5 ms·

1000 word opinion piece and not one mention of the Delta Smelt? The author is right though, this climate is the norm. A better way to put it is that California

by trimbo 5y ago

1000 word opinion piece and not one mention of the Delta Smelt? The author is right though, this climate is the norm. A better way to put it is that California has always been in drought. So when politicians say "drought", they actually mean "deficit". There's more than enough rain and snowpack, but we're not collecting enough of it to meet demand. We could collect more--at great expense--or use less. As i mentioned with my opening quip, something like 50% of the water that we could collect is allowed to run into the sea. The somewhat infamous reason for this is the endangered Delta Smelt. The truth though is that there's actually no limit to the water that would be used. Growers would still be demanding more. We allow the creation of billionaires on water rights here, through the growing of insanely water-needy crops like almonds[1]. Whenever this subject comes up, I recommend reading "Cadillac Desert". It really opened my eyes about the history and politics of water in the West. The "drought" talk is all kind of a scam, and it's good to see articles that kind of hit on that. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Resnick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Resnick

mandelbrotwurst 5y ago
Yeah, I’ve only read part of that book but it’s quite good. There’s also a long PBS documentary based on it that came out in the ‘90s (maybe ‘95?) available on YouTube.
- eigen 5y ago
  4 hour version. https://youtu.be/PR2BSGQt2DU https://youtu.be/PR2BSGQt2DU
eweise 5y ago
Maybe no mention of delta smelt because Sonoma doesn't get its water from the delta.
- trimbo 5y ago
  I was wrong, I glossed over the "migrating fish" reference here: > But Central Valley lawmakers are hopping mad that the governor didn’t declare drought statewide, because they want the rules bent to allow the opposite — more water from reservoirs to grow their crops, less for urban residents and migrating fish.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thaumaturgy 5y ago
No, there is not enough snowpack. It's currently well below the seasonal average for the last 15 years [1], the average for that period is lower than the historical average was when California water policy was first established, and 2014 was the driest period California had experienced for the last 1200 years [2]. Only 2017 and 2019 provided some relief since then. Current models predict a warmer and wetter California punctuated by extremely dry periods [3]. This is really bad news for a couple of reasons: Sierra snowpack accounts for around 70% of the state's overall water storage, which means it would need to double its total liquid water storage (and where is that supposed to go?), and agriculture is an important part of California's economy and contributes significantly to national food production, but also uses 80% of the state's water supply. And then there are the aquifers. Subterranean water has been pumped out faster than it has refilled for decades [5], and wells have had to be dug deeper and deeper. In 2016, some communities ran entirely out of water because they were built on underground water supplies that had gone dry. Some of this water storage can't be replenished, because the substrate that stores the water gets compressed as water is extracted and then can't store water again. Considered altogether, it is currently impossible to collect enough warm water to meet the state's needs. I love California but the long term water outlook for the state might be enough to get me to move elsewhere. It's very grim. [1]: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/02/sierra-snowpack-at-61-as-new-drought-looms-for-california-this-summer/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/02/sierra-snowpack-at-61... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/12/04/study-california-drought-is-the-most-severe-in-at-least-1200-years/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/... [3]: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/california-extreme-climate-future-ucla-study https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/california-extreme-climat... [4]: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf [pdf] [5]: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/droughts-exposed-california-s-thirst-groundwater-now-state-hopes-refill-its-aquifers https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/droughts-exposed-cal...
- Teknoman117 5y ago
  I hope we start rolling out desalination at scale before things get dire. As far as powering that goes, we'd either have to start deploying as much renewable energy generation as physically possible or get over our collective fear of building more nuclear power plants. Or both. One of those self contained, passively safe tanker truck sized 100 MWe reactors that last 30 years that LLNL has proposed a few times sounds like an awful nice way of powering your 40 MW desalinization plant...
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> The author is right though, this climate is the norm. A better way to put it is that California has always been in drought. I lost a lot of respect for anxiety over drought in California when my university set out little fact cards ("Please save water!") on all the dining tables with the following information handily presented: Rainfall last year: 210% of annual average rainfall Rainfall this year: 20% of annual average rainfall. That's not a drought. We're significantly above average over just the last two years. (As of years ago.) How can ABOVE-average water supply be an emergency?
- stouset 5y ago
  This is a wildly oversimplistic way of viewing the situation. The most obvious confounding factor is that California relies heavily on Sierra snowpack to provide water throughout the year. Snow that melted last year and ran out to sea is simply no longer available to us this year, no matter how much of it there was. There is no economically plausible way to capture enough of the excess in one year to last us through extended dry periods. Further, we need the vast majority of this moisture to come as snowpack in the year it does fall, so it can be naturally distribute throughout the warmer months. When most of that water arrives in the spring and summer, it quickly runs off. As things get drier, this problem worsens since the ground becomes less able to absorb moisture in the short term.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > Snow that melted last year and ran out to sea is simply no longer available to us this year, no matter how much of it there was. There is no economically plausible way to capture enough of the excess in one year to last us through extended dry periods. It's a pretty old technology known as a "reservoir".
    - zasz 5y ago
      Reservoirs are expensive. The commenter you are replying to was careful to use the phrase "economically plausible."
npsimons 5y ago
> through the growing of insanely water-needy crops like almonds[1] Deal with beef and dairy first, then we can talk about almonds: https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths

by trimbo 5y ago

mandelbrotwurst 5y ago

Yeah, I’ve only read part of that book but it’s quite good. There’s also a long PBS documentary based on it that came out in the ‘90s (maybe ‘95?) available on YouTube.

eigen 5y ago
4 hour version. https://youtu.be/PR2BSGQt2DU https://youtu.be/PR2BSGQt2DU

eweise 5y ago

Maybe no mention of delta smelt because Sonoma doesn't get its water from the delta.

trimbo 5y ago
I was wrong, I glossed over the "migrating fish" reference here: > But Central Valley lawmakers are hopping mad that the governor didn’t declare drought statewide, because they want the rules bent to allow the opposite — more water from reservoirs to grow their crops, less for urban residents and migrating fish.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

thaumaturgy 5y ago

No, there is not enough snowpack. It's currently well below the seasonal average for the last 15 years [1], the average for that period is lower than the historical average was when California water policy was first established, and 2014 was the driest period California had experienced for the last 1200 years [2]. Only 2017 and 2019 provided some relief since then. Current models predict a warmer and wetter California punctuated by extremely dry periods [3]. This is really bad news for a couple of reasons: Sierra snowpack accounts for around 70% of the state's overall water storage, which means it would need to double its total liquid water storage (and where is that supposed to go?), and agriculture is an important part of California's economy and contributes significantly to national food production, but also uses 80% of the state's water supply. And then there are the aquifers. Subterranean water has been pumped out faster than it has refilled for decades [5], and wells have had to be dug deeper and deeper. In 2016, some communities ran entirely out of water because they were built on underground water supplies that had gone dry. Some of this water storage can't be replenished, because the substrate that stores the water gets compressed as water is extracted and then can't store water again. Considered altogether, it is currently impossible to collect enough warm water to meet the state's needs. I love California but the long term water outlook for the state might be enough to get me to move elsewhere. It's very grim. [1]: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/02/sierra-snowpack-at-61-as-new-drought-looms-for-california-this-summer/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/03/02/sierra-snowpack-at-61... [2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2014/12/04/study-california-drought-is-the-most-severe-in-at-least-1200-years/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/... [3]: https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/california-extreme-climate-future-ucla-study https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/california-extreme-climat... [4]: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf [pdf] [5]: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/droughts-exposed-california-s-thirst-groundwater-now-state-hopes-refill-its-aquifers https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/droughts-exposed-cal...

Teknoman117 5y ago
I hope we start rolling out desalination at scale before things get dire. As far as powering that goes, we'd either have to start deploying as much renewable energy generation as physically possible or get over our collective fear of building more nuclear power plants. Or both. One of those self contained, passively safe tanker truck sized 100 MWe reactors that last 30 years that LLNL has proposed a few times sounds like an awful nice way of powering your 40 MW desalinization plant...

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> The author is right though, this climate is the norm. A better way to put it is that California has always been in drought. I lost a lot of respect for anxiety over drought in California when my university set out little fact cards ("Please save water!") on all the dining tables with the following information handily presented: Rainfall last year: 210% of annual average rainfall Rainfall this year: 20% of annual average rainfall. That's not a drought. We're significantly above average over just the last two years. (As of years ago.) How can ABOVE-average water supply be an emergency?

stouset 5y ago
This is a wildly oversimplistic way of viewing the situation. The most obvious confounding factor is that California relies heavily on Sierra snowpack to provide water throughout the year. Snow that melted last year and ran out to sea is simply no longer available to us this year, no matter how much of it there was. There is no economically plausible way to capture enough of the excess in one year to last us through extended dry periods. Further, we need the vast majority of this moisture to come as snowpack in the year it does fall, so it can be naturally distribute throughout the warmer months. When most of that water arrives in the spring and summer, it quickly runs off. As things get drier, this problem worsens since the ground becomes less able to absorb moisture in the short term.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > Snow that melted last year and ran out to sea is simply no longer available to us this year, no matter how much of it there was. There is no economically plausible way to capture enough of the excess in one year to last us through extended dry periods. It's a pretty old technology known as a "reservoir".
  - zasz 5y ago
    Reservoirs are expensive. The commenter you are replying to was careful to use the phrase "economically plausible."

npsimons 5y ago

> through the growing of insanely water-needy crops like almonds[1] Deal with beef and dairy first, then we can talk about almonds: https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths https://www.truthordrought.com/almond-milk-myths