Fresh water from the sea and from the air…

Bring on that good old American ingenuity to save the day.

100 litres ~= 25 gallons, or 9,125 gallons a year.

Much of the summer starts with overcast and low clouds each morning.

http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we19.htm

Every drop would help.

they are called Redwoods!

they collect the equivalent of a foot of rain during the summer, which rains down on the soil below.

only thing is, this past summer, not only was evaporation higher because the entire state was warmer than normal, there was a lot less upwelling off the coast of Central and Northern California and there was less fog too.

I went out to Puget Sound for work last summer and it was sunny with highs near 90. Way too warm.

We on the East had the exact opposite experience. Cool summer and very cold long lasting winter. I'm hoping the jet stream phase reverses because you need rain and we are about to get gouged on our utilities.

Lots of humidity in some places. Where I live, we run between 5 and 10 percent during the summer.

Not inland, though.

where a day with 85% humidity is low. I'm not crying but why isn't there a sweating smilie?

I don't do humidity very well. Makes my hair feel gummy too.

relative humidity is less in the interior because it's hotter there, but the San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento Valley have roughly the same dew points as the Bay Area.

and are all humid enough to make evaporative coolers fairly impractical.

and the Los Angeles region's humidity is higher than in Northern California and nearly equivalent to the Northeastern US.

I just know it feels much drier here in Sac. When I lived in Marysville about 50 miles north of here, there were lots of places with swamp coolers. Now, not so much. Mother lives in the Arizona desert and swamp coolers are pretty useless there from what she's told me.

I was born here and lived in both northern and southern Cal for over 50 years. The climate has definitely changed in that time! I remember a winter in OC in the 60's when there was ice in the puddles. That was a rare occurrence.

Just my dos centavos.

With the snow pack melting more rapidly due to climate disaster we can't count on a steady, slow spring/summer melt anymore. I don't like building reservoirs as much as anyone, but it has to be done. No telling if/when we get another one of those high pressure ridges settling in again or for how long.

California Proposition 1, the Water Bond (Assembly Bill 1471), was on the November 4, 2014 ballot in California as a legislatively-referred bond act. This measure was approved. This measure replaced a previous measure known as Proposition 43.[1]

The measure will enact the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014. Proposition 1 will:[2]
Authorize $7.12 billion in general obligation bonds for state water supply infrastructure projects, such as public water system improvements, surface and groundwater storage, drinking water protection, water recycling and advanced water treatment technology, water supply management and conveyance, wastewater treatment, drought relief, emergency water supplies, and ecosystem and watershed protection and restoration.
Appropriate money from the General Fund to pay off bonds.
Require certain projects to provide matching funds from non-state sources in order to receive bond funds.

Specific spending proposals in the proposition include:[2]
$520 million to improve water quality for “beneficial use,” for reducing and preventing drinking water contaminants, disadvantaged communities, and the State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund Small Community Grant Fund.
$1.495 billion for competitive grants for multibenefit ecosystem and watershed protection and restoration projects.
$810 million for expenditures on, and competitive grants and loans to, integrated regional water management plan projects.
$2.7 billion for water storage projects, dams and reservoirs.
$725 million for water recycling and advanced water treatment technology projects.
$900 million for competitive grants and loans for projects to prevent or clean up the contamination of groundwater that serves as a source of drinking water.
$395 million for statewide flood management projects and activities.

Gov. Jerry Brown (D) called on the legislature to replace the previous $11.14 billion bond (Proposition 43) with a cheaper $6 billion bond on June 25, 2014.[3] Brown called the previous water bond "a pork-laden water bond… with a price tag beyond what’s reasonable or affordable."[4] The legislature passed the new $7.12 billion bond on August 13, 2014.

The original water bond was moved twice. Originally certified to be on the state's 2010 ballot, it was removed and placed on the 2012 ballot. On July 5, 2012, the state legislature approved a bill to take the measure off the 2012 ballot and put it on the 2014 ballot.

too bad it was delayed so long. But maybe it wouldn't have passed without a drought.

I hope it's enough.

you make it sound like they can just be built and they will fill anywhere you put them.

where?

I expect it's going to be controversial. I don't have answers.

It's a win, win shovel ready project; the farmers and the conservationists love it. The operative word with this one is Offstream reservoir.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sites_Reservoir

#fail

through the Delta like shit through a goose makes total sense to me.

and what about the animals that live there?

just gonna make it so salty that none of the native species there can live and nobody currently getting drinking water from there will be able to in the future?

and not only that, why the hell am I reading here that it is somehow wasteful to allow the water to flow through the Delta and San Francisco Bay on its way to the ocean --AS IF THAT SERVES NO GOOD PURPOSE.



nobody would live here if this ecosystem didn't exist.

and you want to starve it of water? please.

North-of-the-Delta Offstream Storage Investigation

The California Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, working in cooperation with other federal, state, and local agencies, are studying the potential feasibility of alternative plans to build an offstream surface storage north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as part of the North-of-the-Delta Offstream Storage (NODOS) Investigation.

NODOS would provide a robust set of benefits, including water supply reliability for municipal and industrial uses, agriculture, and wildlife refuges; ecosystem enhancement actions to improve fish survival in major northern California rivers and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta); water quality improvements for Delta water users and estuarine species; flexible hydropower generation to support renewable energy sources such as wind and solar; recreation opportunities at the new reservoir and improved recreation at existing reservoirs; and local flood damage reduction below the new reservoir. Total water supply benefits of NODOS would be up to 500 thousand acre-feet (TAF) per year on average and over 600 TAF per year during dry and critical years.

The mix of NODOS benefits would also support improved flexibility and long-term viability of the Central Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP). As the current drought is showing, flexibility of these projects is impaired during multiple dry years or droughts. In addition to providing the benefits described above, NODOS would improve CVP and SWP flexibility by increasing water in storage, including during drought conditions. Average annual improved storage would be up to 1.4 million acre-feet (MAF); annual drought period storage would be improved by up to 1.1 MAF.

The potential environmental effects of constructing and operating NODOS are evaluated and potential mitigation measures are described in the NODOS Preliminary Administrative Draft Environmental Impact Report. The preliminary benefits and costs are presented in the NODOS Preliminary Design and Cost Estimate Report.

http://www.water.ca.gov/storage/northdelta/

Homes and businesses.

How often do you shower or wash your body? Chances are, you probably bathe too much! Bathing every day strips the body and hair of natural oils, and it dries out the skin. Trace washes away some myths and explains why showering too often could be bad for your skin and your health.

not showers.

So I guess youre right. Showers use about 20% interior res water Ive heard. But I wonder how much energy could be saved. Might not need that nuke plant.
And it might put a lot of plastic surgeons out of business though too. lol

wilderness on a high hill. My water in Minneapolis comes from the river and, after being used and treated, is returned to the river. The water at my log home comes from a deep well below my house and when it is used and enters my drain field, it slowly passes through the earth and rock and is filtered and returned to the water table below. California is different?

I'm not from CA but thats what I think. LA's and San Fran's for sure. So once the shower water drains its done and goes to the sea.

My laundry water goes to 4 spots. I'm in N.Cal.

I sweat a lot and I often come home with my shirt and underwear either wet with sweat, or covered in salt stains. And some people expect me not to bathe every day? Not EVER going to happen.

which is like 90% of Americans. I lighly exercise every day without breaking much of a sweat and only shower once every other week or so now because I dont need it. My skin itches less and get 15 minutes more sleep every morn. And showers screws up my skins micro-flora balance which I think controls body odors as well.

Ever been to Europe where they don't shower? They stink. You may like that but no thanks.

spending hundreds of hrs sitting next to them on trains and buses and did not notice that they stank HA! You joking?

please, get out more.

Trying to keep up....

and i'm just reminding folks here that upthread you said Europeans don't shower and that they stink.

wrong, which is not uncommon for your posts.

what the agenda is behind saying that Europeans don't shower and they stink, I do not know

Not all in Europe. Try to follow. Unlike you I don't have an agenda. I just post what I have observed. If you have observed something different then post it. See how that works?

interesting.

how does that work?

Also, you said Europeans don't shower and stink, but you said that without having been to most European countries?

your study sounds flawed.

i'm not here to make you proud when you say ridiculous things.

LOL

Is that where you "vacation"? Tell us about your experiences there....

I'll be happy not to see you over there.

We have that in common.

Some California drought pics are linked in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025555788

Was it dumped back into the great lakes?


rocktivity

because it's not coming over the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges to California.

Just a Orgone joke sorry

Maybe stop running large-scale agriculture in a natural desert? I can't imagine it'd hurt.

Are you going to pay for the people who can't afford that? Didn't think so...

It must be completely free to do it the current way. Oh wait...

Talk about a major disruption to our diets.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-watch-20141215-story.html

create earthquakes and maybe even tip plate tectonics to cause volcanic activity?

thanks!

I don't think that in Northern Ca. we are having a drought like winter as we had last year. We are getting a lot of rain. Southern Ca. is mostly desert without the water that is shipped to them. That won't change, but I think this year will be a wet one in Northern Ca. It might take more than one year to recover from the drought, but I don't see the drought like we have had continuing through this rainy season.

And we still pray for rain.

and how much energy do you want the state to use to ship that water over mountain ranges to areas away from the coast?

or placed glass over saltwater and let the condensation drip or collected the fog, or tasted the fresh water from a frozen seawater.


We could even let the seawater flood a desert area and perc down to replenish depleted groundwater.


Parts of our country will turn into desert. We have changed the climate with industries.

We have removed the majority of grazing animals who naturally replenished and renewed the land for millions of years.

We have changed the drainage of rains and always think to big when each tiny water holding terrace/soil/grassland adds to the groundwater.

the Central Valley of California, home to millions of people and a huge amount of agricultural land?

wow.

why on earth would anyone take seriously what you posted when you clearly posted it without any forethought of the consequences or requirements for carrying it out?

Intake pipes running through the Golden Gate and across the floor of the San Franscisco Bay to Antioch (can't pull directly from the Bay because of pollution and saltwater balance issues with the Delta). Desal plants in Antioch would dump the water into an extension of the Cal Aqueduct in Tracy. Once there, it would be shifted south using the existing aqueduct system (which has the capacity to carry far more water than we currently send through it). The eastern Coast Range has DOZENS of locations where new dams can be built and water can be stored, using the same mechanisms that we currently use to store water at San Luis Reservoir. We'd just be duplicating the existing system on a larger scale. Those reservoirs can't be built today because the eastern Coast Range is dry and has almost no water to speak of. Placing reservoir sites there has far less environmental impact than placing them on rivers.

Once connected to the Cal Aqueduct, the water can be shipped to any place that connects to or crosses that system (Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct for SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, the San Joaquin Valley, etc.) After being pumped into the reservoirs, gravity feed canals and pipes will also have the ability to move it anywhere from the coast to the base of the Sierra foothills.

All you need is a desal plant with an output big enough to constantly fill a canal, and massive scale solar power to run it all. That's no small feat, but it's entirely doable in a state with an economy the size of ours, and there's plenty of land around those same reservoir sites that can be converted into solar plants.