California Drought

[tim5055]

Doesn't sound too good

California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now?

 

[chem geek]

No, it's not good. The good news is that swimming pools themselves are not the biggest problem, particularly if they are covered. The amount of water loss from uncovered swimming pools is roughly the same as that from lawns. The rate of loss from covered pools is much lower than that of nearly all landscaping. This is especially true if one uses winter rain overflow for water dilution of the pool.

 

[jblizzle]

I am not sure if it was that article of not, but it said the urban use is only 10% of the CA water usage. So even if everyone in cities stopped using water, there would still be a problem. Sounded like most of the water is used for agriculture to make money.

I think that was stated in some comments in some article I read, so no idea if it is accurate.

Found an article that discusses the breakdown from a year ago: http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_f...eason-of-drought-where-does-the-water-go.html

California's water budget is skewed heavily toward agriculture. The conventional estimate is that 80 percent of the water used in California flows into the state's multi-billion-dollar agricultural sector.

The 20 percent left for urban use is split between homes, businesses, and government.

About 6 percent of the state's water is consumed by industries, commercial operations, and governments. About 14 percent is poured into bathtubs, toilets, and washing machines or sprayed over residential lawns.

Good luck taking the water away from the multi-billion dollar agriculture industry.

I saw another person mention installing multiple nuclear water desalination plants along the coast ... make freshwater and sell extra power. Make the agriculture industry pony up the funds

 

[Kiss4aFrog]

I've been to Vegas a few times and what struck me most a few years back was seeing how low lake Mead was compared to what the "normal" water level line on the shore showed. I was scared then and I live in the north where we have water all over. I don't know what they're going to do as we need the food and there is only so much you can conserve. From a graph of the water level back in 1965 it wasn't quite as low as it is now and it took around 20 years to fill back up and that was with less people and less agriculture use !! http://www.arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/
If you've seen the Colorado river it's amazing to think that we (and 10% Mexico) now use 100% of the water and it no longer flows into the Gulf of California.

 

[woodyp]

"I saw another person mention installing multiple nuclear water desalination plants along the coast ... make freshwater and sell extra power. Make the agriculture industry pony up the funds"----by jblizzle.

Building those things will never be any cheaper than it is right now. Why wait? Oh yeah........it hasn't reached a full blown crisis level yet.

And it ain't like Vegas was built back when that area was a lush green paradise and suddenly turned to desert due to global warming/climate change (use your own politically correct term here.)

 

[jblizzle]

I am sure that there would be HUGE support from the Californians to build dreaded nuclear plants

 

[woodyp]

Let'um go 3 days without water and see if that will effect a change in attitude. Sorry, but I ain't got a whole lotta sympathy.

 

[yabbyfarm]

I'm a long way from California, but I'm pretty sure there is a nasty fault line running through it. Earthquakes + Nukes = Bad. ... (just ask Japan)

Where I live we have a very similar problem with droughts. We where on water restrictions for years and literally no water flowed out to sea from the River Murray. Looks like heading that way again in a few years.

 

[Mandolina]

Southern California now has a Los Angeles River Revitalization plan in the works. We have a perfectly good river, that we could, but do not, use. Right now it is a conduit for run-off. Every time it rains one inch, L.A. throws away 7.6 billion gallons of water, which flows as quickly as possible to the ocean. To conserve water I left my Intex pool up last winter, I'm guessing by next week the water will be warm enough for me take a swim.

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"I saw another person mention installing multiple nuclear water desalination plants along the coast ... make freshwater and sell extra power. Make the agriculture industry pony up the funds"----by jblizzle.

Building those things will never be any cheaper than it is right now. Why wait? Oh yeah........it hasn't reached a full blown crisis level yet.

And it ain't like Vegas was built back when that area was a lush green paradise and suddenly turned to desert due to global warming/climate change (use your own politically correct term here.)

That's a good idea. Then it will lower the ocean's water level from all the melting icebergs.