Sierra Snowpack 2015

"If it was to come from anywhere it'd be from British Columbia."

You'll know the US is getting serious about that option when you see the "What's our water doing in their lakes" bumper stickers start to show up in significant numbers.

Shouldn't be long now….

Its time for Canadian Bacon 2.

"Turn on the water pronto or we'll bomb Toronto."

I'm in one of the counties on the Columbia where we've been warned that this will be a drought year for us. I live in the desert. I thought that was already part of the deal living here.

"I'm in one of the counties on the Columbia where we've been warned that this will be a drought year for us. I live in the desert. I thought that was already part of the deal living here."

If they don't do something about that underground plume of nuclear waste leaking from Hanford toward the Columbia, you're going to be a desert that glows in the dark in a few years.

So they got this problem with Zebra Mussels in the Great Lakes, they're freshwater…

Tree ring data tell the story.

CA is a very dry place.basically desert. The last couple of hundred years were just exceptionally wet.

Is a reversion to mean , really a drought?

"CA is a very dry place.basically desert"

Depends on what part of CA you are talking about… very diverse state…
In Nor Cal near the coast there are rain forests that get 60 or 80 inches a year.

billy

Heard an interesting stat today. The state would need to have 500 desalinization plants if they wished to provide the pop. of CA with water via that method. As I stated earlier in the thread, there are currently only 17 plants in the works, partially constructed, and operating One opened up recently in Carlsbad. Cost to build was ~$1 billion and it only provides 7% of the county's water supply! Water is about to get very expensive.

This may not be the thread to ask this question. If so, mods, feel free to delete.

Seeing as a great number of members on this forum live in California, and how the drought is not estimated to end any time soon, I'm curious to hear if anyone is adjusting their lifestyle or making any changes. Anyone moving? Set up a rainwater collection system? Something else? Or just ignoring and continuing business as usual?

Jack,

Yeah, I have made one change in my daily routine to try to save water.

I use a bucket to capture the cold water from the shower as I wait for the water to heat up.

I use that water to water some of the plants in my front yard.

Not directly associated with the drought, but I pulled my lawn out in my backyard and plan on landscaping with low water use plants with the drip irrigation system.

Going to reprogram my sprinkler system to water the lawn twice a week vs. three times.

I already have the system watering the yard early morning and in the early evening time to reduce water loss by evaporation due to the heat.

Honestly, the lack of water is a bit unnerving for the future.

Situation is very bad, but we are not feeling it yet as prices for water and food have not been impacted yet.

Yes….this thread is starting towards chaff, but it is an important discussion to have.

Tony

Some friends of mine collect the gray water from their shower, and then use that to augment the toilet flushing.

Personally, I am cutting back the plant irrigation on my patio from being ten minutes every day to be five minutes every other day. Other than that, it is business as usual. I seldom wash my car.

–B.G.–

My wife and I have been seriously considering moving to a small or tiny house. The main motivation for this would be to simplify in order to do more volunteer work, but it would definitely reduce our water usage drastically. If things got really bad, we could take our house with us to a new area.

For the last couple years I've watered my lawn and plants based on need as opposed to a daily or weekly timer. I know some will find this offensive, but I don't always flush when just urinating, unless we have house guests. I wash my car at lower usage hand car wash 90% of the time. I'd like to get a rainwater collection tank, but at this point, it might be too late.

When we moved into this house five years ago, first thing we did was take out the lawn. Drip irrigated plants and mulch has replaced it. Backyard lawn went a couple years later, still a work in progress.

Rain barrels were next; went through lots of the 55gal drums, had all kinds of leakage problems, and they just don't hold that much water. Got one 245gal tote, eventually got that hooked up to the front yard via a solar powered pump. Recently got another tote, opposite corner of the property. It can drain to the front tote, or be pumped. Right now the front tote is half full, back is full. But that will only last about 2 months, and that is with drip irrigation.

Started catching the wait water in the shower. Will stop using the dishwasher soon, and save the water before it goes down the sink.

If it is yellow, let it be mellow. If it is brown, flush it down.

Steve

"If it is yellow, let it be mellow. If it is brown, flush it down."

or – if it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down

kind of rolls off the tongue a bit better : )

yellow, after an hour or two, get's populated by bacteria, so maybe it should be

if it's yellow, let it mellow for up to 1 or 2 hours, if it's brown, flush it down

+1 On Less Flushing of the Toilet

I grew up during a drought in the Bay Are in the 1970's and our family normally limited the flushing of the toilets to save water.

So pretty normal for me, though it can bother others.

I normally wash my dishes by hand without having the faucet running the whole time.

I have taken some of the cleaner rise water and used it to water some plants too.

Glad that I am not the only crazy person out there doing this.

Tony

The typical city person uses about 3,000 gallons per month. 3,000 divided by 30 = 100 gallons a day. People who try to conserve generally vy following city and state guidelines typically get down to 2,000 or 1,500 gallons a month so that's about 50 to 67 or so gallons a month.

When car camping I can get by on about 2 or 3 gallons of water a day… and that includes cooking and a shower. Throw in another 2 gallons a day for washing cloths = 5 gallons a day.

So it seems there is plenty of room to save water if things get really dire in the west. But question is, could you get the majority to cooperate and cut that much without calling in the national guard or something drastic like that????

Billy

What individuals use are peanuts compared to big commercial farms in the west who have already bought water for the next decade irregardless of drought severity.
Sure, saving water makes sense and I am not wasteful but the big consumers bought your representatives.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/04/the-politics-of-drought-california-water-interests-prime-the-pump-in-washington/

39 million in CA x 50 gallons a day potential savings = 2 trillion gallons A DAY… hardly peanuts.

And… it is my understanding that CA is rationing water to farmers up to a 90% cut… and have been. Still there are legal water rights that would be harder to override… and we do have to eat, ya know…

Perhaps what would be done is legislation to make drip irrigation mandatory regardless (BTW irregardless is not word) of water rights…

billy

Peanuts only in comparison. To continue to grow ( for profit) commercial crops that use large quantities of water, with a lot of it running into the ocean here on the coast during a drought, makes no sense. California consumes a fraction of the sprouts it grows. The romantic idea we have of farmers is just that, romantic.

Like I said, conserving is good, no problem here, but looking at the reality of water and politics is also necessary.

Picking at my language….ok. It's my fifth one so maybe give me a break.

What irks me is that as a nation, we seem to focus on solving these issues by figuring out how to increase the supply instead of reducing the demand. I'm not surprised to see like minded people here but I'm usually in the minority on this topic.

Tried to talk the wife into going with a composting toilet. Denied. I'll keep at it. The composting toilet I want to get has a urine diverter. It's my understanding that diluting urine with your gray water (assuming no harmful soaps) is great for the plants.

I take navy showers. I need to rip out my front lawn and go with drip lines and xeriscaping. I have a ways to go but little strokes fell great oaks and all that.

I work as a gardener at a University. Last year we had to cut 2/3 of our water use compared to the previous year. Barely keeping our plants alive while the lawns ( at the same University) continue to be irrigated 3 days a week. Things should make some sense and the fact that so often they don't is just frustrating.

It's interesting to visit countries where there's a community well that everyone draws from. One of my neighbors is from Indonesia. Her family has to boil their drinking water every day. I suspect a person tends to be a bit more economical with their water consumption when you have to invest a chunk of your day hauling the water to your house and treat it for consumption.

If you look at it through the eyes of an anthropologist (requires a certain amount of detachment from your judgements of how is 'should' be…), then it all makes 'sense'.

For instance, one anthropological interpretation might be:
America history is that of a 'frontier country' so it makes sense that Americans would have handed down their tradition of viewing resources as limitless from generation to generation and thus be 'conservation challenged'.

Also, try to remember that democracies have a hard time making great changes except in the face of disaster…

Makes sense to me.

Billy

I was driving I-5 north of Sacramento, noticed a lot of drip irrigation in farms

"Perhaps what would be done is legislation to make drip irrigation mandatory regardless (BTW irregardless is not word) of water rights…"

A HUGE +1 to that. Driving by miles and miles of fields that are irrigated by flooding them in 90 degree weather, and seeing the salt residue, drives me nuts. All that water evaporated, salt buildup, then more water required to flush the salts, is moronic. Drip irrigation should be mandatory. If you can't grow crops suitable for drip, don't grow them. Ditto for growing rice and cotton. Sheer insanity in a water challenged environment. And why not cover the irrigation canals that deliver water from the Sierra? More evaporation and higher concentrations of salts in the remaining water. I mean, the Iranians and Afghans figured out to cover their irrigation canals over 2000 years ago. Wake up Californians. The party's over and Mother Nature's presenting the bill.

huge +1 that irregardless isn't a word?

(I hate people that correct others for using that non-word – it's a word now)

the way water rights are assigned is weird – highest rights person gets all their allocation, then the next,…

and can't people pump water out of the ground all they want?

if (the government) wanted to fix this, they'de be declared unconstitutional, taking people's property, communist,…

according to the google, agriculture uses 4 times as much water as urban