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Mighty Hiker
climber
Outside the Asylum
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Dec 29, 2016 - 04:59pm PT
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Us Canuckleheads plan to use our water to fill our ditch. A ditch seems much more neighbourly than a wall, plus we can canoe on it in summer and skate on it in winter. We will in fact move Yosemite to just south of Vancouver, as a start to our ditch.
The economics of desalination beat the notion(s) of diverting water from the Columbia River, and even James Bay (!) to the southern US. It would also likely have considerably less environmental impact.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Dec 29, 2016 - 05:22pm PT
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This silly plan was on the stove when I was in grammar school. They couldn't get it on the boil then, why does ANYONE WITH A CLUE think it's a good idea now?
Mouse back when you were in grammar school the Holocene epoch was just starting and the giant glaciers were just starting to melt and there was water everywhere. ......
I bet when Mulholland and his crew first proposed the water grab from the Owens Valley.... there were plenty of skeptics.
And I don't worry about the people in Canada... I have found that anything is for sale with people, if the price is right.
but don't worry.... if they do not wish to sell... they have plenty of water in Texas.
Look Im just tossing this out on the table, now that we have a great man coming into the White House anything is possible. :>)
Remember... you can not just localize your food,no mater how badly you wish, no limes grow in Nebraska.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Dec 29, 2016 - 09:22pm PT
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So you are going to pump the water from texas OVER the Rockies, then OVER the Sierra??
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G_Gnome
Trad climber
Cali
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Dec 30, 2016 - 08:57am PT
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South, go south where there are no mountains. Not that I think Texas has enough to spare.
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Dec 30, 2016 - 08:58am PT
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Ken M .... next time your heading out the I10 ... about 20 miles east of Indio... you will find the "General Patton Museum" check it out, its well worth the $5 admission. Lots of weaponry, Uniforms and such. The part that I love has nothing to do with WW2.
Its the giant scale model- 3D relief map made by students at Cal Tech back in the early 1930's...its about 80 x 80 feet. Looking at it one can see all of the mountain ranges and deep valleys in the California Desert east and north of LA. This was made so the best route for the Colorado River Aqueduct could be engineered.... thats where we get most of the water for Orange County, San Diego County and Riverside County. You can also see one of the up-hill pumping plants located about 4 miles away... yes water is pumped UPHILL. Now I hope you can understand the concept that we have been pumping water UPHILL oh .... since the ROMAN times at least. Its not a new hi-tech concept by no means. Also remember this... without these futuristic projects... one is having it 100th birthday soon.... life as we know it would not exist in Southern California or anyplace else in California.
So yea to answer the OP.... we are having some rain now and that is helping out with the drought.... but we all live in a desert and that includes everybody who lives in the American West from the north east Rockies to eastern Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico and Mexico.
If we could add a bunch of water into the Colorado River and run a bunch down the front range to soak the growing populations of Denver and replenish the Ogallala Aquifer we would be making progress toward a solution to the "problem" of our Dry West.
EDIT: G_Gome.... when it rains 13 inches in a day by Houston.. the water could be found. Texas is sort of like plan B.....
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Dec 30, 2016 - 09:11am PT
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There are huge secondary costs to irrigating desert lands. The lessons from Mesopotamia are being relearned right now in the Central Vallry and other dry locations across the western half of the U.S. Aquifers are collapsing, rivers are dying, extinctions threaten all around.
DMT.... true dat. I say its in large part because we only extract water we never put water back into the ground.... if we didn't need to pump so much we would not have the issues to point out and we could keep river flows at the point were they need to be to keep the river environment healthy.
Heck ... this is just something I tossed out there... when I was in college I had a professor whose main focus was the way people have manipulated the environment in the American West, both success and failure.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Dec 30, 2016 - 09:16am PT
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Voici, mes amis.Trés cool!
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10b4me
Mountain climber
Retired
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Dec 30, 2016 - 09:24am PT
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It's been the wettest December in LA in six years. It's received four inches since the beginning of the month, and it's raining this morning.
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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Dec 30, 2016 - 09:43am PT
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Water is one thing but without soil, nothing can grow. Soil does not replenish like water. You can only artificially fertilize for so long
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Dec 30, 2016 - 09:45am PT
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So you are going to pump the water from texas OVER the Rockies, then OVER the Sierra?? Don't be stupid. Once you get it to the top of the continental divide it will be in a raised downhill sloping pipeline that will traverse utah and nevada at almost 2 miles high then clear the sierrases over donner summit.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Dec 30, 2016 - 09:48am PT
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gumbies, gotta love'em. lol.
and lucky for us that there's an endless supply of boosheet here on the ST, cragar.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Dec 30, 2016 - 10:09am PT
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Water is one thing but without soil, nothing can grow.
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Cragar
climber
MSLA - MT
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Dec 30, 2016 - 10:12am PT
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Hi Gumby!
You know what Nopey says?
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Dec 30, 2016 - 10:25am PT
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Wait for it....
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guyman
Social climber
Moorpark, CA.
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Dec 30, 2016 - 10:35am PT
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Gumby.... clue... all you need to do is put it up by the headwaters of the Colorado.... from there its all downhill, even all the way to Mexico... and Mexico has a valid claim to this water.
DMT... we ALL live here and the future is coming weather we like it or Knot.
Old farts like us will be bones and dust when the mud hits the blades...
Mouse... thanks for the link to the 3D map.... that thing is the coolest. Its all to scale both in the X-Y plane as well as the Z... And it was done without computers.
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i'm gumby dammit
Sport climber
da ow
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Dec 30, 2016 - 11:03am PT
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I'm surprised at Oroville being so much lower than Shasta. Is that due to drawing more from Oroville to keep Shasta flows colder for the Chinook?
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Dec 30, 2016 - 01:05pm PT
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DMT-thanks!
if we didn't need to pump so much we would not have the issues to point out
The issue is not "need", it is want and desire, in the face of environmental disasters.
Nobody knows what the effect of having a 15 billion acre-foot DEFICIT in the groundwater of the Central Valley will do. It is unprecedented, as far as I know, on the planet. Some things we do know, like a drop of 50 feet in the land level in places in the valley.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Dec 30, 2016 - 01:38pm PT
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Its the giant scale model- 3D relief map made by students at Cal Tech back in the early 1930's...its about 80 x 80 feet. Looking at it one can see all of the mountain ranges and deep valleys in the California Desert east and north of LA. This was made so the best route for the Colorado River Aqueduct could be engineered.... thats where we get most of the water for Orange County, San Diego County and Riverside County. You can also see one of the up-hill pumping plants located about 4 miles away... yes water is pumped UPHILL. Now I hope you can understand the concept that we have been pumping water UPHILL oh .... since the ROMAN times at least. Its not a new hi-tech concept by no means. Also remember this... without these futuristic projects... one is having it 100th birthday soon.... life as we know it would not exist in Southern California or anyplace else in California.
So yea to answer the OP.... we are having some rain now and that is helping out with the drought.... but we all live in a desert and that includes everybody who lives in the American West from the north east Rockies to eastern Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico and Mexico.
Guyman, I've not seen that particular map, but I've seen similar. I'll make a point of stopping in.
As for your point about pumping uphill, what you state is actually not true. There have been projects that have allowed flow uphill in sealed systems, but we have not pumped water in industrial quantities uphill until we had industrial pumps. The "steam donkey engine" was the breakthru, and was created in 1881.
Brian Fagan, in his great book "Elixir:A History of Water and Humankind", lays this all out, and how the invention of the engine allowed pumping uphill for the first time in real quantities.
https://www.amazon.com/Elixir-History-Humankind-Brian-Fagan/dp/1608193373/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483132821&sr=1-8&refinements=p_27%3ABrian+Fagan
Disclaimer: Brian Fagan is a colleague, and friend of mine.
The other thing to be careful about is the use of the term "desert", which many have thrown about. That word has specific definitions, that do not apply to the central valley, nor to LA. Generally, less than 10 inches a year. LA gets an average of 12, Fresno 11.5, Sacramento, 18.5
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Dec 30, 2016 - 04:17pm PT
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Actually, the LADWP program has dropped the injection wells, due to local stakeholder resistance. (sigh)
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