Calif. Drought

[houstonscott]

California doesn't have a water shortage, they have all the water they have planned and built for. The current water system was designed and built in the 1020's and 1930's. Last major dam was built in 1960's. Nothing has been done to add to the water supply in almost 70 years, what's the crises or surprise. The current system was designed for a State with 10 million people, not 35 million. Sit on your *** for 70 years arguing about a fish, and now you have no fish, no agriculture, and no water. Better get your wallets out start building some more dams, and desalination plants and quit whining. Good job! Hard to feel sorry. HS

 

[bajabum]

Ok, everybody who wasn't born in California, go home!
There.
Problem solved.

BTW, Texas needs people, go there, they have plenty of water..... oops, wait a minute, they've sucked their aquifer dry...

Hard to feel sorry about your drought...

 

[ultrarunner]

Like much of the West... dams are being removed and approved dams never got built.

There is one dam project near San Jose CA that is on schedule...

Many I know are disenfranchised when things like the Army Core basically empty a dam to make room for water that might come... it's more complicated than that for sure... but, it just happened this week.

Massive Water Release From Lake Mendocino Under Scrutiny Amid Drought « CBS San Francisco

And then there is Politics...

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12611066

 

[Industrial Toys]

Hey, hey hey! If you send the wet backs home, who is going to pick my vegies? As it is, they predict a 25% rise in produce here in Canada. And the price for Groceries is already BRUTAL!

Maybe they can consript those Valley Girls, who won't have a swimming pool to lay beside, to pick the crops! Get a nice tan too! Win win!

 

[dave1949]

Like much of the West... dams are being removed and approved dams never got built.

There is one dam project near San Jose CA that is on schedule...

Many I know are disenfranchised when things like the Army Core basically empty a dam to make room for water that might come... it's more complicated than that for sure... but, it just happened this week.

Massive Water Release From Lake Mendocino Under Scrutiny Amid Drought « CBS San Francisco

And then there is Politics...

East Bay dam expansion plan raises hackles in Sierra - San Jose Mercury News

I can see the water issue involves many conflicting points of view. I don't envy areas of the country that will continue slugging-out the water supply issues for decades to come.

We have dam issues too. Not for water supply, but for rebuilding the fisheries. The tourism revenue provided by inland fishing and such may out-weigh the value of hydro-power in Maine, although some hydro power generation is being preserved. If the people are correct who say the inland fisheries (as feed stocks) are the key to rebuilding the Gulf of Maine ocean fisheries, then that is also a huge economic consideration.


This project has been on-going: Penobscot River Restoration Project | Home


www.penobscotriver.org/assets/river_restoration.pdf‎
(Check-out the map on pdf page two showing the 649 dams in Maine 4' tall or higher.)

"Maine’s rivers and streams once flowed freely to the sea, carrying nutrients and allowing
unimpeded fish passage deep inland. Today, more than 1000 dams exist on Maine waterways.
The 2002 map depicts 649 dams listed in the National Inventory of Dams database, which includes
dams with four feet or greater height. Hundreds of smaller dams are not shown on this map."

 

[flusher]

California doesn't have a water shortage, they have all the water they have planned and built for. The current water system was designed and built in the 1020's and 1930's. Last major dam was built in 1960's. Nothing has been done to add to the water supply in almost 70 years, what's the crises or surprise. The current system was designed for a State with 10 million people, not 35 million. Sit on your *** for 70 years arguing about a fish, and now you have no fish, no agriculture, and no water. Better get your wallets out start building some more dams, and desalination plants and quit whining. Good job! Hard to feel sorry. HS

Diamond Valley Lake (aka Eastside Reservoir) near Hemet CA was started by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern CA
in 1995 and completed in 2003. Cost: $1.9B.
Storage capacity: 800,000 acre feet. Nearly doubled the surface storage capacity in Southern CA.
Surely this body of water counts as a “major new” reservoir.

 

[houstonscott]

Diamond Valley Lake (aka Eastside Reservoir) near Hemet CA was started by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern CA in 1995 and completed in 2003. Cost: $1.9B. Storage capacity: 800,000 acre feet. Nearly doubled the surface storage capacity in Southern CA. Surely this body of water counts as a “major new” reservoir.

I was referring to Oroville. HS

 

[ultrarunner]

For what it's worth and I have no idea how the numbers stack up nationwide...

The per capita use:

76 gallons a day for South San Francisco

98 gallons a day for San Francisco

all the way to 736 gallons a day for Palm Springs.

 

[bajabum]

Hey, hey hey! If you send the wet backs home, who is going to pick my vegies? As it is, they predict a 25% rise in produce here in Canada. And the price for Groceries is already BRUTAL!

Hmm, maybe if all the snowbird canucks picked veggies and then went home...Hmmm
Two problems solved!

 

[jerrybob]

For what it's worth and I have no idea how the numbers stack up nationwide...

The per capita use:

76 gallons a day for South San Francisco

98 gallons a day for San Francisco

all the way to 736 gallons a day for Palm Springs.

Yea but.....who'd want to play a golf course without waterfalls and lakes on a 105 degree day......Palm Springs needs that water and you know it!!!!

 

[Cat_Driver]

Same thing with saving gas. Ca. said DRIVE LESS save gas, buy a prius, THEY DID - now the State isn't making enough from the fuel taxes so they RAISED THE FUEL TAXES because people are saving fuel. Now they cry THERE IS NO WATER, two days later it's flooding all over the state, and take one guess where all the excess water is going......RIGHT OUT TO THE OCEAN. Not one brilliant liberal spent one thin dime on a way to catch the billions of gallons of flood water for future use. WHY when they can cry and tax.

 

[cqaigy2]

Same thing with saving gas. Ca. said DRIVE LESS save gas, buy a prius, THEY DID - now the State isn't making enough from the fuel taxes so they RAISED THE FUEL TAXES because people are saving fuel. Now they cry THERE IS NO WATER, two days later it's flooding all over the state, and take one guess where all the excess water is going......RIGHT OUT TO THE OCEAN. Not one brilliant liberal spent one thin dime on a way to catch the billions of gallons of flood water for future use. WHY when they can cry and tax.

I like hamburger.

 

[ultrarunner]

Part of the problem is the State's extensive water system, developed over the last 150 years can no longer be used as designed due to environmental lawsuits over the Delta Smelt.

It's not just the farmers... major cities will get zero water project allotment... which ranges from 40 to almost 100% of their drinking water.

The local representatives have been trying to at least capture some of this water without success.

So... a few legal decisions shut down a costly to construct and functional system...

As a side note... cities like San Francisco by pass the State Water project and intercept water at the source and are not subject to the curtailment.

 

[orezok]

I too live in the desert somewhat north of Palm Springs, and I can tell you that level of usage is not necessary for personal use. My property is 98% native and has no landscape. I do have 30 Mondale pines for a windbreak, 7 fruit trees and a garden. In the winter when there is some rainfall, we use about 50 gallons per day mostly for personal use. That baseline would be constant year round. In the summer when the trees and garden need water due to the extreme heat and no precipitation it increases to about 100 GPD. This also includes water for the evaporative cooler which is significant.

Golf courses are a tremendous waste of water and due to the increased transpiration, the humidity in Palm Springs is much higher than where I live. 110* heat and high humidity makes for miserable living conditions so people in PS run their A/C 24/7 to compensate and end up with $500 to $700 monthly summertime electric bills.

A waste of both water and electricity!

 

[RobertN]

My wife is from Indio, just outside Palm Springs. She said the valley was mostly low humidity in the 60's and 70's when she was growing up. In our trips over the last 20 years, till her Dad passed a couple years ago, she would comment about the high level of humidity. Lots of golf courses, lots of water.... My understanding there are a lot of weels there. The older neighborhood my FIL lived in(where my wife grew up) was(still is) on a well.

Golf courses are a tremendous waste of water and due to the increased transpiration, the humidity in Palm Springs is much higher than where I live. 110* heat and high humidity makes for miserable living conditions so people in PS run their A/C 24/7 to compensate and end up with $500 to $700 monthly summertime electric bills.

A waste of both water and electricity!

 

[orezok]

All of the domestic water in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs to Indio) is from water district wells. A few of the 124 golf courses in the valley use recycled water, but most pump. The acquirer is in serious decline. Agriculture uses mostly Colorado River water from canals with some supplement from wells.

An interesting side note is that the Indian tribes are suing the water districts for "mis-use" of their water. The claim ownership of all the water. The outcome will be interesting.

The attached shows how much land the Indians own. It's almost half of Palm Springs and the neighboring city.

 

[flusher]

All of the domestic water in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs to Indio) is from water district wells. A few of the 124 golf courses in the valley use recycled water, but most pump. The acquirer is in serious decline. Agriculture uses mostly Colorado River water from canals with some supplement from wells.

An interesting side note is that the Indian tribes are suing the water districts for "mis-use" of their water. The claim ownership of all the water. The outcome will be interesting.

The attached shows how much land the Indians own. It's almost half of Palm Springs and the neighboring city.

If it's their land, then the Indians have the water rights. CA water law is clear on that.

I have the rights to the water on and under my 10 acres. No surface water, but my well is drilled to 154 ft depth (third strata of the acquifer), water level in the well is at 90 ft, the 1.5 hp submersible pump hangs at 120 ft. Get about 30 gal/min from that pump. The driller estimated that the well could pump 100 gal/min with a larger pump.

During the past 5 years, thousands of acres of pasture and hayfield around here have been converted to orchards (almond, trellised olives for oil, plums for prunes, English walnut). Canal water from the irrigation district provides a lot of the water for these trees, but the drillers have been busy installing new wells to handle the drought conditions that have persisted around here the past decade. Those trees have to be watered year round (unlike hayfield and pasture) so this will put an increasing demand on the ground water around here. My concern is my well going dry and having to dig another deeper well. Don't know if that will happen in my lifetime (I'm 72) but anything is possible.

 

[orezok]

If it's their land, then the Indians have the water rights. CA water law is clear on that.

From the Ca Water Resource Board "...water right is a legal entitlement authorizing water to be diverted from a specified source and put to beneficial, nonwasteful use. Water rights are property rights, but their holders do not own the water itself. They possess the right to use it. The exercise of some water rights requires a permit or license from the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board), whose objective is to ensure that the State waters are put to the best possible use, and that the public interest is served."

Yes the Indians have the right to use the water under their land, but they want to control ALL the water in the valley. That needs to remain a State function as the local Indians have shown little regard for the environment. Billboards on highway Indian land, uncontrolled toxic waste dumps on Indian land, sub-standard trailer parks on Indian land, etc.

 

[ultrarunner]

The Bay Area is experiencing a real gully washer at the moment...

Miracle March?

 

[downsizingnow48]

Looks like essentially zero snowpack in Sierra Nevada range.

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