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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Aug 12, 2016 - 11:05am PT
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Farmers versus fish. The quandry. Blue's solution? scrap the multi-billion dollar "bullet-train" that nobody will use, and start building more water storage in the high/mid-high country. Like Lake Shasta, New Melones, and Don Pedro. I think New Molenes is the newest. Only about 25 years old I think. I remember fishing it when it was 3 years old, small bass, but has grown into a great recreation area, and more importantly, a great storage area off one of our main rivers.
I agree with the bullet train.
I don't agree with building more water storage.
-I don't think it is the State's business to be building infrastructure for the benefit of business.
-I think the best places for storage are already taken (unless one wants to drown cities)
I don't think more storage is needed.
What I think IS needed, is the creating of systems that more efficiently capture rainwater LOCALLY, and recycle water for beneficial reuse (which is largely drought-proof). FAR cheaper, FAR easier on the environment, FAR easier to enact politically (basically no one against these things) so we can ACTUALLY DO THEM in a relatively short time.
http://ideas.time.com/2013/10/11/how-los-angeles-can-become-water-independent/
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Coach37
Social climber
Philly
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Aug 12, 2016 - 11:09am PT
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Here's a wild idea: Stop growing alfalfa and rice in a fkin desert, almonds in a valley with overdrawn aquifer, and stop building thousands of homes with no dedicated and sufficient water supply, start regulating groundwater use. For a state lacking in water, not having groundwater use regulations seem like insanity. So much for california "leading the way", I think most states have addressed groundwater/aquifer issues decades ago.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Aug 12, 2016 - 11:33am PT
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With respect to water storage, here is another thought: we CURRENTLY have huge reserves of storage throughout the central valley, that has tremendous unused capacity:
the aquifer from which we have been overdrafting for a long time.
In fact, this should absolutely be our first choice, because if not refilled over time, it settles, losing capacity, and causing the land to drop. Totally avoidable, just by filling it up.
The available storage space is astonishingly huge.
Lake Shasta total capacity is 4.5 million Acre Feet.
The current estimated deficit in the Central Valley aquifer is
15 TRILLION Acre Feet.
That is the approx equivalent of THREE THOUSAND lake Shastas!!!
How much capacity do you need??????
You are talking about building ONE, or TWO, or THREE equivalents, which will take 20 years or more to build.
You can start refilling the aquifer TODAY.
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FRUMY
Trad climber
Bishop,CA
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Aug 12, 2016 - 11:37am PT
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With what water?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Aug 12, 2016 - 02:30pm PT
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LOL Santa Clara sucks its water source dry because of over-building and then blames fish vs farmer for their own lack of planning.
And now wants to tell the rest of us how to cure their problem.
Move to L.A. They are a lot better at water politics than this.
DMT
Yep. Santa Clara is over capacity as far as housing. I know. Rent is up to $2500/3000 for a single family home. That is a mortgage payment, and THAT is why the housing market is f-ed up.
We're encouraging Indian/Chinese/Russians to come here for jobs and f-ing the current population. Me.
They come with family wealth from these countries and just drop it on the US housing market here. Perfectly legal and legit too. Until we get handle on H1B visas.
We are hiring foreigners to take our jobs, with no consequence. Politicians are diluting our pool of employement. It will hurt the area, or at least change it for a long time.
Downtown Santa Clara is little India now. yay, diversity!!! The companies here actually dictate immigration policy. F-ed up. It close to time for this California boy to go elsewhere. I'm no longer welcome here. At least for living here.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Aug 12, 2016 - 03:14pm PT
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Here's a wild idea: Stop growing alfalfa and rice in a fkin desert, almonds in a valley with overdrawn aquifer, and stop building thousands of homes with no dedicated and sufficient water supply, start regulating groundwater use. For a state lacking in water, not having groundwater use regulations seem like insanity. So much for california "leading the way", I think most states have addressed groundwater/aquifer issues decades ago.
I'm with you on getting rid of alfalfa in the desert. My understanding is that rice, if done properly, can help replace the marshlands that migrating birds rely on. So some selective rice can be a good thing.
Almonds we should reduce. Almond trees need watering even in drought years or the tree (and its capital investment) dies. Better to do annuals like strawberries where you cannot plant (or plant and let die) in drought years. So you don't have to suck groundwater to keep trees alive.
Houses don't actually consume that much water compared to Ag. If you aggressively recycle waste water and limit the amount of grass that gets watered, housing can pretty much be a non-issue in the big picture of water consumption (now loss of farmable land is a different question).
I agree that it is indefensible that CA has so lagged the country on regulating ground water.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Aug 12, 2016 - 03:19pm PT
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Its actually the opposite; regulated to death, by ten million cuts, dating back to the early 1850s, one cut at a time.
You mean like when they took Owens River water that was by statute only for the city of LA and put it in the San Fernando valley?
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Aug 12, 2016 - 03:41pm PT
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You mean like when they took Owens River water that was by statute only for the city of LA and put it in the San Fernando valley?
That is why they left the San Fernando Valley as part of Los Angeles City. All those supposed cities like Tarzana and Northrige and Porter Ranch are just postal districts, not cities.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Aug 12, 2016 - 04:04pm PT
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Agree with stopping the practice of growing water intensive crops in the desert (though supposedly the water rights, which are from the Colorado, are an old, complicated thicket of laws).
Agree with underground water storage. William Mullholland was a big advocate of this though, like DMT pointed out, absent regulations on use, it's not going to stay there long.
Agree with limiting foreign interests. For example, the Saudis have bought large tracts in Arizona and are sucking at the acquifers hard to grown hay that is sent back to their country. Again, it would be a challenge to limit their use since there were no such restrictions when they purchased the land.
Finally, get growers to be water smart. Lots of people advocate spending billions on water storage. Why not devote some of that toward the use of drip irrigation? Focus on efficient use of water, not on collecting more to use inefficiently. That is the primary means of irrigation in dry countries like Israel, where they use a fraction of the water we do for crops.
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Lorenzo
Trad climber
Portland Oregon
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Aug 12, 2016 - 04:12pm PT
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That is why they left the San Fernando Valley as part of Los Angeles City. All those supposed cities like Tarzana and Northrige and Porter Ranch are just postal districts, not cities.
The water went there before it was part of the city.
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Coach37
Social climber
Philly
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Aug 12, 2016 - 04:15pm PT
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Bluering, here is a suggestion, take it for what it's worth:
The solar PV industry is exploding, and a technical/electrical/electronic skillset and background is very relevant and would put you way ahead of most people entering that field. Avg pay around $65k/yr for PV techs.
You could move your family to a place with much, much lower cost of living, in a locale more in tune with your political ideoloogy. You'd get to vary your time between outdoors and office/shop. An old friend back east, who working in a dying industry made that switch a few years ago. Says they are usually hiring, and growth projections for the industry are pretty good.
And the best part, they can't really outsource something that requires the work to occur right here, on-site.
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Bob Harrington
climber
Bishop, California
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Aug 12, 2016 - 04:39pm PT
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Regarding building new storage, it is much more cost effective to store water in aquifers than to build new surface water storage. Dams are expensive, the good dam sites are already taken, and you lose a lot to evaporation from lakes.
Analysis by a Stanford water think tank:
http://waterinthewest.stanford.edu/groundwater/recharge/
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 12, 2016 - 04:43pm PT
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Cry me a river of almond milk, boys.
The huge moneymaker crops are exactly what the Resnicks et al. are planting and it's solely because they have the ironclad agreements with the state/feds about water FOR those "luxury foods" that people seem to want, based on ignorance of the water used.
We westerners and our diets are ruining our own farming practices and allowing robber barons to dictate to us. It's not right, it will take a miracle to undo, and this will never, never end.
When was the last time I used almond paste for a goddam thing? Never!
I don't buy packs of nuts at the counter of quickie marts, mom & pops, or at any kind of premium price. Shopping for the cheaper price at Grocery Outlet is a luxury, for that matter. But it's their money to spend.
I just hope they enjoy their sparkling water from France.
Pistachios and almonds are still going strong here and there is a fairly-recently-planted almond orchard which I just noticed today at Santa Fe/Olive Ave and its intersection with Hwy 59. This is on land which nobody bothered to develop for new homes right on the edge of the city limits and has sat fallow for decades waiting for the right developer. Since the housing market fell, this became so unlikely that the owner decided to go ahead and invest in almonds or sold it to someone who did.
And this orchard is huge, too.
The water's there for the taking as an MID feeder runs right next to the land. It looks like a two-three year old orchard. I haven't ridden out that way on the bus until today. I was blown away. People are greedy, uncaring, and dishonest, and this is one big reason the water problems in California will never go away.
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Tim Bermingham
climber
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Aug 12, 2016 - 04:50pm PT
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stan gave me about 10 lbs. ...you want some?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Aug 12, 2016 - 05:15pm PT
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Bluering, here is a suggestion, take it for what it's worth:
The solar PV industry is exploding, and a technical/electrical/electronic skillset and background is very relevant and would put you way ahead of most people entering that field. Avg pay around $65k/yr for PV techs.
You could move your family to a place with much, much lower cost of living, in a locale more in tune with your political ideoloogy. You'd get to vary your time between outdoors and office/shop. An old friend back east, who working in a dying industry made that switch a few years ago. Says they are usually hiring, and growth projections for the industry are pretty good.
And the best part, they can't really outsource something that requires the work to occur right here, on-site.
That very kind of you to throw that aspect at me. Really!. I'd do well in solar-electronics. It's a dynamic, weird field that I specialize in. Adapting to unusual circumstances.
Again, thanks!
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Aug 12, 2016 - 05:43pm PT
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Hellyeah!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Aug 12, 2016 - 06:01pm PT
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I can understand growing nuts, but rice? In this valley? It's capable of so much more with so much less water. From what I hear.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Aug 12, 2016 - 06:44pm PT
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DMT is right, that the rational use of underground storage requires thoughful re-looking at water management.
And the comment about where would we get the water is also perceptive...however that is just as true for any reservoir that might be built, at great expense.
The difference is that reservoirs lose an amazing amount of water to evaporation, while underground storage does not.
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Ricky D
Trad climber
Sierra Westside
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Aug 13, 2016 - 11:32am PT
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Mouse -
Do you have more info on this-
Jeff Mathis, my BFF, could spend the rest of his life felling the dead trees on his 2+ acres. There is a state program that provides felling and hauling of dead trees if the parcels of various owners collectively total ten or more acres, he says.
The first I've heard of such a program and my summer community has 169 acres of private lots with thousands of dead pines right now.
Thanks
Rick
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