California Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday imposed mandatory water restrictions for the first time on residents, businesses and farms, ordering cities and towns in the drought-ravaged state to reduce usage by 25%... [amounting] to roughly 1.5 million acre-feet of water (an acre-foot of water equals about 325,000 gallons) over the next nine months... "We're in a new era," Brown said. "The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day, that's going to be a thing of the past." — CNN
Brown's executive order will also mandate:
Here's hoping these mandates are enough to somehow provide the 11 trillion gallons of water that California needs to recover from this very real and unprecedented natural disaster...
Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition!
22 Comments
Too little too late!
Michael, you're probably right, but what I want to know; when is Colorado going to declare war on California?
Colorado? LA and Las Vegas will be siphoning off the Mississippi River before long. I guess building cities in the desert was not such a good idea.
I have an idea I thought of last night while watching the news on this...dont know if its feasible...imperial valley has alot of geothermal activity...even some geothermal energy plants...why not channel sea water into a geothermal plant, evaporate it into steam energy, make power, then condense the steam into fresh water...its essentially energy and desalination all in one. could be used for irrigation for the crops!
The Colorado River is the source of 4,400,000 acre feet (5.4 km3) per year for California.[30] Six other states along the river’s watershed (Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, andArizona) and Mexico, share allocated portions of river water. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, or MWD, holds priority water rights on the Colorado. It sells water to 95 percent of the South Coast region. Lake Mead, formed by Hoover Dam, is the primary reservoir in the Colorado River basin. The Colorado River Aqueduct begins 155 miles (249 km) downstream from Hoover Dam, and can carry 1,200,000 acre feet (1.5 km3) annually.
An additional system diverts water from the Colorado River at the Imperial Diversion Dam provides waters to the Imperial and Coachella valleys as well as Yuma, Arizona, via the Alamo Canal, theCoachella Canal and the All-American Canal, which runs alongside the Mexican border. This system was also responsible for the accidental re-creation of the Salton Sea in 1905.
The Colorado is often over allocated, because apportionments were made on inaccurate measurements of annual runoff. Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert noted that the Colorado is "unable to satisfy all the demands on it, so it is referred to as a ‘deficit’ river, as if the river were somehow at fault for its overuse".[31] For years California took more than its share of the apportionment, because other states were not prepared to use their entire allotments. MWD became used to 800,000 acre feet (0.99 km3) excess of water. Pressure from other Colorado river states caused theSecretary of the Interior to order California to show progress towards decreasing its dependency on the excess 800,000 acre feet (0.99 km3), or face cuts.[32] The Colorado River Water Use Plan called for Imperial and Coachella Valley agriculture to give up water in order to reallocate 800,000 acre feet (0.99 km3) within the state. The plan’s proposals generated much controversy, and the deadline arrived with no agreement reached. The Department of the Interior reduced MWD’s access by 415,000 acre feet (0.512 km3).
Wiki-Cali
"I guess building cities in the desert was not such a good idea."
Exactly. Especially cities where the car is the main means of getting around. These areas are going to see a radical re-think on development issues in the next 10 years if current patterns persist. It could be a great thing for pedestrian cities and architects in general, but there will be a lot of losers too.
Agriculture is required to "report". And no mention of fracking. Go get 'em, Jerry.
LA should just drain Tahoe like they did to Owens Lake....
These areas are going to see a radical re-think on development issues in the next 10 years if current patterns persist.
If current patterns persist they will have ultra lux sliver condos with personal automobile elevators and ever-declining and increasingly underfunded public services, except of course for the police who will be armed to the teeth to keep the rabble in line.
I would bet that most people living in LA dont realise LA is a desert. Its been terraformed into something completely different.
Miles' graph is pretty informative in dispelling the "building cities in the desert myth" since that very little of California's water use is related to urbanization. The heart of California's water problem is not the local population, but the food that we produce for people in other states that want produce and meat, but can't grow it locally. Midwesterners, sanctimonious because of their abundant fresh water should consider their own role in the California water crisis before they buy another avocado, bag of almonds, or tomato.
And LA isn't a desert. Unless you think that Barcelona and Rome are also built in deserts...
LA may not be a desert but according to CEQA LA County has only 4% of prime farmland so something seems wrong somewhere.
it is a desert
Cadillac Desert
^I read the article. The author only seems to take into account the amount of rainfall as the metric to determine whether or not an area is a desert.
An important consideration is how much biomass the soil on which the rain falls is capable of supporting. If the soil is too acidic or alkaline, it will limit how much vegetation it will support.
When I lived in Orange County I noticed in non-irrigated areas the ground had patches of vegetation similar to West Texas.
havent read all the very informative items above, but a lot of cali-talk is about out of state investors determining what gets farmed. Almonds is usually the example.
it was technically a costal basin...but that is a biome very similar to a desert slightly more rainfall and greater humidity due to ocean...
Jerry Brown for President!
A couple things:
The chaparral biome is found in a little bit of most of the continents - the west coast of the United States, the west coast of South America, the Cape Town area of South Africa, the western tip of Australia and the coastal areas of the Mediterranean.
Lay of the land: The chaparral biome has many different types of terrain. Some examples are flat plains, rocky hills and mountain slopes. It is sometimes used in movies for the "Wild West".
Chaparral is characterized as being very hot and dry. As for the temperature, the winter is very mild and is usually about 10 °C. Then there is the summer. It is so hot and dry at 40 °C that fires and droughts are very common.
Fortunately, the plants and animals are adapted to these conditions. Most of the plants have small, hard leaves which hold moisture. Some of these plants are poison oak, scrub oak, Yucca Wiple and other shrubs, trees and cacti.
The animals are all mainly grassland and desert types adapted to hot, dry weather. A few examples: coyotes, jack rabbits, mule deer, alligator lizards, horned toads, praying mantis, honey bee and ladybugs.
So, if you ever go somewhere that is like chaparral, make sure to bring some sunscreen and lots of water!
From the ISC Audubon website.
The problem with fracking is not just the water use, but the toxic substances left behind from the process that contaminate the water supply.
regardless of the distribution of water between agriculture and urban use, we are in a drought. The problem as I see it is about perception and public awareness, you are still going to have a bunch of rich LA assholes watering all 20 acres of their lawn 2 times a day every day like they don't even give a fuck. These are the same pieces of shit that landfill 10,000 sf of Brazilian hardwood floors and replace it with bamboo because it is "green". Rich LA people are wacked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JE4GYS63ak
All true - it really is a class thing when it comes to residential water consumption. The richest neighborhoods in Los Angeles all consume more than twice the state average per capita. I would bet it is mostly landscaping, but then again landlords probably also aren't installing multiple showerheads in bathrooms in the manner commonly done in Beverly Hills...
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