calorie/water comparison of many foods. Also, my family's farm spends more money on well water than the government supplied water due to the high cost of electricity for pumping. I do agree that a real market for water might help. The root of the pro…

We aren't picking on almonds arbitrarily. 10% of the state's water goes towards almonds alone. That's a significant amount of water! Yeah, sure watermelon is worse, but they don't use 10%. California produces 80% of the world's almonds. That makes no sense.

Cash crops shouldn't be more important than having cheap drinking water for people. Californias now have to cut their personal usage by 25% while these cash crops get a free pass? This is very wrong.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#146

Post by Crito »

jbritton wrote: post #132

How come I never hear any talk of building a new water pipeline from Alaska.

Because that would be ridiculous? The distance between Alaska and California is huge; there is tons of fresh water that is closer to California than Alaska.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#147

Post by usefulcat »

tibbon wrote: post #35

Wait, they just imposed water restrictions? Wouldn't have that made sense to start like... near the beginning of all of this?

I was kind of surprised by that too. Even down here in Tea Party HQ (TX), at least Austin and San Antonio have had water restrictions for years if not decades.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#148

Post by blazingfrog2 »

teamhappy wrote: post #65

The first picture that pops into my head when I think of California is sprinklers on people's lawns. We don't really have them in Germany. I mean, of course we do, but people are hesitant to put them up because the first thing that will happen is your neighbours standing at the fence judging you for being so goddamn wasteful (seriously). Now, I'm not a huge fan of judging people (that's a lie), but I can't help but n…

The average for June through September here in the State Capital, Sacramento, is just over 89 degrees Fahrenheit (or almost 32 degrees Celsius). This is not a matter of comfort but of health.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#149

Post by mtviewdave »

tibbon wrote: post #35

Wait, they just imposed water restrictions? Wouldn't have that made sense to start like... near the beginning of all of this?

>...near the beginning of all of this?

It's hard to know you're in a multi-year drought until multiple years have passed.

Re: California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

#150

Post by bronson »

mtrpcic wrote: post #25
MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desalination is incredibly expensive. At this point, they aren't completely out of water, as the crisis continues desalination will become more viable (expensive or not, people need water to survive).

Desalination is expensive because of the cost of power, but what is being proposed is not just "we should desalinate", but is "Why don't we make better use of the power opportunities," such as a desalination plant with solar panels and/or generators for waves/tides. We could offset the electrical cost of desalination if the plants could help generate their own power. Why not pass water through turbines before desalin…

> Why not pass water through turbines before desalination?

You spend a ton of energy pumping the seawater up to pressure, then you pass it through a turbine? Why on earth would you do that?

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