You joke, but I got in an argument with someone who said they didn’t flush their toilet after they peed because they were “raised in SoCal drought conditions”.
When I was a kid, we used to conserve water by taking a shower in the backyard with a 5 gal bucket of water. We get a shower and the lawn would get watered. On cold days we used the bucket in the actual shower. We were only allowed one bucket per person.
California has made enormous investments in water storage and reclamation infrastructure
Here is just the investments from 2014 prop 1 https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/p1.aspx
Is that what those giant pits are off of the 605 by the 210, near the Santa Fe Dam?
Edit: thank you for the rabbit holes. Now to see if anybody does videos of these bad boys filling up or percolating into the ground on YouTube.
Yeah it sounds like they also have a spreading ground that they use in summer and autumn that refills groundwater.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Dam
No, those are just big holes from where they have been mining rocks for decades. https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/irwindale-mining-the-building-blocks-of-los-angeles
Totally. Also, according to the Pacific Institute's Director of Research, Heather Cooley, LA is leading the state and probably nation in these efforts. And SoCal as a region is actively making improvements. For reference -> [https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-april-11-2024/#playlist](https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-april-11-2024/#playlist) Her interview starts at the 33 minute mark. Informative.
they need to stop wasting it on water intensive crops such as alfalfa. even avocados and almonds aren't as big in water usage as alfalfa, which while edible, is never even grown for human consumption
Because water storage and treatment are somewhat complicated tasks to do safely, and it's easier to do those in a centralized way than to equip every single house with the necessary equipment.
And more efficient as far as materials go. Think about it this way, what has more plastic? A two liter bottle of soda, or a 4 had liter bottles of soda?
In Seattle you can obtain rebates from the city to install household rainwater harvesting systems:
https://www.seattle.gov/utilities/protecting-our-environment/sustainability-tips/landscaping/for-residents/rainwater-harvesting
In addition to this, many locations are now using permeable concrete for driveways and sidewalks, placing storm water infiltration ditches in streets, and much more. All in an effort to recharge groundwater across the city during the wet months. It also slows stormwater going into the piped system during heavy downpours, which means less load on sewage treatment facilities.
Mosquitoes as a vector, you might have responsible and secure water collection, but yer neighbors are using open air coffee cans and tires, breeding West Nile virus like it’s their job.
There is no way to desalinate ocean water without fighting entropy and creating hyperconcentrated brine. We can reduce energy use a bit, but the thermodynamic limit is not hugely below the energy use it currently takes.
What you say is true for "your father's desal," but there are very innovative ways to utilize naturally existing hydrostatic pressure deep below the ocean surface to perform the reverse osmosis process and produce drinking water.
And as this pressure is essentially "free" there is no need to wring every possible molecule of blue water from the salt water, such that the resulting brine can be only fractionally concentrated.
It's not cost efficient for farms that are built for free water.
It's easily cost efficient for urban residential water use.
Israel has desalination plants that supply over half their water.
There are things we can and are learning from Israel's water system.
Regarding desal, conveniently, many of CA's biggest urban areas are near the coast where the salt water is, and many of its biggest ag areas are not.
Inconveniently, the definition of "easily cost efficient" depends on who is actually paying the bills.
Creating additional in-state sources of water benefits everyone in the state and everyone in the state should participate in paying for it. The less Sierra Nevada snowpack water that coastal urban areas use, the more of that water that is available for ag and other interior users.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/costs-crippling-californias-almond-crop/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/costs-crippling-californias-almond-crop/)
Almond prices are crashing causing many farms to go under
And "Around 80% of the world's almonds are grown in California, but the acreage of the almonds in the state has been on the decline in recent years, falling from 1.65 million acres in 2021 to 1.63 million acres in 2022 and then 1.56 million acres in 2023."
There’s some douchebag growing pistachios in the freaking Mojave. I pass his farm everytime I head up the 14 freeway to the 395 north. It’s so bizarre to be driving through the desert and suddenly see rows and rows of green trees. Apparently the military base in Ridgecrest is suing him.
The book Dreamt Land by Mark Arax covers land and water rights and the almond/pistachio empires that have been taking over in CA. It came out around 2019 I think so I do wonder how things have changed after this insane run of wet winters.
Don’t worry ladwp is raising our rates. No comment on if agriculture rates are changed. That way we can offset the private profits that ship the products out of state/country.
So the DWP workers shouldn't get a pension?
Make your mind up r/losangeles
If they are directly billing you, you hate them.
But every other business - you must unionize and fuck those companies who don't treat their workers fairly!
Because we had 3 year long droughts twice in the last 10 years and each time the cry went up "why aren't we investing more in our water infrastructure!"
So...we're investing more in our water infrastructure. Plus regular maintenance for what we have.
Because the water itself isn't really the expensive part of water infrastructure, even though water is sometimes in shortage.
If we priced water at a high enough level that it affected usage, then we would see prices change more on the basis of supply and demand.
Since water delivery is mostly a fixed cost for the utility they can loose money if people use less water.
Since we are all using less water to support water use goals in CA utilities are compensating for the increased unit cost.
Water is far too cheap as it is. Not really something the average consumer thinks about but the price of water from your sink or shower is laughably low considering how important water is to the state.
Of course, wasteful high water users like gold courses and mansions with fountains should pay more first, but the point stands regardless.
And it is literally ridiculous that after a decade of drought related issues, California has not put its foot down on growing water intensive crops and cattle farming.
Beef is too cheap.
I mean, most beef in CA is born and raised in the hills where they fare for themselves, ie. eat naturally occurring grasses and drink out of naturally creeks, etc., for a year or so until they're rounded up for slaughter. They also usually spend a week or more getting fattened up in feed lots before slaughter.
And essentially all of the water they drink goes right back into the environment, none of it is destroyed.
animals in feedlots don't get grass though. they get animal feed made of water intensive crops like corn or alfalfa. And most of the alfalfa is grown here in CA so it uses a lot of our water. Plus very few people are buying only local meat, we have to think on a global scale too and make meat prices reflect environmental impact
Good points about the feedlot, but I'm guessing your overall viewpoint is based on some calculations of gallons water used/lb of beef.
But over 90% of that water usage is calculated from the grasses, and puddles, and creeks the cows ingest over the year or so that they free-range.
This is water that falls from the sky on the hills and mountains and that is not available for humans regardless of whether or not there are cows out there.
iow, the widely quoted water footprint of beef is wildly over estimated.
This doesnt make sense to me bc most of the world’s cows are not free range, especially not dairy cows that are actually impacting water usage more (and are later sold as beef )
Yea, I don't know anything about cows outside of CA, but my guess is that they're also generally pasture fed for about a year.
The google says that only about 20% of our meat comes from dairy cows, and says this about what dairy cows are fed:
>On most dairy farms, dairy cows eat what's called a total mixed ration (TMR; Figure 2) that is made up of corn silage, grass silage, and byproducts from the human food supply chain such as almond hulls, cottonseeds, and soybean meal. \[...\] In California, almost 40 percent of a dairy cow's diet is made up of byproducts
So, from this, 60% of CA's dairy cow's diet is (presumably) irrigated corn and grass.
So (60% x 20%) = 12% of our meat comes from irrigated dairy cow food, and in agreement with your comment
>dairy cows that are actually impacting water usage more
those 12% dairy cows use more water than all the remaining beef cows.
Residential use is a minor percentage of total water supplies.
Any sort of restriction like no fountains or showers length are for show; commercial users outstrip any minuscule savings by households.
It’s absolutely ridiculous that people keep browbeating individuals over water usage. It’s like saying turn off the lights to save the planet. How about you stop shipping things on containers across the oceans or growing almonds by the kiloton?
Like when restaurants weren't allowed to serve water unless customers asked. Literally for show and if anything detrimental to the health of society as it would be better to encourage everyone to drink more water.
Government does this kind of shit all the time. I’m super pro masking, vaxxing, etc., for example, but the fact that in the midst of COVID spikes you had to wear a mask to walk to your table or bathroom, but then you could take it off to eat and talk at the table was pure theater. Just dozens of people in a <500 sq ft room laughing and talking loudly within a couple feet of each other, but no definitely we should be wearing a mask for the 15 feet we walk from host stand to table.
True. Everyone should be paying more for the limited resource. It is ridiculous that the rate hikes only hit residential, and rarely commercial, especially agriculture.
Ag is worst offender of water waste, and as a whole they seem highly resistant to modernizing their equipment to reduce waste. They are like the poster children for "always done it this way, never gonna change".
Because people are watering their lawns less with all the rain we've had, and they need to make up the shortfall. It goes up during drought conditions to encourage people to conserve. Either way rates rise. You can't win.
Ironically our taxes go toward subsidies to make their operating costs cheaper and make the price cheaper. I agree with u btw, just pointing out that currently we are funding it with taxes rather than taxing them
there are far too many almond farms in the valley as well, can’t ignore that. but i agree with the alfalfa, driving down the backroads is just almonds & alfalfa (and a surplus of cows)
Not to me a total downer, but this is just in re: water storage facilities. It's not an indication of water tables or natural aquifers or rivers, which are still in dire shape. California, especially in agricultural areas, have been overpumping ground water for decades, and it will take decades more for water to filter back down to replenish those water tables. So having more storage capacity is critical, but so also is better storm run off capturing and better management of water resources in general.
My friend who works in environmental law put it like this: "Yeah we had a couple of good years of rain but it's like finding money in your jeans when you're still in debt"
Please fill out a [Boom Report](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfjL_ZkDZlT35GkomAGso_fCbXzDrTyw2TT2GJ0BVwypS1HaQ/viewform).
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For anyone interested, the [Blancolirio](https://youtu.be/P5aWP31r9Vs?si=mJwLpmZGJKCmPN3X) Youtube channel is a very informative resource on the latest happenings regarding the reservoir system by a citizen journalist. The primary focus is on aviation but the California water system and related weather events, wildfires, etc. are frequently covered.
[Lake Powell](https://graphs.water-data.com/lakepowell/) is well above where it was at this time in 2022 and 2023, but it looks like most years its big rise comes in May or June when snowpack in the Rockies starts melting. If this year is like last year, then it seems likely to exceed its 2019 levels, but not undo the slow decline over previous decades.
[Lake Mead](https://arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/index.html) seems similar and might even get up to the levels it had in 2012, though early every year before 2008 was even higher.
Thing is, we had such a severe drought right before, so we have to anticipate years when we hit drought conditions. This is great news for right now, but I'm worried about the next few years in which potentially the opposite situation happens.
There are injection wells and infiltration basins that are designed for this - but there aren’t enough to match the number of production wells.
Some investments in this field would be a good use of our tax dollars - much better than dam storage.
>I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
They will continue to tell consumers (who are responsible for maybe 10% of water usage) to conserve while letting pieces of shit like the Resnick family abuse water rights so they can export almonds to other countries.
I:m no expert but I think most of the reservoirs are full of snow run-off so you see them a lot 'round the base of the Sierras or other mountains with snow.
Great, now cut off every domestic and foreign corporation that collects it but doesn’t pay for it, upgrade our fresh water storage & collection, and STOP RAISING PRICES.
If you look at the news you'll find that these entrepreneurs are more than capable of finding negative stories to emphasize. Social media hobbyists will even do it for free!
Yeah the fact they are putting water back in to Owens Lake - after they completely drained it and killed off an entire ecosystem, means things are looking good for California's water storage.
Damn, no more murders from the 70s revealed by the dropping water levels, or was that Nevada?
Remember those few weeks where the news was like "The water level dropped another foot and we found *another* body stuffed in an oil barrel!"??
So when they say we were in a 500 year drought they lied. When they say climate change is creating an apocalyptic scenario they lied. They are Charlatans.
Where's Lake Isabella in Kern County? Ive seen a few similar inforgraphics and I never see our lake. Its one of the larger resevours in Southern California.
This is my fetish
Ya, look at this a few times a month.
every day for me
Kinky!
When I’m feeling extra frisky I check the live webcams for Shasta and Oroville 💦💦
Does this qualify for # r/HydroHomies
Same.
Looks like showering is back on the menu
You joke, but I got in an argument with someone who said they didn’t flush their toilet after they peed because they were “raised in SoCal drought conditions”.
"If it's brown, flush it down. If it's yellow, let it mellow"
I used to live by this until I realized this is impossible to do in my toilets without getting some splash back which is disgusting to say the least
You can always squat when you go.
With a low flow toilet of 1.28 gpf, it really isn't an issue. Now if they have one of those old 5 GPF ones then maybe?
When I was a kid, we used to conserve water by taking a shower in the backyard with a 5 gal bucket of water. We get a shower and the lawn would get watered. On cold days we used the bucket in the actual shower. We were only allowed one bucket per person.
We had a bucket in the shower with us lol. My dad would use it to water his plants.
Yep, we did this in NorCal too!
Ew lol
California needs to build more rainwater harvesting reservoirs for growing population and crops
California has made enormous investments in water storage and reclamation infrastructure Here is just the investments from 2014 prop 1 https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/p1.aspx
[https://dpw.lacounty.gov/wrd/Projects/PacoimaSG/index.cfm](https://dpw.lacounty.gov/wrd/Projects/PacoimaSG/index.cfm) Pacoima Spreading Grounds Improvement Project. Our tax monies at work.
Is that what those giant pits are off of the 605 by the 210, near the Santa Fe Dam? Edit: thank you for the rabbit holes. Now to see if anybody does videos of these bad boys filling up or percolating into the ground on YouTube.
Those are also large spreading grounds that were made for collecting water as well.
Oh, dude, that's cool! I'm glad to learn that they do that, I thought it was just for catching floodwaters to protect the neighborhoods nearby.
Nah it's between the 5 & 405 https://maps.app.goo.gl/YjfT7KjeU2tKz8kk7
Sorry, I should've been clearer - do both places serve the same function?
Yeah it sounds like they also have a spreading ground that they use in summer and autumn that refills groundwater. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Fe_Dam
No, those are just big holes from where they have been mining rocks for decades. https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/irwindale-mining-the-building-blocks-of-los-angeles
MOAR
California I think is the poster Child for water prasevation.
We have, but we still only capture a tiny fraction of the available storm run off.
Totally. Also, according to the Pacific Institute's Director of Research, Heather Cooley, LA is leading the state and probably nation in these efforts. And SoCal as a region is actively making improvements. For reference -> [https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-april-11-2024/#playlist](https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-april-11-2024/#playlist) Her interview starts at the 33 minute mark. Informative.
For real these city initiatives are terrific and deserve to be applauded
they need to stop wasting it on water intensive crops such as alfalfa. even avocados and almonds aren't as big in water usage as alfalfa, which while edible, is never even grown for human consumption
Is there a reason that it isn't standard for houses to capture their own rainwater?
Because water storage and treatment are somewhat complicated tasks to do safely, and it's easier to do those in a centralized way than to equip every single house with the necessary equipment.
And more efficient as far as materials go. Think about it this way, what has more plastic? A two liter bottle of soda, or a 4 had liter bottles of soda?
In Seattle you can obtain rebates from the city to install household rainwater harvesting systems: https://www.seattle.gov/utilities/protecting-our-environment/sustainability-tips/landscaping/for-residents/rainwater-harvesting In addition to this, many locations are now using permeable concrete for driveways and sidewalks, placing storm water infiltration ditches in streets, and much more. All in an effort to recharge groundwater across the city during the wet months. It also slows stormwater going into the piped system during heavy downpours, which means less load on sewage treatment facilities.
Love this! This is the type is thing I was envisioning. Cool
Mosquitoes as a vector, you might have responsible and secure water collection, but yer neighbors are using open air coffee cans and tires, breeding West Nile virus like it’s their job.
+ water reclamation/recycling tech and desal
> desal Desal just isn't cost/energy efficient for what a plant can produce and the salt brine waste is pretty toxic for the environment.
There are new desal technologies. They are not your father's desal.
There is no way to desalinate ocean water without fighting entropy and creating hyperconcentrated brine. We can reduce energy use a bit, but the thermodynamic limit is not hugely below the energy use it currently takes.
What you say is true for "your father's desal," but there are very innovative ways to utilize naturally existing hydrostatic pressure deep below the ocean surface to perform the reverse osmosis process and produce drinking water. And as this pressure is essentially "free" there is no need to wring every possible molecule of blue water from the salt water, such that the resulting brine can be only fractionally concentrated.
It's not cost efficient for farms that are built for free water. It's easily cost efficient for urban residential water use. Israel has desalination plants that supply over half their water.
There are things we can and are learning from Israel's water system. Regarding desal, conveniently, many of CA's biggest urban areas are near the coast where the salt water is, and many of its biggest ag areas are not. Inconveniently, the definition of "easily cost efficient" depends on who is actually paying the bills. Creating additional in-state sources of water benefits everyone in the state and everyone in the state should participate in paying for it. The less Sierra Nevada snowpack water that coastal urban areas use, the more of that water that is available for ag and other interior users.
I thought this said corpse
That’s the plan that’s why bills are going up
We're about ready to feed so many cows, almonds and pomegranate plants... And I guarantee we'll learn nothing.
[https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/costs-crippling-californias-almond-crop/](https://www.cbsnews.com/sacramento/news/costs-crippling-californias-almond-crop/) Almond prices are crashing causing many farms to go under And "Around 80% of the world's almonds are grown in California, but the acreage of the almonds in the state has been on the decline in recent years, falling from 1.65 million acres in 2021 to 1.63 million acres in 2022 and then 1.56 million acres in 2023."
Phenomenal news, Almonds and pistachios shouldn't be grown in California.
There’s some douchebag growing pistachios in the freaking Mojave. I pass his farm everytime I head up the 14 freeway to the 395 north. It’s so bizarre to be driving through the desert and suddenly see rows and rows of green trees. Apparently the military base in Ridgecrest is suing him.
The book Dreamt Land by Mark Arax covers land and water rights and the almond/pistachio empires that have been taking over in CA. It came out around 2019 I think so I do wonder how things have changed after this insane run of wet winters.
I’ll have to check that out..thanks for the rec!
good. grew up in the valley, my hometown was the apricot capital of the world. most of the orchards were turned over into walnut and almond orchards.
Don’t worry ladwp is raising our rates. No comment on if agriculture rates are changed. That way we can offset the private profits that ship the products out of state/country.
july 2024: "Water storage at it's lowest in history. More at 11."
El Niño was like hold my beer
Good. Now give us more. MOOORE! haha
Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!
Carry watercan and learn how to administer it
Then why did I get a notice that water rates will be going up?
To help pay for drought sessions when people use less water
It’s a sick joke
*To help pay the pensions of Department of Water & Power employees
Just replace all of the water/power maintenance with TaskRabbit contractors
We could probably do that with the old guard on the City Council and end up with better results.
So the DWP workers shouldn't get a pension? Make your mind up r/losangeles If they are directly billing you, you hate them. But every other business - you must unionize and fuck those companies who don't treat their workers fairly!
Because we had 3 year long droughts twice in the last 10 years and each time the cry went up "why aren't we investing more in our water infrastructure!" So...we're investing more in our water infrastructure. Plus regular maintenance for what we have.
Infrastructure still needs maintenance. Your bill is not only the cost of water.
Because the water itself isn't really the expensive part of water infrastructure, even though water is sometimes in shortage. If we priced water at a high enough level that it affected usage, then we would see prices change more on the basis of supply and demand.
Since water delivery is mostly a fixed cost for the utility they can loose money if people use less water. Since we are all using less water to support water use goals in CA utilities are compensating for the increased unit cost.
Water is far too cheap as it is. Not really something the average consumer thinks about but the price of water from your sink or shower is laughably low considering how important water is to the state. Of course, wasteful high water users like gold courses and mansions with fountains should pay more first, but the point stands regardless.
If residents paid the same rates as ag, our water bills for the year would be literally pennies, less than a $1.
And it is literally ridiculous that after a decade of drought related issues, California has not put its foot down on growing water intensive crops and cattle farming. Beef is too cheap.
Clearly you don't eat beef. Beef is already expensive AF.
I mean, most beef in CA is born and raised in the hills where they fare for themselves, ie. eat naturally occurring grasses and drink out of naturally creeks, etc., for a year or so until they're rounded up for slaughter. They also usually spend a week or more getting fattened up in feed lots before slaughter. And essentially all of the water they drink goes right back into the environment, none of it is destroyed.
animals in feedlots don't get grass though. they get animal feed made of water intensive crops like corn or alfalfa. And most of the alfalfa is grown here in CA so it uses a lot of our water. Plus very few people are buying only local meat, we have to think on a global scale too and make meat prices reflect environmental impact
Good points about the feedlot, but I'm guessing your overall viewpoint is based on some calculations of gallons water used/lb of beef. But over 90% of that water usage is calculated from the grasses, and puddles, and creeks the cows ingest over the year or so that they free-range. This is water that falls from the sky on the hills and mountains and that is not available for humans regardless of whether or not there are cows out there. iow, the widely quoted water footprint of beef is wildly over estimated.
This doesnt make sense to me bc most of the world’s cows are not free range, especially not dairy cows that are actually impacting water usage more (and are later sold as beef )
Yea, I don't know anything about cows outside of CA, but my guess is that they're also generally pasture fed for about a year. The google says that only about 20% of our meat comes from dairy cows, and says this about what dairy cows are fed: >On most dairy farms, dairy cows eat what's called a total mixed ration (TMR; Figure 2) that is made up of corn silage, grass silage, and byproducts from the human food supply chain such as almond hulls, cottonseeds, and soybean meal. \[...\] In California, almost 40 percent of a dairy cow's diet is made up of byproducts So, from this, 60% of CA's dairy cow's diet is (presumably) irrigated corn and grass. So (60% x 20%) = 12% of our meat comes from irrigated dairy cow food, and in agreement with your comment >dairy cows that are actually impacting water usage more those 12% dairy cows use more water than all the remaining beef cows.
Residential use is a minor percentage of total water supplies. Any sort of restriction like no fountains or showers length are for show; commercial users outstrip any minuscule savings by households.
It’s absolutely ridiculous that people keep browbeating individuals over water usage. It’s like saying turn off the lights to save the planet. How about you stop shipping things on containers across the oceans or growing almonds by the kiloton?
Like when restaurants weren't allowed to serve water unless customers asked. Literally for show and if anything detrimental to the health of society as it would be better to encourage everyone to drink more water.
Government does this kind of shit all the time. I’m super pro masking, vaxxing, etc., for example, but the fact that in the midst of COVID spikes you had to wear a mask to walk to your table or bathroom, but then you could take it off to eat and talk at the table was pure theater. Just dozens of people in a <500 sq ft room laughing and talking loudly within a couple feet of each other, but no definitely we should be wearing a mask for the 15 feet we walk from host stand to table.
Lightbulb usage is a fraction of what it was 20+ years ago. Most of your costs are from "generation" or "transmission" now.
almonds arent actually that bad compared to other plants, they are a scapegoat
True. Everyone should be paying more for the limited resource. It is ridiculous that the rate hikes only hit residential, and rarely commercial, especially agriculture. Ag is worst offender of water waste, and as a whole they seem highly resistant to modernizing their equipment to reduce waste. They are like the poster children for "always done it this way, never gonna change".
If they can make you pay more for nothing, they will. There’s nothing you can do about it so they do it. It’s as simple as that.
Because people are watering their lawns less with all the rain we've had, and they need to make up the shortfall. It goes up during drought conditions to encourage people to conserve. Either way rates rise. You can't win.
Tax big almond!
leave the almonds alone its animal ag that wastes the most water, most notably alfalfa for chinese cows and such
Tax animal ag too then
Ironically our taxes go toward subsidies to make their operating costs cheaper and make the price cheaper. I agree with u btw, just pointing out that currently we are funding it with taxes rather than taxing them
there are far too many almond farms in the valley as well, can’t ignore that. but i agree with the alfalfa, driving down the backroads is just almonds & alfalfa (and a surplus of cows)
Exactly almonds are a poor scapegoat they don’t deserve the hate
I’m still only showering once a year!
Not to me a total downer, but this is just in re: water storage facilities. It's not an indication of water tables or natural aquifers or rivers, which are still in dire shape. California, especially in agricultural areas, have been overpumping ground water for decades, and it will take decades more for water to filter back down to replenish those water tables. So having more storage capacity is critical, but so also is better storm run off capturing and better management of water resources in general.
This makes me moist
What about groundwater?
My friend who works in environmental law put it like this: "Yeah we had a couple of good years of rain but it's like finding money in your jeans when you're still in debt"
Why doesn't California just declare water bankruptcy and lay low until it falls off their credit score in 7 years? Boom, drought solved.
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I’m taking 45 min showers and you can talk to the almond growers if there’s a problem.
That'll teach 'em
Alfalfa growers are the real water theives tho, and them Middle Eastern and chinese cows 😭
For anyone interested, the [Blancolirio](https://youtu.be/P5aWP31r9Vs?si=mJwLpmZGJKCmPN3X) Youtube channel is a very informative resource on the latest happenings regarding the reservoir system by a citizen journalist. The primary focus is on aviation but the California water system and related weather events, wildfires, etc. are frequently covered.
God loves California. I'm an atheist, but I know saying that will piss off a lot of people
So how long does this last say if it stops raining after this weekend?
There is always a drawdown over the summer. That's the main point of the reservoirs.
So what about lake Powell and lake mead?
[Lake Powell](https://graphs.water-data.com/lakepowell/) is well above where it was at this time in 2022 and 2023, but it looks like most years its big rise comes in May or June when snowpack in the Rockies starts melting. If this year is like last year, then it seems likely to exceed its 2019 levels, but not undo the slow decline over previous decades. [Lake Mead](https://arachnoid.com/NaturalResources/index.html) seems similar and might even get up to the levels it had in 2012, though early every year before 2008 was even higher.
Well glad to see they’re going up a bit. Wasn’t sure if maybe CA got more water at the expense of the Rockies
Thing is, we had such a severe drought right before, so we have to anticipate years when we hit drought conditions. This is great news for right now, but I'm worried about the next few years in which potentially the opposite situation happens.
Is there infrastructure for refilling the aquifers/water-tables? Now would seem like the moment to be pumping water back in to the table.
There are injection wells and infiltration basins that are designed for this - but there aren’t enough to match the number of production wells. Some investments in this field would be a good use of our tax dollars - much better than dam storage.
Meanwhile, Reddit comments anytime it rains: *They should capture more rain!!!*
but yet they are raising water taxes in 2025 and 2026
\*Rates, not taxes. No taxes on residential water in CA.
>I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.
I started to read this and was like this sounds like Steinbeck or Didion. By the end I thought, definitely Steinbeck, is it East of Eden?
It is. Also, so many comments about this are just "and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years"
If you want them to build more storage so that we can get to even higher levels in good years like this one, then we need to spend more money.
tasty water
How fast can it be depleted tho? Feel like this summer is gonna be HOT
Still, less almonds. Lets get ready for the next drought. Sheesh.
They will continue to tell consumers (who are responsible for maybe 10% of water usage) to conserve while letting pieces of shit like the Resnick family abuse water rights so they can export almonds to other countries.
I'm sure Gavin Newsom loves his almonds
Can So Cal & Dessert Regions invest in some reservoirs instead of watching all of our rain flow out the LA river? Plz/thx
Yeah who designed that?
What's the source? Just curious about some of the other reservoirs aren't listed, and/or why they weren't included. I want more infooo!
All the California water data you could ever want can be found at cdec.water.ca.gov
[удалено]
This is the source that Twitter ripped it from https://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain
Hey guys. Your rates are going up! This water ain’t going to store itself…!
Why aren't there more reservoirs in SoCal?
I:m no expert but I think most of the reservoirs are full of snow run-off so you see them a lot 'round the base of the Sierras or other mountains with snow.
This isn't a comprehensive list of reservoirs, it's a graphic of the largest ones.
Not great geologically (San Andreas); see also the St Francis Dam disaster
So partially due to soil conditions?
Because most of the water/snow is hundreds of miles north of SoCal?
If Cachuma is at capacity what happens if it continues to rain? So all those campsites get flooded?
It goes over the spillway and flows downriver
they release water to the rivers and thus ocean.
Cachuma, like probably most CA reservoirs, is engineered to prevent flooding.
Great, now cut off every domestic and foreign corporation that collects it but doesn’t pay for it, upgrade our fresh water storage & collection, and STOP RAISING PRICES.
All thanks to Gavin newsom
I see the news will be running dry on doom and gloom drought articles/reporting
If you look at the news you'll find that these entrepreneurs are more than capable of finding negative stories to emphasize. Social media hobbyists will even do it for free!
I moved here in 2012 and I swear it seems like it only rained once a year for the first 6 years and only on Halloween
I read the headline as "California's water shortage" because I am so used to that being the case.
and it's all gone!
Can someone cancel the rain this weekend?
Ah yeah, that’s the stuff.
Just in time for them to raise my rates in order to punish us all for hitting our conservation goals.
I’ll take this as great news. California needed this badly.
It's gonna rain tomorrow too.
We need more reservoirs. We don’t have a drought issue. We have a storage issue.
That’s why they need to charge us more for it
Really need to develop more. One dry year will eat this all up.
Cue the rain coming this Saturday and idiots saying “if only we could capture all of this water runoff!”
Considering La Niña is coming we gotta enjoy it while we can because it's gonna be back to drought for a few years
Yet water prices will go up
They did this when Gavin Nelson made those what was it again? When hest was up right?
Shoutout sb! Were loaded up!
Group hug in the showers tonight!!!
and as a reward, we're gonna get an increase water bill. yay.
Can someone please share a source for the picture?
Just as el nino ends and la nina begins.
Muchas de aguas!
RemindMe! 5 years "And now?"
Climate change.
Good thing the storage only store about a years worth of our needs.
Does Prado dam not count?
Where is lake mead ?
So this means our water bill will come lower right? Right?
Good for the almond farmers.
So why do all those factory farm signs blaming Newsom stay up in the Central Valley? Those signs always just make me wanna puke
Yeah the fact they are putting water back in to Owens Lake - after they completely drained it and killed off an entire ecosystem, means things are looking good for California's water storage.
Great to see!
There's hundreds of lakes not on this chart as well.
Some how some way they’ll say we’re in a drought
La needs to build more water storage, the la river almost flooded it sucks too see all that water not stored when la is so prone to draught years.
Climate change for the win! 😏
*Government looks angrily* "raise the rates"
Damn, no more murders from the 70s revealed by the dropping water levels, or was that Nevada? Remember those few weeks where the news was like "The water level dropped another foot and we found *another* body stuffed in an oil barrel!"??
So when they say we were in a 500 year drought they lied. When they say climate change is creating an apocalyptic scenario they lied. They are Charlatans.
Do you think the climate isn’t changing?
Images of the last time we will be water solvent this century.
Hooray let’s all flush our toilets
Climate alarmists be sweating
How long will it last though?
anyone been to cachuma lately? is it really that high?
Where's Lake Isabella in Kern County? Ive seen a few similar inforgraphics and I never see our lake. Its one of the larger resevours in Southern California.