California's Snow Pack

[HSakols]

California is finally mandating water use reductions.  Check out the difference in snow pack in the Sierra Nevada from 2011 until now. http://patch.com/california/sanmateo/gov-brown-orders-statewide-mandatory-water-use-reductions 

[Alan Goldhammer]

It's really bad out there.  I really wonder why they did not re-purpose the San Onofre nuclear plant as a large scale water desalinization facility.  When I was growing up in San Diego there was a small nuclear desalinization plant not far from my home but they moved it to Guantanomo Cuba when Castro blockaded the base back in the 1960s.  Advances in desalinzation and reuse of waste water including treated sewage water look to be the only answers if the drought coupled with global warming increase scarcity.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Since early February I've been wishing there were a way we could send our excess Massachusetts snow to California.
Now that April is here, I have a few spots of bare ground in my yard, but there are still piles three feet high in other spots.

Yes, I think desalinization is the only solution for them now, but it is pretty late to be starting it.

And I can't see why Nestle is still allowed to take millions of gallons of California water to bottle and sell at high prices elsewhere.

[Telecaster]

Yep, desalination in CA (and elsewhere too) seems inevitable. IMO in the short term Big Ag also needs to be more responsible. In the long term we need to get our heads around the fact that water doesn't disappear when we use it. It just gets modified. If you need more fresh water you can take non-fresh water, which we have in massive & renewable abundance, and make it fresh again. Tech + $$ + will.

-Dave-

[Isaac]

…water doesn't disappear when we use it.

"The facility purifies sewer water and injects it into its drinking water aquifer."

[amolitor]

Agriculture in CA is, in general, pretty conservative in their water usage. Their irrigation methods could probably be improved a bit, but we're down in the land of quite small improvements at this point.

Reality is that CA is probably over-populated and over-farmed. This is not the only part of the world with this problem. Desalinization on the scale required might be pretty impractical and would almost certainly have unintended consequences.

[NancyP]

The few times that I have been in California, I have noticed a lot of lawns. Those should go away first. Plant prickly pears.

[Isaac]

"Read more about the particulars of the governor’s order on his website here."

-Replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought tolerant landscaping in partnership with local governments;

etc

[Telecaster]

"How to get Californians to use less water without forcing them to," from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/04/04/how-to-get-californians-to-use-less-water-without-forcing-them-to/

-Dave-

[Isaac]

However, the big user is agriculture -- "In the rest of California where water is shared by all three sectors, environmental use is not dominant (33%, compared to 53% agricultural and 14% urban)."

[BJL]

The few times that I have been in California, I have noticed a lot of lawns. Those should go away first. Plant prickly pears.

Banning golf would be a good start!  But I think it's the strange arrangement of producing so much of the nations' food in one rather dry corner that is the bigger problem.

[Isaac]

The other strange arrangement is having 85% of US winter produce come from a dry corner of Mexico.

[sesshin]

There needs to be a drastic reduction of both almond farms and cow farms, the question is how to get there. Almonds and California beef will have to become much more expensive, thats a given, but there just needs to be a whole lot less of that product put to market overall.

[Isaac]

California harvests 80% of the world's Almond crop.

[RSL]

The few times that I have been in California, I have noticed a lot of lawns. Those should go away first. Plant prickly pears.

Right, Nancy. They need to get rid of lawns, golf courses, and swimming pools, and stop letting enviromentalists who have lawns and swimming pools and play golf, insist on letting a bunch of other people's water run out to sea to comfort a couple fish. If California had water laws like Colorado's this wouldn't be such a big problem.

[mezzoduomo]

Beer is the problem:

“It takes roughly 20 gallons of water to make a pint of beer, as much as 132
gallons of water to make a 2-liter bottle of soda, 39000 gallons of water to
produce the average domestic car, including the tires and about 5000 gallons of
water to grow a day’s good for a family of four.”

 

Sorry to be so blatantly facetious about this critically important photographic(?) non-photographic, eminently permissible topic.

[Telecaster]

Beer is the problem

And pot. All that herbally goodness grown in the northern part of the state sucks down its share of water too.

Note: this is the Coffee Corner, where every topic is on topic. 

-Dave-

[francois]

The few times that I have been in California, I have noticed a lot of lawns. Those should go away first. Plant prickly pears.

In Socal, my neighbors used to spray special green paint on their dried-up lawn to save water (they said) during the hottest season…but on the other hand, every Saturday morning they washed their two or three cars, even in summer.

 

[Isaac]

…every Saturday morning they washed their two or three cars, even in summer.

There are different ways to wash vehicles, some use a lot of water and some don't -- "Permanent mandatory restrictions have been in place since 2011, and apply year-around, whether the City is in a drought or not. These restrictions are designed to promote water conservation as a permanent way of life in San Diego."

[NancyP]

I like prickly pears, in moderation. The flowers are lovely. One added advantage could be having your own garden - some people de-thorn the "leaves" and slice them up for salad - somewhat like cucumber salad. I have never tried the fruit of the prickly pear.

My St. Louis nature photographer friends are involved in a variety of volunteer conservation efforts. A few of them have converted most of their yards to native plantings, which help bring in insects, butterflies, birds (ie, subjects!). I like lawn alright, but don't need a huge amount of it, just a bit of grass to sit on and feed the chiggers     (chiggers are the juvenile form of those bright red mites, less than 1 mm long, which looooooove nicely fertilized lawns)