california going dry

[frodo]

calif. governor, asking for 25% reduction in water consumption.

if it was me, drill a well and hide it, :2cents:



http://www.salon.com/2015/04/01/californias_in_crisis_mode_gov_brown_announces_first_ever_mandatory_water_restrictions/

California’s in crisis mode: Gov. Brown announces first-ever mandatory water restrictions
California's epic, ongoing drought just made history again
LINDSAY ABRAMS Follow
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TOPICS: CALIFORNIA DROUGHT, GOV. JERRY BROWN, WATER SHORTAGE, SUSTAINABILITY NEWS, NEWS

California's in crisis mode: Gov. Brown announces first-ever mandatory water restrictions
FILE - In this July 15, 2014, file photo sprinklers water a lawn in Sacramento, Calif. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) (Credit: AP)
Facing an ongoing drought of historic proportions, California Gov. Jerry Brown Wednesday announced the state’s first-ever mandatory water restrictions.

On Brown’s executive order, the L.A. Times reports, the state water board is to cut water usage by 25 percent, a move expected to save 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the coming nine months.

It’s an unprecedented move for an unprecedented situation. The Sierra Nevada’s snowpack — which replenishes streams and rivers during the typically dry summer and fall — is only at about 5 percent of its historical average for April 1, the date considered to be its peak. That means this dismal amount of snow is about all California’s going to get to carry it through the coming months. The official measurement isn’t due out until later Wednesday, but to say this shatters records is an understatement: the previous low was just 25 percent below average.

“It’s a different world,” he said during Wednesday’s announcement, which he made from a dry patch of grass in the Sierra Nevada. “We have to act differently.”

The restrictions, importantly, don’t affect agriculture, which is responsible for about 80 percent of the state’s water usage. But it will impact nearly everything else — as a press release details, the order will:

Replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought tolerant landscaping in partnership with local governments;
-Direct the creation of a temporary, statewide consumer rebate program to replace old appliances with more water and energy efficient models;
-Require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to make significant cuts in water use; and
-Prohibit new homes and developments from irrigating with potable water unless water-efficient drip irrigation systems are used, and ban watering of ornamental grass on public street media






california, needs a desalination plant like the ones in australia

 

[slownsteady]

The rest of the southwest is desert. It's about to grow.

 

[nealtw]

price of veggies is going up.

 

[Chris]

As much as I hate jerry brown and I do hate his stupid railway to nowhere tax. We are in a drought, the same drought we have been in for the last 50 years. That and the California way of one upping your neighbor by having bigger and better yards is not helping.

That being said we have plenty of water but we don't know how to manage it. We stop giving water to farms and we triple the rates for people who use more than others but then it is ok to have twenty golf courses in Palm Springs running water all day because the elite want it. We let 98% of all rivers dump into the ocean because it is illegal to capture that water. We can't capture rain water because then we are keeping it from the ones who want to charge us for it. Our water districts dump millions of gallons of reclaimed water down the drains daily because they can't get rid if it fast enough because putting pipe in the ground costs money.

That and this state somehow thinks we are a tropical paradise when we are really an arid desert.

I'll stop now.

 

[slownsteady]

an understandable rant.

 

[nealtw]

Rant aside, most of that will be changing soon , very soon. Los vagas in the desert dosn't make sense but some of the things they are to manage and save water is going in the right direction.

 

[Sparky617]

Farmers definitely need to get smarter on how they irrigate in California, and many already have. To me it doesn't make a lot of sense to grow water intensive crops like rice and cotton in California when they can be grown elsewhere without the huge impact on the water supply. That said, most of our fresh produce comes from either, CA, FL, TX or now more often than not Mexico and Central America.

Locavore sounds all well and good, but I do kind of like to have salad, strawberries, and fresh vegetables year round. Absent a greenhouse you can't grow it year round in NC.

 

[nealtw]

They should have been working on this befroe the lake went dry.

 

[Chris]

Half of our LA Cities require you to keep a green lawn, My grandfather lives in Glendale and if he doesn't keep a green lawn he gets a fine but if he waters on a day that is not Wednesday, Friday or Sunday he gets a fine. If he uses too much water he gets a fine.

Where I live nobody should have a lawn, It is around 100 degrees and dry all summer long, we waste a lot of water keeping them alive yet no one goes outside to use them until winter. I have a very very small lawn of about 8' x 30' that is shaded so that helps.

I am a pipeline contractor and when I install a new fire or water line I am required to flush it for 5 minutes at full bore. I did a job last year that had 15 fire hydrants and 13, 10" fire risers that all had to be flushed at full bore for five minutes, we wasted more water in two days than a city does in a year. I flooded the Santa Ana river. Nobody seems to care about that waste.

 

[nealtw]

Plan for the future, every dissaster is an opportunity.City wide grey water systems, cisterns in every yard. and lawn removal.

 

[Sparky617]

Plan for the future, every dissaster is an opportunity.City wide grey water systems, cisterns in every yard. and lawn removal.

In the western US capturing water in rain barrels and cisterns can be illegal. A number of California cities do use reclaimed water for landscape watering. My own town in NC did it and new neighborhoods along the route a getting reclaimed water for landscaping and in office settings using it for the chiller plant. The main goes right behind my house but my neighborhood didn't get plumbed because the one existing neighborhood they did plumb pitched such a fit about the mess that they stopped the program in new neighborhoods. Ours was supposed to be the second existing neighborhood to be plumbed.

My employer uses the reclaimed water on the chiller plant for two 6 story office buildings and stopped taking a million gallons (so I'm told) a month of drinking water for the HVAC system. There are a lot of things we can do to conserve water and California needs to be at the forefront of this effort as they have 10% of the population all living in a very fertile desert.

 

[nealtw]

In the western US capturing water in rain barrels and cisterns can be illegal. A number of California cities do use reclaimed water for landscape watering. My own town in NC did it and new neighborhoods along the route a getting reclaimed water for landscaping and in office settings using it for the chiller plant. The main goes right behind my house but my neighborhood didn't get plumbed because the one existing neighborhood they did plumb pitched such a fit about the mess that they stopped the program in new neighborhoods. Ours was supposed to be the second existing neighborhood to be plumbed.

My employer uses the reclaimed water on the chiller plant for two 6 story office buildings and stopped taking a million gallons (so I'm told) a month of drinking water for the HVAC system. There are a lot of things we can do to conserve water and California needs to be at the forefront of this effort as they have 10% of the population all living in a very fertile desert.

All those rules will be a thing of the past soon, the deniers have caused a lot of time to be waisted. WE can grow here but we are going to be short of water too. Who knew you should water trees in Jan. when it dosn't rain for a month, some died.

 

[slownsteady]

Farmers definitely need to get smarter on how they irrigate in California, and many already have. To me it doesn't make a lot of sense to grow water intensive crops like rice and cotton in California when they can be grown elsewhere without the huge impact on the water supply. That said, most of our fresh produce comes from either, CA, FL, TX or now more often than not Mexico and Central America.

Locavore sounds all well and good, but I do kind of like to have salad, strawberries, and fresh vegetables year round. Absent a greenhouse you can't grow it year round in NC.

Combine the water problems with the rising cost of fuel (not happening right now, but will happen again) and there is a large argument for local farming. Problem, here in the NE, is that land is too valuable for farming. Only the developers can afford large tracts. It's gonna get interesting, folks.

Idea for a new forum: DIY California. There's a lot to work on.

 

[nealtw]

Combine the water problems with the rising cost of fuel (not happening right now, but will happen again) and there is a large argument for local farming. Problem, here in the NE, is that land is too valuable for farming. Only the developers can afford large tracts. It's gonna get interesting, folks.

Idea for a new forum: DIY California. There's a lot to work on.

We've had a land freeze on farm land for years so it is there for farming at a better price, but what it really did, is reserve acres for the rich to have a hobby farm around there great houses.

 

[Chris]

It would be nice if we could catch our grey water and use it for irrigation but it is illegal. That would be enough to water most all the plants in the yard minus any grass.

Gardens are way better to look at than grass anyway and can be done to where minimal water is used. I bet my little lawn uses more water than all my other drip lines combined on a few acres of my property.

They really should require a reclaimed infrastructure like we have for domestic water.

I do a lot of work for treatment plants and know that they produce way more reclaimed water than they can even begin to get rid of, all this water is technically drinkable and would be great for home irrigation.

My old neighborhood they piped in reclaimed to a park but wouldn't let any homeowners connect. It just doesn't make sense to me that we have remedies to problems but stupid laws and rules stop us from doing anything about it.

We have a similar problem with electricity, the power company for years says we don't have enough power and that stuff needs to be done so then comes solar. Now with so many people having clean energy the same power company has done two things, one they are raising the rates for everyone else saying they don't have the same customer base they used to and also coming up with a connection charge for those that don't use much power or live by the beach and don't run AC. An extra charge for not using enough power. It's a loose loose situation.

 

[nealtw]

I'm not busy so I have to charge mega buck, works for me.

 

[frodo]

when you get tired of all that foolishness out their. and want to live where you can do with your reclaimed, rain, water as you wish,
can drill as many water wells as your pocket can afford.

come on down here. . we have utilities that need installing also. .

you know what i had to go thru to build my house?

 

[slownsteady]

We've had a land freeze on farm land for years so it is there for farming at a better price, but what it really did, is reserve acres for the rich to have a hobby farm around there great houses.

As long as it's open land, eventually it will get farmed. I've already seen small corn patches between houses. It is amusing.

 

[nealtw]

As long as it's open land, eventually it will get farmed. I've already seen small corn patches between houses. It is amusing.

that's a maze ing

 

[oldognewtrick]

that's a maze ing

come on....really?