Vanishing Sea

[Ron61]

This could happen in other places also as the fresh water becomes more and more scarce.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100404/...n_central_asia

Ron

[Bill Bess]

Good point Ron!

It's sort of like around here in AZ, the Colorado River is pretty much used up by the time it's water reaches Mexico. Most of the lakes, like Powel, Mead and Mohave are dropping in level do to over use by California, Nevada, and AZ. The only nice thing is that they keep Lake Havasu full because that's the lake that ( water distribution points) supplies California and AZ.
I just wonder what will happen in 50 years?

[Ron61]

Bill,

I don't think there will be enough fresh water for everyone in 50 years. I read on some news report that there are areas around Phoenix that are starting to sink because they have pumped so much water out of the ground that the aquifers can't fill back up via normal ground water. I believe the airport was on of the sinking areas.

Also just two days ago on TV They had a 2 hour show about a desalinization plant that they have built back East but I forget where. It produces quitem a bit of fresh water but they said it was to expensive to build them. I wonder when the easily available fresh water is gone, if it will be any cheaper then.

Ron

[lnfletcher]

I think they have been saying that for the last 50 years.

[Ron61]

They have, but every year there are more and more people and buildings using more and more water. What was used 50 years ago is a drip compared to now and they just keep building and using more as if there is no end to it. We have several small towns around here that have ran out of water for the last two summers and had to have it trucked in. At least this Winter we did get about average rainfall for the first time in 5 years but that can't make up for the last 5 years of drought, so we are already on water rationing of sorts. And when the real heat hits, it will be worse.

Ron

[Jamo]

The Colorado hasn't reached the Gulf for a long time...the All-American canal takes what's left, leving only a mud flat. Lived in Imperial Valley for several years...had clients in Yuma, Blythe and Parker.

Ron...doesn't matter how much rain we ever get in California...it's all wasted until we build more storage. More storage allows for greater flows to help the fisheries, more irrigation water and provides for expected urban growth. A side benefit will be increased power production. Much of it can be obtained by simply raising the small-to-medium sized dams, and by recharging underground supplies...very few new dams would have to be built. Sacramento-Stockton needs to refine their runoff...we can ill afford the extra water needed to flush their pollution.

The Shasta drainage, of all places, should never have want for water.

[Rick Parker]

Just a thought but compared to say 30 years ago, think about how much more water is bottled and setting in warehouses in the form of soda pop and water, plus in underground pipes, toilets, pools etc........

[Ron61]

Jamo,

I agree on the storage as we definitely need more of it. They have talked for years about raising the height of Shasta Dam, but the place it is built would make it a major undertaking and would cost far more than the original dam, even in the dollars back then. Another thing is they have taken out two or three of the small dams up in the mountains here the past couple of years. Said it cost to much to maintain them, so the places they served with electric power and water are now having to get it from other places. Right now Shasta Lake is just 21 feet from the top but won't make it as that last 20 feet takes a huge amount of water. But it is the highest it has been in the past 5 years and this Summer was the lowest it has been since the lake was first filled. Keswick couldn't hold much more water even if it was higher as the canyon there is pretty narrow. Whiskeytown to me would be the best place up here to maybe try to add storage. But I doubt they will do anything to any of the dams. I think we are about maxed out on storage capacity up here, but they need more on farther South so that what is let out here to make sure they have room for the snow run off isn't just wasted by going down the river and into the bay. And we wouldn't have any shortage of water if so much didn't have to be let out to run South and keep the river flowing. In normal Winters, we can just make it, but with the drought we have had it is worse than many people realize. They did announce last week that the farmers up in this area would get more water this year, so I guess the ones on South of here will have theirs cut. It is a difficult situation right now as there just isn't enough storage to meet the ever expanding needs for water.

Ron
Ron

[Gunner]

Well, when you fly over the LA area and see the vast stretches of green lawns and pools in what is naturally scrub desert, you begin to understand why Northern Californians have battled the Delta bypass for decades. Looks like we're about to lose - they've snuck the major legislation and stuff around the watchdogs and avoided the well-known hot-button term "Peripheral Canal" even though that's exactly what's up.

They're only going to take a little when they need it. Honest. Promise. Riiiiight.

I say shut off the taps and let LA survive as a desert community... if it can.

[Silverback51]

Solar desalinators.

California has the Pacific Ocean and all kinds of sunshine.

[Sharroll Celby]

Originally Posted by Gunner

Well, when you fly over the LA area and see the vast stretches of green lawns and pools in what is naturally scrub desert, you begin to understand why Northern Californians have battled the Delta bypass for decades. Looks like we're about to lose - they've snuck the major legislation and stuff around the watchdogs and avoided the well-known hot-button term "Peripheral Canal" even though that's exactly what's up.

They're only going to take a little when they need it. Honest. Promise. Riiiiight.

I say shut off the taps and let LA survive as a desert community... if it can.

Actually, most of the Los Angeles area of Southern California is best described as a "Mediterranean" climate, NOT, as you incorrectly posted, a "scrub desert."

[VRM]

Well, maybe the solution is for all of us in the northeast who have waaaay more water than we can use (due to record rainfalls the last few years) to send it out to CA.

We have folks here with so much water that they could probably email each of you a few gallons every minute and not even miss it.

Steve

[Ron61]

Hey Steve,

How did you fare in the heavy rains? No flooding of the house I hope. I have seen pictures of some of the towns back through some of the flood areas and it was a mess. And it will take a long time to get the homes and other things back to normal.

Ron

[Sharroll Celby]

Originally Posted by VRM

Well, maybe the solution is for all of us in the northeast who have waaaay more water than we can use (due to record rainfalls the last few years) to send it out to CA.

We have folks here with so much water that they could probably email each of you a few gallons every minute and not even miss it.

Steve

It WOULD be a HUGE financial undertaking, but an East/West canal could be built to alleviate all the "flood-stage" rivers back East, and pump it to the water-starved West. With a natural bed, it could even help to replenish the Ogallala Aquifier, which is under the eastern edge of the Rockies, running thru eight states, from west Texas to South Dakota.

[Jamo]

Originally Posted by Sharroll Celby

It WOULD be a HUGE financial undertaking, but an East/West canal could be built to alleviate all the "flood-stage" rivers back East, and pump it to the water-starved West. With a natural bed, it could even help to replenish the Ogallala Aquifier, which is under the eastern edge of the Rockies, running thru eight states, from west Texas to South Dakota.

Dam the Arkansas!

[Gunner]

Originally Posted by Sharroll Celby

Actually, most of the Los Angeles area of Southern California is best described as a "Mediterranean" climate, NOT, as you incorrectly posted, a "scrub desert."

Mediterranean is more a description of climate than geography. You'll note that most areas of the Med are scrubby, sandy territory that's not terribly arable or fertile. Cultivation in Italy and Greece is largely olive trees because they're extremely hardy and don't require irrigation in most years. Also consider the entire top of Africa, which is "Mediterranean." Most of the area is not some lush resort jungle, or anything like it.

A map of underlying geography and ecology shows that the LA Basin has a few arable regions, but can fairly be described as a scrub desert, chaparral or similar low-water, hardy-growth zone. It doesn't have one tenth the water it needs for its population and never did; IMVHO squatter's rights don't entitle it to half the water in the Western US.

Those vast stretches of desert north of the Grapevine - you know, the ones posted with b*tch signs every mile or so - are even less naturally arable and have an even lesser right to someone else's water.

I might change my mind the next time I fly over and see a lot more native-plant landscaping and a lot fewer pools.

[Jamo]

Originally Posted by Gunner

Mediterranean is more a description of climate than geography. You'll note that most areas of the Med are scrubby, sandy territory that's not terribly arable or fertile. Cultivation in Italy and Greece is largely olive trees because they're extremely hardy and don't require irrigation in most years. Also consider the entire top of Africa, which is "Mediterranean." Most of the area is not some lush resort jungle, or anything like it.

A map of underlying geography and ecology shows that the LA Basin has a few arable regions, but can fairly be described as a scrub desert, chaparral or similar low-water, hardy-growth zone. It doesn't have one tenth the water it needs for its population and never did; IMVHO squatter's rights don't entitle it to half the water in the Western US.

Those vast stretches of desert north of the Grapevine - you know, the ones posted with b*tch signs every mile or so - are even less naturally arable and have an even lesser right to someone else's water.

I might change my mind the next time I fly over and see a lot more native-plant landscaping and a lot fewer pools.

You really do just grab bullsh!t out of the air and type it up don't you.

The area north of the Grapevine does not receive water from anywhere else...they draw from aquifers below ground. The area west of Bakersfield was the Tulare Lake basin, where water from the Kings and Kern Rivers reached their terminus. The Kern, like the Mojave, is generally an underground river once it leaves the mountains. The ground in these areas are far more productive than the Sacramento Valley, which is why fruits and vegetables are grown around Bakersfield while rice for Korea is grown around Sacramento. As for LA, the San Fernando Valley always a had enough water for agriculture...ever since the original Spanish land grants. Same for the Beverly Hills, Riverside and Orange County areas. The need for more water came from urban growth...due to Mulholland and his pack grabbing the streams in the Owens Valley and inviting folks in cheap. That labor supply drove the industrial machine in the 30s, 40s and since that created the economic power that California generally has been. The areas you note are full of water...only a moron would judge the presence of water based upon the appearance of the land. Only a bigger moron would dismiss arid land as being non-productive.

As for those "b!tch" signs...I represent most of the folks you're talking about and that you allege take water from elsewhere...in this case, you're way off track. The end point for ag water from Shasta ends about a 100 miles north. This is what screws up everything...morons who know little about the subject giving opinions from their city addresses.

I really haven't enjoyed your presence here since day one...you've started sh!t repeatedly, told Ron and me how to do our job, and generally have grown into an absolute PITA. You've gotten a few suspensions already. And now I caught you in a lie based on arrogance or stupidity or both while you tell other folks off.

Had enough...we no longer have patience around here. Don't like it...suck eggs.

[Ron61]

Maybe this statement that I cut from a history of the Sacramento River will help people understand that the water here doesn't go to Los Angles or any other area past the San Francisco Bay. We even have people here that have moved up here from Orange County claiming that they got their water from here. I never intended to start a big argument about water when I started this thread. Just trying to point out that if we keep building and demanding more and more of it, there is going to one of these days be a serious shortage of fresh water. The high usage of water from the Sacramento is what is letting the salt water creep farther and farther into the Delta Area. I believe that Jamo mentioned in an earlier post that the farmers there told him that it wasn't the amount so much as the quality of water that was going to hurt them.

San Francisco Bay is also the spot at which California’s two greatest river systems, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, first mingle with salt water before reaching the Pacific at the Golden Gate.

Ron

[Jamo]

Ron...agree re Shasta...same with Oroville. One wet year doesn't end a drought. That's why I said its the small to medium sized dam that can be raised. That includes Friant, Pine Flat, Kaweah and Success down here (all obviously south of the Delta). Auburn should've been built decades ago to serve the needs of the Sacramento region, especially to help dilute its urban runoff. That amount of water damn near equals what is sent to LA, which gets the vast majority of its water from the Owens Valley and the Colorado.

Sacramento and the Delta are the problems right now, and has created the blockage. It's not just the pumps taking out the salmon's dinner (smelt), but increased salination of the Delta and the increased pollution coming from the Sacramento-Stockton area's outdated system (though Stockton has done a good job modernizing theirs).

I represent many growers in the Delta...wine growers in Lodi to asparagus farmers on various islands. They will tell you it's not so much the quantity of water but the lack of quality which is killing the Delta, on a much larger scale than Kesterson.

The peripheral canal was designed to be part of the state and federal water systems from the get go...just like drains from the Westside were supposed to be built to take runoff to the Bay. Half built system has resulted in a half assed result.

Unfortunately, too many folks have little understanding of the water situation and can speak only from a lack of information. When you live or die with water, like the folks around Redding or down here where crops are grown, it's frustrating to have to allow folks with no experience or knowledge have some say in the equation by uttering knee-jerk soundbites.

[Ron61]

Jamo I think you hit the largest point right on the head about the Auburn Dam. It should have been built long ago and raising the smaller ones that you list would help. It seems at times that people on down South of here think there is no end to the water that should be let through to them. Last year they had to shut down two of the generators at Shasta because the water was so low it was heating the river below to much for the salmon to survive. And I believe Coleman Hatchery here said they only had about 1/3rd of the normal fish run this last year. From what I have read and heard, more salt water is penetrating farther into the Delta, but there just isn't enough fresh water to flush it all back out. Thanks tom a near normal rainfall this Winter and a fair amount of snow pack in the mountains, this Summer won't be quite as bad as the past 5, but there still won't be nearly the amount of water they want down there. You know the layout of the towns here and we avoided having our water cut by 50% last year through a little know fact out of this area and wound up getting 90% of our normal city water ration. But it cost us quite a bit of money. I am not on the water board for the city but know the people that are and I spend quite a bit of time over at the city chambers talking with them. It was partly my proposal last year that got the extra water, but the screaming about the rates going up could be heard in Arizona. But they were gong to go up almost as much anyway and there would have been much less water.

Another thing that could come into play is if they are correct in forecasting that this summer here will be hotter than the last one which was a bad one. That would get rid of the snow pack to fast and it would all run off and be gone.

Ron