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divad
Trad climber
wmass
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Brown is the new green..
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dirtbag
climber
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A lot of farms are getting no water deliveries.
Still, ag accounts for 80%, urban for 20% of usage.
Reducing urban 25% should result in a 5% overall reduction, which won't be nearly enough.
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rwedgee
Ice climber
CA
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$40/square yard PLUS installation and if you don't use their install you don't get the warranty
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kunlun_shan
Mountain climber
SF, CA
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Hopefully California will prohibit exporting alfalfa to China. We have similar water problems now as they do.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-feeding-china-hay-20140609-story.html#page=1
Faced with dwindling access to water and arable land, China has little choice but to turn to U.S. farmers to help supply feed for the country's growing herd of dairy cows. Packed with fiber and protein, alfalfa hay is considered the gold standard for forage, and the Western United States is the crop's Côte d'Or.
Since 2009, alfalfa exports to China grew nearly eightfold to a record 575,000 tons — shipped overseas in the same containers that deliver the latest iPhones and flat-screen TVs from Chinese factories...
....Exporters are learning something alfalfa shippers have known for years: It costs little to freight goods on the back haul to China. That's because the U.S. runs a persistently high trade deficit with China that hit a record $318 billion last year. Containers from Asia arrive full but often return empty.
"It is cheaper to ship a load of alfalfa from the Imperial Valley to China than it is to ship the same load to Tulare County," said Michael Marsh, president of the Western United Dairymen, which represents 60% of California's dairy producers....
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nita
Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
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*
Xeriscape is great, but in order to maintain you either need a weed barrier or to constantly spray weed killer.
..You ever heard of pulling weeds by hand.....It works and you don't need any stinking weed killer...pffff...
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dirtbag
climber
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That's what I've been doing,along with dumping mulch, which I got for free from an arborist. I planted natives, and the small amount of time I spend weeding is still preferable to the time I used to spend mowing the damned thing, which I hated. The yard looks great, too.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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FACT:
There are too many people living in California. Not to mention the country/world as a whole.
It's too late you are screwed. The only people who have had the sack to say anything has been the Sierra club.
Sorry, the Sierra Club gets a big fat ZERO on this mark. about 15 years ago, there was a contested run for the Board. There were the "insiders" who talked the company line----or actually did NOT talk, because that was the company line, and the subject: population growth by immigration (the only growth we'll have in the foreseeable future. The three "outsiders" who wanted to talk about it, were squashed like bugs, although highly regarded everywhere else in the environmental community.
This had also become the main issue for David Brower, who was pushed out of any influence by the CEO at the time, and made out to be an old, washed-up nut. He resigned from the Board in protest of their ignoring of overpopulation as an issue
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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DMT, did post a brief TR. Have been waiting for some things to be posted from the conference that I could link to.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Crunch,
What you did not post about Israel, is the cost of production (not cost of building). It is VERY high, basically between 3-4 times what it costs for water in LA.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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..You ever heard of pulling weeds by hand.....It works and you don't need any stinking weed killer...pffff...
What Nita said.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujò de la Playa
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Formula to calculate the gallons of irrigation water needed per day:
(Eto x PF x SF x 0.62 ) / IE = Gallons of Water per day
Values for the formula:
Eto: Get this from http://www.rainmaster.com/historicET.aspx . Enter your zip code, or a nearby zipcode, and the website will give you the average daily ET value for each month of the year. Use the highest value or the “suggested reference value”. Usually they are the same thing.
PF: This is the plant factor. Different plants need different amounts of water. Use a value of 1.0 for lawn. For water loving shrubs use .80, for average water use shrubs use 0.5, for low water use shrubs use 0.3.
SF: This is the area to be irrigated in square feet. So for a 30 foot x 50 foot lawn you would use 1500.
0.62: A constant value used for conversion.
IE: Irrigation efficiency. Some irrigation water never gets used by the plant, this value compensates for that. I suggest using 0.75 as the value for this. Very well designed sprinkler systems with little run-off that using efficent sprinklers can have efficiencies of 80% (use 0.80). Drip irrigation systems typically have efficiencies of 90% (use 0.90).
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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"Hopefully California will prohibit exporting alfalfa to China. We have similar water problems now as they do."
Growing & exporting alfalfa is only a symptom, not the root issue. Alfalfa is just an example. All farm products use lots of water. Very few are actually low water use. Most depend on water costing far far below urban levels. Should we similarly regulate exports of every other product that used water to make it (Hundreds of farm products- cotton, rice, dairy, meat, nuts, fruit, etc.)
Or is the real issue that farmers are getting water so cheaply:
The delivered cost to an Imperial Valley farmer is $20/acre foot, about 1/50 of the market value.
Same thing with a lot of groundwater pumping - it's cheap for most pumpers, until it's gone.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Recently read that 80% of the worlds almonds come from Ca. and it takes a gallon of water to produce 1 almond...and most of the almond growers are irrigating by pumping ground water...
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Gene
climber
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Not buying the gallon/almond claim.
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ruppell
climber
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Damn it. I've been under watering my broccoli.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Don't feel bad Ruppell ....Gene has been under watering his almonds...
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Gene
climber
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Almonds use LOTS of water. They are killing the Central Valley. There are huge orchards that have yet to start producing. It's out of control.
But:
1 acre foot = ~325,000 gallons
Avg California 2014 almond yield/acre in 2014 was ~ 2250 lbs of meats.
~350 to 400 nuts per pound.
~800,000 – 900,000 nuts per acre.
Still, almonds are sucking the Central Valley dry.
Alfalfa is no bonus either in terms of water use. About 75% of California's alfalfa feeds dairy cows. Quit drinking milk, eating ice cream, and sipping lattes.
The water crisis is real. Ultimately, Ma Nature, rather than the government, will decide what happens.
EDIT:
REAL STUPID ANALYSIS ABOVE.
I forgot to consider that it takes several acre feet of water to grow almonds.
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dave729
Trad climber
Western America
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Snow is over rated. You don't want snow coming out of your tap.
Precipitation percentage of total for the Water Year will loosen
those bunched up panties. Not great but looks better than the snow.
http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/monthly_precip.php
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