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The state has been releasing water in order to leave room for this winter’s snowfall. We still have a lot of risk: the snowpack is part of our reservoir system
by gumby 3y ago
The state has been releasing water in order to leave room for this winter’s snowfall.
We still have a lot of risk: the snowpack is part of our reservoir system, but warm summers have been melting the snow faster than usual. So it’s good the state wants to build additional reservoir capacity.
- asdff 3y agoThe snowpack was also at historic levels last year
- KennyBlanken 3y agoThere's also ground compaction. People don't understand that when the underground water table drops, the ground compacts and you never get that capacity back, ever.
- elzbardico 3y agoIt is not like that. While ground compaction can happen in some circumstances, it takes quite some time to happen and its likelihood depends a lot on the type of soil.
- gumby 3y agoI think the GP was talking about underground aquifers not soil.
- robsh 3y agoHe’s referring to subsidence. The buoyant weight of soil is less than the dry weight, so it does compact when the groundwater is drawn down lower than ever before (as it has been for decades, getting lower and lower). It’s an irreversible process. The California Aqueduct is currently dealing with problems relating to subsidence - what used to be a smooth downhill grade is now slumping in the middle. The capacity of the canal is reduced and without intervention it would eventually be unable to flow uphill.
- flanked-evergl 3y ago> So it’s good the state wants to build additional reservoir capacity. How likely is this to happen? As far as I understand it, the US, and specifically California, has mostly regulated away it's ability to build any additional infrastructure. This may be overstated, hard to know as someone not living there.
- fshbbdssbbgdd 3y agoThey are about to build the Sites reservoir, 1.5 million acre-feet of offstream storage.
- flanked-evergl 3y agoThanks for sharing, though the specifics somewhat confirms my understanding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sites_Reservoir https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sites_Reservoir > The project was certified by Governor Gavin Newsom in November 2023 under SB 149, a new law that provides certified projects streamlining benefits regarding legal challenges filed under the California Environmental Quality Act.[10][11] Construction is scheduled to begin in 2024 with final design expected to be done in 2025 and be completed in 2030. If it was not for discretionary exemptions to regulations, it would likely not have been possible. It's also quite dystopian to have regulations that can be overwritten by executive discretion. This is a recipe for corruption.
- gumby 3y agoLaw-permitted discretionary exemptions are reasonable in extremis which I think California’s water situation is, a couple of good years notwithstanding. People can find any number of ways to be corrupt as well all know. Since you’re not in the US: California’s woes are vastly overstated. There are indeed real problems, but the government here is remarkably clean — shockingly so by the standards of East Coast States (original colonies) and in general California has a good track record of dealing with many major issues. We can all list unresolved longstanding problems we hate (my list is pretty much prisons, schools, housing NIMBYs and prop 13) but as a general rule they do ok. Also this is non partisan. Geographically CA is mostly “MAGA red” but corruption etc is pretty thinly and uniformly spread around.