California Katrina?

[Larry S]

I profess my ignorance with matters concerning the Bay and Delta projects; but, I do have much respect for those
posters expressing opinions and offering suggestions here. My 2-cents concern the need to urgently consider
the use of de-sal for the state. Problems exist; but, solutions abound. De-sal and re-use will be the keys to
future water problems.
Best to all of the ardent and dedicated water stewards on the Kiene forum,
Larry S

[Bob Loblaw]

Desal is very energy intensive, very expensive, and creates a lot of toxic brine that is difficult to dispose of. Desal runs about $2,000 per acre foot to produce at present but there are some guys at Lawrence Livermore Labs who are developing new technology to do low voltage desal instead of traditional membrane methods that might be a game changer if they can scale it. Probably a decade away from implementation though.

I agree about re-use. We need to use fresh water multiple times before it goes down the drain the final time.

[Darian]

Bob Loblaw,.... All of the catastrophic scenarios you envision would indeed cause major economic/human suffering, IF they occur now. And, there may be an insignificant statistical possibility that they could occur. I just don't share your feeling of urgency or your dismissal of the Delta as a place to be sacrificed for economic interests. If everyone must sacrifice, then make it so. Trouble is, only Delta AG/economics/recreation interests will be sacrificed.

If a major flood event (as described occurs every 200 years) happened, it's likely the gravity fed tunnel intakes would be damaged/destroyed by uprooted, floating debris (including entire trees) being transported by the flows as well as collapsed levees. So, there's potential for stoppage of water delivery by CVP/SWP and local water intakes regardless of whether the tunnels are built. Also, in a major flood event, subsided land in the southern San Joaquin would likely fill and already compromised canal walls would probably collapse thwarting any attempt to transport water, even if it could be diverted.

I'm not sure how many bay area municipalities are dependent on water received through local intakes but I'd bet that most have more than one source of water. Most likely they draw fro a combination of surface and pumped groundwater or contract to receive water from EBMUD. EBMUD has several reservoirs (Camanche/Pardee) on the Mokelumne River watershed where it stores water. Also, EBMUD draws water from the Sacramento River at Freeport, transports it in the Folsom-South Canal to the mokelumne Canal for delivery in the East Bay. EBMUD, also, has reservoirs in the east bay hills (San Leandro/one other). San Francisco receives water from Hetch Hetchy, stores it 3 Crystal Springs reservoirs and I'm fairly sure the two districts sell/trade water to each other as needed.

But, let's see, if a major rain event happens every 200 years and the last one happened in 1862, we probably have 47 more years to worry about it, if at all. I've already addressed the earthquake concern in another post.

Re: DeSal installations. Not all DeSal installations cost $2,000.00 per ACF. There're several different types of desalinization technologies to choose from and at least one facility is producing water at substantially less than $2,000 per ACF. Check out the Cambria Pines facility. Also, the only reason water is so cheap when purchased from the CVP/SWP is that it's sold at substantially below it's actual market value. So, if you're buying water from a water contractor/district you're paying for it twice. Once in the form of costs of operation by the SWP/CVP and again from the contractor/district. That tends to distort the picture quite a bit. DeSal does tend to be labor intensive but, depending on the facility/type of DeSal technology used, brine by-product can be recycled or dispersed in ocean waters.

Ya know what, since you and I are not going reach agreement and rather than carry on this fruitless discussion any longer, I'll close by saying that the DWR sent a request to issue permits to BuRec/Core of Engineers a couple days ago. This while the comment period for the WaterFix (revised EIR/EIS) is still open. Can you say simultaneous review?? Seems like talking about this is over.

[Bob Loblaw]

The biggest threat to the delta is not the tunnels, its the delta itself. It is literally falling apart. You just have to drive on any levee top road to see that. Its also sinking and the "islands" are nothing more than bowls, some as many as 30 feet below the water levels. As soon as those levees collapse, and they will collapse unless there's someone out there with about $75 billion willing to rebuild them all, the islands will flood, one after another and sea water will rush in.

Its not a matter of if that will happen, its just a matter of when and how catastrophic will the eventual failure be. Everything that man builds eventually fails, especially stuff we build next to large bodies of water using dirt and sticks. The new conveyance will eventually fail to but it will last a lot longer than a dirt levee built 100 years ago by a Chinese farmer. It will also be engineered to withstand that 200 year flood event and a 500 year earthquake.

The question we need to be addressing is can we design and build a water conveyance system than can withstand that eventuality.

I still don't know what people mean when they say "restore the delta"? do they mean remove the levees? or build more and bigger levees? do they mean protecting farm land or marsh land? I think we can all agree that the delta need minimum flow guarantees but beyond that, there's no agreement on what restoring the delta actually means and without consensus and without a funding source to do these myriad projects, we'll all just end up fighting taking our turns at bat to have our say.,...and we all know mother nature bats last.

If the state water project is inundated with salt water, it will take an estimated 5 years to engineer a solution and it will decimate the bay area's economy, not just southern California. Doing nothing is not an option....and if you think that because you live north of the delta or in Sacramento that you'll be fine...think again. Where will you get your gas from? All the bay area refineries will have to close. Just one of the many problems a delta failure will produce.

[Rick.H]

This interesting topic is covered in the book "A Dangerous Place, California's Unsettling Fate" by Marc Reisner. Marc also wrote "Cadillac Desert" and "Game Wars". He was dying while he wrote ADP and what he had gotten done is lumped into 3 chapters. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Delta and CA as a whole.

A big use of freshwater now is to keep salt water intrusion from impacting the pumps. In other words, as ocean levels rise, the brackish water extends further inland and must be held back by releasing fresh water; this will only require more fresh water over time. If/when the tunnels are built, this will not be a problem and the Delta can be allowed to go salt water.

[Bob Loblaw]

This is true and unfortunately its likely a trend that cannot be reversed. As sea levels rise and as our snowpack and resulting river flows decrease, saltwater intrusion into the delta will continue. Absent a barrier at the Golden Gate (which has been discussed) there's no way to hold back the tide.

If we refuse to accommodate our differences and allow gridlock to continue until mother nature forces us to act, the end solutions will be much more expensive and much more destructive to all concerned.