The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild • Hacker News Board

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#31

Post by strongpigeon » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:12 PM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #28

strongpigeon wrote: post #16

Sometimes it feels like the US has lost its appetite for grand structural projects like that. Maybe it’s just that I’m unaware of them and that impression is the result of survival bias, but given how impossibly hard it is to just build anything where I live (Seattle), I’m not so sure.

Seattle just got done building light rail tracks over a floating bridge. It is an insane engineering achievement. A train literally running on tracks on a road that is floating on water!

Fair. Maybe I'm too much if the weeds of this because all I can think of is how much of a fight it was to pass ST2 and ST3 and how we haven't even started on the Ballard line despite voting for it in 2016 (10 years ago!) and how it might be delayed forever.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#32

Post by kenhwang » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #22

kjkjadksj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the brine pollutant issue has been meaningfully solved. You are also now pumping water inland uphill the whole way.

For usage where the water mostly returns as sewage, is treated and then returned to the ocean, you can just dilute the brine with the treated discharge and then it returns at basically the original salinity.

It is common now for treated discharge to be sent to a discharge lake/leach wetlands so it can be used to replenish groundwater supplies.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#33

Post by macNchz » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

gorfian_robot wrote: post #11

Being from LA, I am used to a water system that works without needing power. I think most of CA is like that. It was a surprise to lose the water back east when the power went out during a storm.

The only places I've heard of losing water during power outages are houses that use a private well (no power, no well pump), which would be the case anywhere. Municipal water systems may or may not use power to provide pressure, but are going to have generator power outside of the most severe outages.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#34

Post by jackconsidine » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:16 PM UTC

KerrAvon wrote: post #9

If anyone wants a deep dive on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert

Came here to post this. Dam good book on the shifty maneuvering that resulted in the Owens Valley Diversion and ultimately the population center that is LA.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#35

Post by hvb2 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:27 PM UTC

jackconsidine wrote: post #34

KerrAvon wrote: post #9

If anyone wants a deep dive on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert

Came here to post this. Dam good book on the shifty maneuvering that resulted in the Owens Valley Diversion and ultimately the population center that is LA.

That bit of history can't be left out. The engineering is super cool though.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#36

Post by MrZander » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

macNchz wrote: post #33

gorfian_robot wrote: post #11

Being from LA, I am used to a water system that works without needing power. I think most of CA is like that. It was a surprise to lose the water back east when the power went out during a storm.

The only places I've heard of losing water during power outages are houses that use a private well (no power, no well pump), which would be the case anywhere. Municipal water systems may or may not use power to provide pressure, but are going to have generator power outside of the most severe outages.

Also, water towers. As long as the power isn't out long enough to deplete the tower.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#37

Post by larkost » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

gorfian_robot wrote: post #11

Being from LA, I am used to a water system that works without needing power. I think most of CA is like that. It was a surprise to lose the water back east when the power went out during a storm.

I wonder if this was in an apartment building. We owned a condo in a 5 story (4+1) apartment building and because it was taller than the San Jose water system was built for, our building needed (electric) pumps to provide water pressure to the building (there were tanks on the roof). If we lost power, then we lost water.

Now that we have moved to a 2 floor detached home (also in San Jose) we do not have that issue, and everything is gravity fed.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#38

Post by hamdingers » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:29 PM UTC

z3ugma wrote: post #17

"Well There's Your Problem" on the collapse of the St Francis Dam, mentioned in Grady's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxLgM1vnuUA Also I love when they refer to it as the "_First_ California Water Wars" in a grim realization of the future of water scarcity in the West

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 international export of just two California crops: almonds and alfalfa.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#39

Post by smm11 » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:32 PM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #14

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the up-front costs of massive desalination Desalination is dominated by operating costs.

Correct it's massively energy intensive to filter the salt out the newest best ideas still use ~2 KWh/m3 of water and that's a lab system in perdue that batches the process instead of having it run continuously which is why current RO desalination systems require so much energy.

California pays other states to take its excess solar energy. Power for a project like this isn't the issue, actually building the system is the issue.

Re: The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild

#40

Post by OskarS » Fri, Mar 20, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

rabid_0wl wrote: post #29

strongpigeon wrote: post #16

Sometimes it feels like the US has lost its appetite for grand structural projects like that. Maybe it’s just that I’m unaware of them and that impression is the result of survival bias, but given how impossibly hard it is to just build anything where I live (Seattle), I’m not so sure.

Those projects would literally be impossible today with the environmental regulations in place, especially in California.

Certainly that’s part of it, but also just NIMBYism. Los Angeles were able to defeat the Owen’s Valley farmers back then, I don’t think they would be now.