Photos of California's Drought

[Pitt Gorilla]

Man, that's horrible.

http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/cali...tag=ACQ91b4377

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Fish

Probably just some sneaky lying climate scientists fudging some data...

My lawn is soggy. Perhaps the folks in CA might want to consider relocating if they like drinking water. That 80-degree weather and low humidity seems to have a price attached to it.

Not to worry though, the polar caps are melting away and year now the ocean is going to rise and they'll be all wet again.

But I do feel bad for them, it must suck to go through these water restrictions.

[mr. tegu]

How can there be an unprecedented drought every year? Never mind. I realize now it has been the same drought for years now.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by mr. tegu

How can there be an unprecedented drought every year? Never mind. I realize now it has been the same drought for years now.

Interstellar warming.

[tooge]

Originally Posted by gblowfish

Desalinization requires a lot of power, but it's been used in the middle east, Australia and New Zealand with great success. Water is more expensive, but it's plentiful. The power issue can be addressed with solar and wind power. We can solve this problem, and the more widespread the technology becomes, the less expensive it will be to implement and operate. California is building a couple of new desalinization plants right now. and one is supposed to be up and running this summer.

I was going to say something similar but didn't want to argue, hence my "**** em, let em dry up" response

[vailpass]

They could have built new dams years ago but they let the environmentalists get their way.

[morphius]

Originally Posted by tooge

I was going to say something similar but didn't want to argue, hence my "**** em, let em dry up" response

My only fear with that philosophy is then they will move were we live, and really, keeping Californians in one state is a pretty good idea. Just ask the people in Wyoming.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by vailpass

They could have built new dams years ago but they let the environmentalists get their way.

This could be said about a lot of things here.

[morphius]

Originally Posted by vailpass

They could have built new dams years ago but they let the environmentalists get their way.

They will probably try and block desalinization efforts as well.

[Contrarian]

Why don't they simply close the over 1800 golf courses in the state. Palm Springs alone has 59 golf courses, each golf course uses 1.2 million gallons of water per day. That is enough H20 to provide a family of four water for four years.

[Discuss Thrower]

Originally Posted by Contrarian

Why don't they simply close the over 1800 golf courses in the state. Palm Springs alone has 59 golf courses, each golf course uses 1.2 million gallons of water per day. That is enough H20 to provide a family of four water for four years.

Golf courses reclaim their water.

Agriculture is the main reason for the drought, plain and simple.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by gblowfish

Desalinization requires a lot of power, but it's been used in the middle east, Australia and New Zealand with great success. Water is more expensive, but it's plentiful. The power issue can be addressed with solar and wind power. We can solve this problem, and the more widespread the technology becomes, the less expensive it will be to implement and operate. California is building a couple of new desalinization plants right now. and one is supposed to be up and running this summer.

I know the residents of the city of Va. Beach have be struggling with water issues too. One of the obvious answers was to pull the water out of Lake Gaston ~100 miles to the west. It's been caught up in the courts for years, and I'm not sure what ever happened, but it was epic to say the least.

Here are excerpts from the city's web page. I'm not sure what technology has changed in the last 12 years, but I hope it's enough to reduce the power draw.

But you're right, it is solvable if you can solve the power issue with desalinization.

Would not desalting processes be more environmentally acceptable than the Lake Gaston Project?
Not necessarily so. A brackish water desalination plant would require large withdrawals from an aquifer which is already stressed. It would also generate a large waste stream which must be disposed of in the Chesapeake Bay or the Atlantic Ocean. A seawater desalination plant would use one megawatt of power per million gallons per day of capacity. Therefore, a 60 million gallon per day desalination plant would require a 60 megawatt power supply. This is approximately 120 percent of the average electric generation of the John H. Kerr Reservoir. It is approximately one-fourth the average output of a medium size power plant. There are environmental impacts with the generation of that much energy. The energy must be generated by burning coal, fuel oil, natural gas, nuclear fuel, or the construction of additional hydroelectric facilities. Additionally, a seawater desalting plant would discharge one to two gallons of waste brine for each gallon of water produced. Waste brine discharge has recently become a controversial issue with respect to proposed brackish and seawater desalting plants.
Would the water quality from a desalting plant be better than that of Lake Gaston?
In some respects, water from a desalting plant would have better quality than conventionally treated surface water and, in other respects, it would not. Water from a brackish groundwater desalting plant would generally be of very good quality; however, it would be more corrosive than conventional surface water and higher in sodium. Water from a seawater desalting plant, if it used the reverse osmosis process, would be very high in sodium and more corrosive than current supplies. Sodium levels would be so high that the product water might have to be desalted a second time in a brackish water desalting process raising the costs even further. If an evaporative process such as multi-stage flash distillation were used, then the water would be very corrosive and in the summer and early fall months would be very warm which would make it aesthetically unpleasing.
Would desalination plants be more reliable than the Lake Gaston Project?
No, they would not be. Conventional water treatment plants are reliable more than 99 percent of the time. Even the best operated sea water desalting plants are reliable only about 85 to 90 percent of the time and quite often technical problems can lower that figure.

[Easy 6]

Thats genuinely hard to look at, it makes my greenie side angry.

I dont know what the fix is, but our government better come up with something.

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by gblowfish

Desalinization requires a lot of power, but it's been used in the middle east, Australia and New Zealand with great success. Water is more expensive, but it's plentiful. The power issue can be addressed with solar and wind power. We can solve this problem, and the more widespread the technology becomes, the less expensive it will be to implement and operate. California is building a couple of new desalinization plants right now. and one is supposed to be up and running this summer.

And theres the fix I was looking for, you'll never find a bigger proponent of solar and wind power than me... there isnt one good reason why the US shouldnt be leading the world by a mile with that technology.

[Easy 6]

Originally Posted by cosmo20002

Tomatoes are one thing, but would anyone even notice if walnuts vanished forever? **** walnuts.

Originally Posted by Red Beans

They ruin every goddamn dessert they touch.

If theres one thing old people just LOVE to do, its **** up a perfectly good dessert with walnuts.

[Graystoke]

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/c...ve-lasted-more

Snipet:

California's current drought is being billed as the driest period in the state's recorded rainfall history. But scientists who study the West's long-term climate patterns say the state has been parched for much longer stretches before that 163-year historical period began.

And they worry that the "megadroughts" typical of California's earlier history could come again.

Through studies of tree rings, sediment and other natural evidence, researchers have documented multiple droughts in California that lasted 10 or 20 years in a row during the past 1,000 years -- compared to the mere three-year duration of the current dry spell. The two most severe megadroughts make the Dust Bowl of the 1930s look tame: a 240-year-long drought that started in 850 and, 50 years after the conclusion of that one, another that stretched at least 180 years.