Lake Mead water ... What will California do when it's gone??

youcantbeserious

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Nobody making this up. It’s happening. 120 years in the making.

if you are interested in an incredible trove of primary source documents on this subject going all the way back to Powell, Google Western Waters Project. I was one of the researchers compiling docs for digitization. It’s an awesome resource.
 
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Autoprax

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Why don't we use shower water and washing machine water for the toilet?

IT seems like effiecny isn't even on the table.
 

PRCD

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Nobody making this up. It’s happening. 120 years in the making.

if you are interested in an incredible trove of primary source documents on this subject going all the way back to Powell, Google Western Waters Project. I was one of the researchers compiling docs for digitization. It’s an awesome resource.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how effed are we? I see that this is going to be decided by fiat which probably means the worst of all possible solutions.
 

youcantbeserious

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There’s no other way to decide. The seven affected states and their respective stakeholders absolutely cannot agree and the entire process has been mired in federal lawsuits for more than a decade. And now Lake Mead is drying up.

so as far as maintaining current population and agricultural production west of the 100th meridian, 10/10 fucked
 
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keenfish

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There’s no other way to decide. The seven affected states and their respective stakeholders absolutely cannot agree and the entire process has been mired in federal lawsuits for more than a decade. And now Lake Mead is drying up.

so as far as maintaining current population and agricultural production west of the 100th meridian, 10/10 fucked
In that case I'm moving to Oahu.
Does Buddy or Betty Suratt have any rental units on Sunset Point?
 
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doc_flavonoid

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It's like the fires - it's been 5 years since the Tubbs fire and how are we doing on brush remediation, controlled burns, etc?
on the local grassroots (not state, not county, not city) level a shitton of work is being done by resident groups and non profits. chaps me to clear brush on county roads but fukem. county dont do jack.

also a bunch of fly by night tree contractors have swooped in on the pge settlement cash. theyll work until the money runs out,

i know ur talking about grandiose projects with plans and managers and sh!t but for now we're still here doing what weve always done. all volunteer loosely organized. got saws trucks dozers bobcats chippers and masticators taking matters into our own hands.

back on topic, newsome said the desal word the otherday in antioch
 
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PRCD

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on the local grassroots (not state, not county, not city) level a shitton of work is being done by resident groups and non profits. chaps me to clear brush on county roads but fukem. county dont do jack.

also a bunch of fly by night tree contractors have swooped in on the pge settlement cash. theyll work until the money runs out,

i know ur talking about grandiose projects with plans and managers and sh!t but for now we're still here doing what weve always done. all volunteer loosely organized. got saws trucks dozers bobcats chippers and masticators taking matters into our own hands.

back on topic, newsome said the desal word the otherday in antioch
I’ve done a bit of logging out in Cazadero. The problem is doing some thing productive with the bigger pines - you really can’t get a permit and most of the sawmills are gone now. Seems like a shame to burn good lumber in a bonfire.

We actually logged two redwoods in my back yard that had died. We killed them with an Alaskan mill then loaded them on a flatbed and set them up to dry in a friend’s barn. It was a weeks worth of work. All the lumber burned in the Tubbs fire
 

doc_flavonoid

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I’ve done a bit of logging out in Cazadero. The problem is doing some thing productive with the bigger pines - you really can’t get a permit and most of the sawmills are gone now. Seems like a shame to burn good lumber in a bonfire.

We actually logged two redwoods in my back yard that had died. We killed them with an Alaskan mill then loaded them on a flatbed and set them up to dry in a friend’s barn. It was a weeks worth of work. All the lumber burned in the Tubbs fire
sorry for the loss. alaska mills are a lot of work. but you do get slabs. ive run them all alaska, lucas. woodmizer, mobile dimensions. having a loader or forks on the hoe is key.

like everything, once you add paperwork into the equation ur fooked. privately cal fire is telling us to cut and burn (in season) and graze the sh!t out of it.

boots on the ground know were living on borrowed time and no one (other than a few self serving non profits) is waiting for a state program
 
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Aquaman2

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California better do something, but FAST, about drought. Here in Socal, water still costs me only about one penny per gallon. 20 years ago it cost me about one penny for TWO gallons. When will the price start going up? We need to soak up all rain water so none is wasted.
 

r32

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California better do something, but FAST, about drought. Here in Socal, water still costs me only about one penny per gallon. 20 years ago it cost me about one penny for TWO gallons. When will the price start going up? We need to soak up all rain water so none is wasted.
Prices have already started to rise in the Central Valley between Sac and Bako. Maybe because they get even less rain than the coast and pretty much grow all the food for the US.

Bako +5%
Fresno +22% over 5 years
Merced +2%
Sac +10% over 4 years

They better start building some giant water pipelines from rain soaked states or the west is fucked.
 
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PRCD

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Prices have already started to rise in the Central Valley between Sac and Bako. Maybe because they get even less rain than the coast and pretty much grow all the food for the US.

Bako +5%
Fresno +22% over 5 years
Merced +2%
Sac +10% over 4 years

They better start building some giant water pipelines from rain soaked states or the west is fucked.
When I saw that Gavin Newsom had recently embraced desal I realized we're way behind on a solution. I don't know how long it takes to build these plants but in Santa Barbara in the late '90s it took several years. Also you have to power it. I guess they're not shutting off Diablo Canyon then.

My guess is we're 3-5 years from solving this problem if we broke ground today.
 

r32

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Takes 2-4 years to build a desal plant AFTER all the useless town hall meetings, arguments, EIRs, Karen screaming, and lawsuits are completed.

Also interesting is the State wants everyone to go EV, but we still have rolling blackouts and recently during an energy crunch, the state asked EV owners not to charge their cars at home.

And Diablo Canyon nuclear was on schedule for decommission by 2025 and now lawmakers want to keep it open.

And how about that train through the Central Valley still only half built and ballooning budget into trillions?

CA is fucked on so many levels. Let me count the ways. :foreheadslap:
 
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PPK96754

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"Also interesting is the State wants everyone to go EV, but we still have rolling blackouts and recently during an energy crunch, the state asked EV owners not to charge their cars at home."

I would imagine that anywhere, that you charged your car you're still sucking off the electric nipple. Times is not on the Political side agenda.
 

PRCD

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How much manipulation does one need to do when you can practically watch the water levels dip to previously unimaginable lows? Will it be manipulation when the levels get low enough to make the dam stop producing power?
I don't know. Hold both possibilities in your mind: that there's a drought AND that they're leveraging the drought to manipulate water levels to the point they can use emergency powers. Have we seen excessive use/abuse of emergency powers lately?
 

youcantbeserious

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I guess I am just not sure what manipulating water levels would look like in this instance. I don’t know that much about the engineering of that system. I would be going on pure speculation… based on an unsourced tweet.
 
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