epic drought?

[Frank Alessio]

Bill... What are your recommendations?

[Darian]

Bill,.... Good point on the wet, past San Joaquin Valley. Miller/Lux delivered their cattle (raised down there) to slaughter in SF via the waterways then.

Here's a link to an paper on desal that has a bunch of info about DeSal:

http://resources.ca.gov/ocean/97Agenda/Chap5Desal.html

Unfortunately, all of these papers adopt the same position about ocean desal without considering all of the potential uses. For example, they mention but talk little about using desal for water treatment. Desal techniques have been explored in treatment of ag drainage water. Not accepted by all, yet, but sooner or later....

[Larry S]

Here's an interesting graphic -
http://www.mwdh2o.com/mwdh2o/pages/y...es_storage.pdf

Mark, I think some of the lakes you are talking about are those north of LA along I-5.
Our San Diego ponds are hurting. Lake Morena is very low. Funny thing; I go surf
fishing twice a week to the nearby Torrey Pines area. Even at low tide, I'm looking
at a full reservoir. Duh!
Best to all,
Larry S

[JasonB]

Pretty depressing to say the least. I'm in favor of de-sal, and smart use of grey water, rethinking our agricultural practices, and conservation on the residential side as well. Perhaps, just perhaps, this could be a good thing for us all in the long run if it gets us to re-evaluate our water resources. From my perspective we treat water with amazing disregard considering its essential value to our lives. If we don't get smart sooner than later people may well pay a LOT for their water. Hopefully those of us who do care will look for ways that we can conserve and reduce our own personal consumption as well.
That and hope for rain!
JB

[bigfly]

Don't think that a filled reservoir is the answer.....
Mostly the water evaporates....the more surface area, the greater the loss. (Think lake Mead.)
So the more lakes/reservoirs we build, the more water we waste.
They will eventually smarten up, and put it back underground for later use.
Years ago in Lancaster CA. they raised alfalfa in the desert.
Central pivot well, and circular "walking" sprinkler.
Then it got more expensive to pump water, than the hay was worth.
Forty years later you can still see the dead circles out in the desert.
I've heard that the folks in Palm Springs are down 1200 ft to find water now.
I hope golf courses are the first to turn brown, especially up here. (They won't be though.....)
Heard they used a Billion gallons to create Grays Crossing course.
What a waste.......
And, everyone should be required to read Cadillac Desert......

Jim

[Larry S]

http://www.sandiego.gov/water/recycled/

Need more of this, as well. Not quite "toilets to tap;" but, that might be in
our future. People need a lesson on the astronauts and their water supplies.
Best,
Larry S

[Bob Loblaw]

The average Californian uses over 200 gallons of water per day. That clearly needs to change. But the big changes need to take place in farming. We just have to take all our distresses and soon to be distressed land out of production and we need to stop growing water hungry crops for export...the farmers scream about food security, but forget to mention that all those pistachios and almonds you see are exported to China.

I'm a desal skeptic. It takes huge amounts of power to remove salt from water and we are just feeding the beast if we burn coal to make water because global warming is drying our climate. One alternative would be to build massive solar farms on that distressed ag land and use that for desal production that the farmers could then use to grow more sustainable crops.

[Larry S]

Bob,
You are spot on regarding the energy needed for de-sal. While So Cal lacks in fresh water, it has an abundance
in sunshine. Common sense should tell us to build de-sal plants and solar farms. Even if you disregard the drought
forecasts and global warming doomsters, you still have to address the needs of our state.
As I always tell my fishing buddies; "When I'm king.............!"

Best,
Larry S

[Jed Peters]

Jim,
We do live in a desert in much of California, and it's time to quit pretending that we don't. Fly over Palm Springs sometime and see how many golf courses you can count. Check out all the landscaping and lawns there are in the LA area. Time for change and it needs to come sooner than later.

The golf courses in palm springs are fed by one of the largest underground aquifers in the state.

[JasonB]

The golf courses in palm springs are fed by one of the largest underground aquifers in the state.

...and those aquifers could be tapped for more critical uses than keeping the greens nice too. Don't mean to slam golf courses specifically as I used to love to play, but when it comes down to it I think it's time to look at ALL areas where we squander our precious waters.