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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 21, 2015 - 02:17pm PT
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Good news, people! The nutcase next door told us yesterday that she had a
dream the other night in which Jesus told her that it was gonna rain like hell
(OK, I'm paraphrasing here, she might have said God) really soon and that
we don't need to feel guilty about watering our lawns.
REMEMBER - YOU HEARD IT HERE, FIRST!
[Also remember that you can't make this sh!t up! Well, I can't]
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skcreidc
Social climber
SD, CA
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May 21, 2015 - 02:22pm PT
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is that before or after the rapture?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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May 21, 2015 - 02:24pm PT
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Dood, if you've gotta ask yer not invited.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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May 22, 2015 - 05:34pm PT
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The nice sustainable yard pictures Dingus posts has two upsides. The first is the one that tends to be marketed: low water usage.
But there is another, perhaps even more important: The ability to absorb water onsite. Rain as it comes down is pretty pure. It is only after it flows off the property that it gets really dirty.....plus, it adds up. A typical suburban street produces 1 million gallons of runoff into the street, with a 1-in rainstorm.
As it runs off, there is an enormous tendency for evaporation (around 40%), which means that if you can capture it onsite, you basically double the available water for beneficial reuse.
Rain barrels are a way to do this, but have very limited capacity compared to the rainwater available. Creating an absorptive-friendly yard can magnify this tremendously.
Or, there is even a simpler, cheaper way: liberal use of organic mulch. Many cities provide it to residents FREE, you just have to pick it up.
Mulch acts like a sponge, it absorbs water and slowly releases it. One lb of mulch can absorb as much as 32# of water (4 gal). So 14# of mulch holds as much water as a 56-gal barrel.
Most of us who live in houses, have a significant amount of bare ground, under trees, bushes, etc. Cover that with 4 in of mulch, and you can cut watering to less than every 2 weeks, and probably use less each time. It breaks down into a natural fertilizer. Excess water ends up in the water table.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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May 22, 2015 - 06:42pm PT
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Mammoth is open this weekend, barely. They are even running the gondola.
Some late snow really helped them out.
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couchmaster
climber
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May 23, 2015 - 08:52am PT
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I don't know anything about it. I've watered my lawn 3 times in the last 20 years. I go to bed at night negotiating with the wife to move into a condo and wake up in the morning praying the grass will just f**ing die. My old neighbor Pete, he of coke bottle glasses, once misread the label on a bag. He thought it said "Weed and Feed", but it actually said "Corozon Crystals". I would have loved to have my lawn start spring looking like his did...we'll, except for the 1" wide green Mohawk down the middle of a sea of brown where his spreader missed. Except I hate poisons like that even more, and even in his situation the next year the @@##ing sh#t all came back all green.
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Risk
Mountain climber
Olympia, WA
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May 27, 2015 - 08:58pm PT
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How bad is it, really? I checked out http://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/monthly_precip.php and it didn't look as dire as everyone says. I'm all ears if these numbers are wrong, but about 70 percent of normal isn't a disaster yet, or worthy of food prices skyrocketing! Are politicians and the media playing with us just to jack up prices even more under exaggerated pretenses? If it's in fact bone-dry, then yes; but, if the numbers I see on the charts are right California had a dry, but not a disastrous, water year. Totally open to being educated and corrected if I'm off base..
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east side underground
climber
paul linaweaver hilton crk ca
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May 27, 2015 - 09:33pm PT
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hey jesse, you should talk to john dittli, about how bad the winter was , when snow surveyors are walking and riding their bikes to do snow surveys I'd call it disasterious. non exsisting snow packs at lower elevations this season were pretty extreme imo......
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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May 27, 2015 - 10:11pm PT
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Jesse, you are missing the big picture---you are looking at RAINFALL, but the big picture is in SNOW, up in the high sierra, that slowly melts and gradually enters the reservoirs.
Three main sources of water sustain California – mountain snowpack, water stored in reservoirs and water pumped from underground aquifers. All are connected, and when the Governor declared a drought emergency on January 17, 2014, all three had been depleted by an extended dry period. The Sierra Nevada snowpack stood at 14 percent of normal for the date. The state's two biggest reservoirs held less than 40 percent of their capacity, and aquifer levels from Siskiyou County to San Diego County were in decline.
April 1---SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) found no snow
whatsoever today during its manual survey for the media at 6,800 feet in the Sierra Nevada. This
was the first time in 75 years of early-April measurements at the Phillips snow course that no snow
was found there.
Today’s readings are historically significant, since the snowpack traditionally is at its peak by early
April before it begins to melt. Electronic readings today found that the statewide snowpack holds
only 1.4 inches of water content, just 5 percent of the historical average of 28.3 inches for April 1.
The previous low for the date was 25 percent in 2014 and 1977.
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monolith
climber
SF bay area
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May 29, 2015 - 11:26am PT
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All stations now at 0.0% of normal
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Gary
Social climber
From A Buick 6
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May 29, 2015 - 01:42pm PT
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We're in the process of redoing the yards. We stopped watering a while back.
The plan is to use drought tolerant California natives. Like DMT, we'll be feeding the native bugs and birds. We won't need the bird feeder any more.
Buckwheat and sages will be the backbone.
We've tore up some concrete. Where we do need walks, we'll be using flagstone set in sand, not grout. We've had problems finding someone willing to do that. We want the water to soak into the ground as much as possible, not runoff into the street.
We'll be leaving some bare ground also, for the solitary ground bees.
Just need to get the kid from taking 20 minute showers.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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May 29, 2015 - 02:48pm PT
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Where we do need walks, we'll be using flagstone set in sand, not grout.
you might consider crushed (decomposed) granite
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tripmind
Boulder climber
San Diego
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May 29, 2015 - 03:03pm PT
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In San Diego county, the majority of the best lakes to fish have been drained to a small fraction of their total capacity, much of this has happened over the past 2 years.
At lake morena, you can walk on about 80% of the lakebed, probably more these days, only a small part of the lake still has water in it.
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k-man
Gym climber
SCruz
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I am not a vegetarian nor vegan, but one can't deny what Moby (the "rocker") has to say:
"Animal products are just egregiously unsustainable, from a resource perspective," he told Rolling Stone. "It takes up to 500 pounds of grain to make one pound of beef. And it goes without saying that 500 pounds of grain is food that could be fed directly to people. It just doesn't make sense to funnel food resources through animals. It's a really irresponsible and inefficient way of using food resources."
This interactive article really puts things into perspective:
272 gallons of water were used to make this plate
I'm shooting for Meatless Mondays & Thursdays.
And how bad is the drought?
176 drought maps reveal just how thirsty California has become
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son of stan
Boulder climber
San Jose CA
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Jun 10, 2015 - 02:22pm PT
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Thunderstorms almost everyday in the Sierra this spring. Is any run off making it down to the reservoirs?
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John M
climber
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Jun 10, 2015 - 02:36pm PT
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its not raining that much.. some places maybe. what we really need is lower elevation rain for the trees. Its been predicted by the forest service that the area around Oakhurst could see 50 percent die off of trees by the end of august. Not sure what that statistic means.. 50 percent of trees attacked by beetles. 50 percent of all trees. or what.
I hope it is wrong but Its pretty wild how fast things changed this spring. In April you could see dead trees here and there. By the end of May you could see whole clumps of dead trees in most places. But 50 percent still seems pretty drastic.
http://www.sierrastar.com/2015/06/03/73359_tree-mortality-rate-could-reach.html?rh=1
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