Calif. Water Shortage To Be Bad

[Ron61]

Wes & Mike,

That is good. And a long time ago when I was working in Enterprise where we had to replace one of the 48V storage batteries I was talking to an engineer about the length of time the batteries could carry the machine before getting below the threshold level. One of the local women asked me how you stored electricity and I told her that over at the dam they had a big room made of rubber and it all went into there until needed. Then I forgot about it. A few weeks later I received a call whenever I was working then and it was her all upset. she had gone and told everyone she knew about how they stored electricity at the dam and now was the laughing stock of the city. Boy, did I get myself into trouble with some people when I was working and all of it I thought was so far out that no one would pay any attention to it.

Ron

[Silverback51]

The LA area has an ocean at it's doorstep and a desert not that far to the East. Pump the water to the desert and build desalinators. Pump it back to where it's needed.

[Ron61]

I saw a short blurb on the news two days ago that they may have to consider building desalinization plants in Southern Calif., as the supply from the Colorado River could dry up. And we sure don't have enough water up here any more to send down to them. They didn't say much about it except that the Governor of Nevada and Arizona had been meeting with our politicians and told them that their states came first. They should have built those plants years ago before it cost so much to do so. I do believe there may be war over food, water, and oil. To me food and water should come first. This country was settled without cars and trucks and may have to learn to survive without them. We can't build more dams as the Environmentalists won't allow that. No more refineries, same reason, so the amount of oil is irrelevant as the refineries are for the most part operating at capacity now. No more electric generating plants, same environmental crap.

Ron

[Wayne Maybury]

Electricity is probably the only area in which we get a real break here in Quebec. Almost all of our power is generated by hydro electric dams and we produce enough power that we fill all of our own demand plus we power most of Vermont and we also sell it to other states as well.

I have a big old 2 story house with a finished basement (really 3 stories) and an attached 2 car garage which is also heated all winter. We are 100% electric; heat, air conditioning, hot water, cooking, etc, etc. Heating in the winter accounts for about 2/3 of our total annual bill. My payments are just over $200 per month. If it wasn't so cold up here in the winter, my cost would be much lower.

One more thing, we don't have water meters so as long as no one reports me, I can water my lawn as much as I want at no charge. Of course that means that I have to cut the grass twice a week.

Wayne

[Ron61]

Wayne,

I will see what I can do about letting the authorities know that you need a water meter.

Here they have a small white car that drives around every day all Summer looking to see if anyone has water going in their yards or is washing a car. They stopped here once a year or so ago when I was washing my car, but once they saw how I do it they said that was ok. I never use a hose or soap. Just get a bucket with about a gallon of water and an old T Shirt and wipe it off then dry it with an absorber. Once I got the wet paint on it, that is all I have ever used to wash it.

Ron

[427sharpe]

I am surprised that Kalifornia has not gome to the old cistern system popular here in West Texas. New houses get built with an underground cistern (usually about 10-20k gallons) that catches what rainwater they have and used (non-toilet) water from the house for re-use on non-potable uses, like irrigation and such. Heck, even the ecomonster George Bush has one in Crawford.....too bad Al doesn't. I don't hear too much from the west (TX) about water shortages there. As for power...the greenies decided long ago that newts and spotted owls were higher priority than humans...hence no power plants (and God forbid NUCLEAR power plants!!) and no dams. Just wonder how long CA can leech off the other states before they put the screws down. Do you think the squeeze will finally bring Kalifornia back to it's senses?

[Joe Wicked]

The cisterns are not a bad idea. Hell that system supplied major populaces in ancient times, no reason it could not do the same today. They even used it for drinking water.

[Ron61]

Some places here used to have them back while the dam was being built. Ran rain water down into a filter system of rock and charcoal and then into the cistern. But I don't think they are allowed any more.

Ron