Water.....

[present tense]

Casitas might be an issue with the data, when I looked at that link earlier, it had water in it, then poof gone.

[old goat]

Obviously the rain in CA does nothing for Lake Mead.

[SkiBall]

Dig a trench.

[dunfree]

Casitas might be an issue with the data, when I looked at that link earlier, it had water in it, then poof gone.

seems to be something with data, here’s a link
https://www.vcwatershed.net/fws/repo...servoir-report
which shows about 40% of capacity
also problem with diversion to fill dam

Heavy sedimentation and debris flows on the Ventura River has caused damage to the Robles Facility. Diversions will recommence as soon as repairs can be made. Lake Casitas continues to benefit from the flows from surrounding creeks however.

[Not DJSapp]

https://cdec.water.ca.gov/resapp/RescondMain

Attachment 442215

Mixed bag, some reservoir storage levels catching up to normal seasonal volumes, some still behind and some above normal seasonal volume.

This is quite disingenuous as to the real state of water in CA. Reservoir storage in Nov-Jan is the low point for the year and where it starts recovering. Snowpack is the real storage location by several orders of magnitude. The entire game of reservoir operations are to forecast the potential maximum inflow and make sure they don't overflow, or be forced to release so much they flood downstream. They operate to even out the surges, and then hold everything they can starting in April or so.

The nightmare situation is a big warm storm in Feb/March which triggers a huge rain on snow event, and suddenly the 50% full reservoirs cannot let water out early enough without overtopping either the dam, or the levees downstream. This is exactly what happened at Oroville several years ago. They were releasing down the spillway as per normal operation and it developed a pothole. Then they thought they could absorb the rest of the rain on snow hit and guessed wrong. They started dumping down the spillway again slowly as they were trying to save what they could and minimize the damage (it was already gone and DWR wouldn't let it go). Some dude thought they could use the emergency spillway to try and save the main spillway, but the emergency spillway was immediately compromised once it overtopped. At that point they ripped open the regular spillway and wrote it off as a total loss to keep from losing the whole lake in an uncontrolled fashion. The main spillway overloaded the levees downstream and caused a lot more havok, but the dam didn't fall over.

Reservoirs are sponges that are designed to keep the rivers under control during the winter. They only retain water once the significant winter storm season is over.

[Danno]

^^^^
truth

for most reservoirs, their current fill level this time of year is not all that meaningful. Snowpack is the real reservoir.

[present tense]

This is quite disingenuous as to the real state of water in CA. Reservoir storage in Nov-Jan is the low point for the year and where it starts recovering. Snowpack is the real storage location by several orders of magnitude. The entire game of reservoir operations are to forecast the potential maximum inflow and make sure they don't overflow, or be forced to release so much they flood downstream. They operate to even out the surges, and then hold everything they can starting in April or so.

The nightmare situation is a big warm storm in Feb/March which triggers a huge rain on snow event, and suddenly the 50% full reservoirs cannot let water out early enough without overtopping either the dam, or the levees downstream. This is exactly what happened at Oroville several years ago. They were releasing down the spillway as per normal operation and it developed a pothole. Then they thought they could absorb the rest of the rain on snow hit and guessed wrong. They started dumping down the spillway again slowly as they were trying to save what they could and minimize the damage (it was already gone and DWR wouldn't let it go). Some dude thought they could use the emergency spillway to try and save the main spillway, but the emergency spillway was immediately compromised once it overtopped. At that point they ripped open the regular spillway and wrote it off as a total loss to keep from losing the whole lake in an uncontrolled fashion. The main spillway overloaded the levees downstream and caused a lot more havok, but the dam didn't fall over.

Reservoirs are sponges that are designed to keep the rivers under control during the winter. They only retain water once the significant winter storm season is over.

No dis-ingenuity intended, though I’ve deleted the post comments since they missed the mark entirely.

Makes sense that current % of normal reservoir storage is a meaningless stat since the majority of the potential inflow volume is still sitting frozen on the ground.

[paulster2626]

Obviously the rain in CA does nothing for Lake Mead.

I mean, not obvious for a guy living near the Great Lakes who has never once ever thought about water scarcity - it was an honest question and I appreciate the responses. I also assumed since the weather would ultimately travel east, that maybe it would have an effect. <shrug.jpg>

We do rely on California for produce a lot here even in Canada, so it is something I'm genuinely curious about.

[gravitylover]

Drill a whole bunch of really deep holes so some of that excess water that's draining off into the ocean can get to the aquifers to help replenish them somewhat. Just a thought...

[skaredshtles]

Drill a whole bunch of really deep holes so some of that excess water that's draining off into the ocean can get to the aquifers to help replenish them somewhat. Just a thought...

[gravitylover]

Hahaha

[old goat]

I mean, not obvious for a guy living near the Great Lakes who has never once ever thought about water scarcity - it was an honest question and I appreciate the responses. I also assumed since the weather would ultimately travel east, that maybe it would have an effect. <shrug.jpg>

We do rely on California for produce a lot here even in Canada, so it is something I'm genuinely curious about.

As a Canadian you are forgiven for not being familiar with the hyrdologic geography of the US. But you should be, because we're coming for your water next.

Drill a whole bunch of really deep holes so some of that excess water that's draining off into the ocean can get to the aquifers to help replenish them somewhat. Just a thought...

There's a lot of serious work being done on recharging aquifers but it's hard to handle large volumes of water over short time periods. In the olden days--more olden than me even--the Central Valley was a lake in the winter. The land available for recharge is a miniscule fraction of that. It is estimated that the groundwater now being pumped in California is 20,000 years old.

[Not DJSapp]

There's a lot of serious work being done on recharging aquifers but it's hard to handle large volumes of water over short time periods. In the olden days--more olden than me even--the Central Valley was a lake in the winter. The land available for recharge is a miniscule fraction of that. It is estimated that the groundwater now being pumped in California is 20,000 years old.

Yup. People in general don't even begin to fathom the land area required to feed our water needs, or the size of the lakes needed to attempt to capture and hold onto it. The Central Valley is something around 27,000 square miles, which is somewhere between South Carolina and West Virginia for land mass. To contemplate that a large portion of that land was a seasonal lake to recharge the ground water during the winter boggles the mind. Tulare lake was 800 square miles worth of standing lake in the south valley and it's gone now because we diverted everything. For reference, Tahoe is about 200 sqmi, so this lake that is flat ass gone is 4 Tahoes. More reservoirs aren't going to solve the issue, unless we just go back to the idea of putting up a dam on the golden gate (which is a whole other bunch of disasters).

[Bunion 2020]

You a hydrologist DJ?

Excellent points

[oldnew_guy]

Piece from 2013 on the 1861 flood of the Central Valley:

https://cw3e.ucsd.edu/wp-content/upl...am_sciam13.pdf


Found that when I was looking for another article that I could swear came out last summer on the topic of atmospheric rivers and how periodically they just line up on CA and don’t stop for weeks and weeks. Nat Geo? Outside?

[Not DJSapp]

You a hydrologist DJ?

Excellent points

No. Heavy Civil Engineer Contractor building water resource projects (among other things) in CA. Understanding DWR and USACE (and lots of smaller local water agencies) and what their challenges are, what they want to build, what they should build, and why is all part of the job here. We need to understand what is coming down the work pipeline, and what is just the public/politicians making noise about things that aren't real.

Grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, so this is all home turf.

Do keep in mind the ugly, ugly, truth that with all things water in the west, it's all for the ag industry with only a few exceptions for small watersheds on the coast. If we made a decision to tell ag to fuck off and they get nothing other than what falls out of the sky onto their land, the population centers would have plenty of water. But when ag doesn't get their share, they cry to Sacramento and Washington. Big farming tax dollars talk.

[paulster2626]

Do keep in mind the ugly, ugly, truth that with all things water in the west, it's all for the ag industry with only a few exceptions for small watersheds on the coast. If we made a decision to tell ag to fuck off and they get nothing other than what falls out of the sky onto their land, the population centers would have plenty of water. But when ag doesn't get their share, they cry to Sacramento and Washington. Big farming tax dollars talk.

Wouldn't this also result in $8 lettuce?

[m2711c]

grow yer own damn lettuce.

[bodywhomper]

Dettinger and Daniel swain are both worth following on Twitter as gateways to learning more about some of the big picture, especially related to AR and climate change. Swain has stated that CA precip totals will be about 1/3-1/2 what’s needed for a smaller ARKStorm. Academics have applied that term to describe the big flood event experienced in 1861 in California.

This has certainly been an interesting winter so far. Some rivers and creeks monitored by the CA/NV River Forecast Center appear to have experienced a “flood of record.” I’m glad no dam operators made the mistakes made with oroville in 2017.

I’m already seeing loud complaints online about how the reservoirs aren’t full and bracing for the stupid politicians about how there needs to be a dam in the delta and the Marysville dam needs to be built, blah, blah, blah.

[Not DJSapp]

Wouldn't this also result in $8 lettuce?

Yup. But the free market will figure out how to grow lettuce in a nearby greenhouse so you can enjoy water in a crunchy green wrapper that was locally sourced for $3/head instead of $0.75. It will just take a few years to catch up.

CA still exports cattle feed to Asia in the form of alfalfa, almonds and oranges are a global cash crop. This is all just CA shipping out water that has been reformed into food because we have the most favorable growing conditions and can produce food for less. Jack up food production price enough and all of a sudden it does make sense to grow oranges in a greenhouse in Siberia, because the land is cheap, water from the permafrost is plentiful, and with enough grow lights the sunshine doesn't matter.

[muted reborn]

Do keep in mind the ugly, ugly, truth that with all things water in the west, it's all for the ag industry with only a few exceptions for small watersheds on the coast. If we made a decision to tell ag to fuck off and they get nothing other than what falls out of the sky onto their land, the population centers would have plenty of water. But when ag doesn't get their share, they cry to Sacramento and Washington. Big farming tax dollars talk.

They aren't all crybabies IMO. Their argument is that they shouldn't give up their water rights because a buncha assholes hundreds of miles away decided to build major cities in a desert is valid IMO. But it would be nice if they compromise a bit for the greater good of humanity. Or maybe they sell their rights to cities for a fortune and quit farming? - not that I have any idea if that's possible legally?

[Danno]

Or maybe they sell their rights to cities for a fortune and quit farming? - not that I have any idea if that's possible legally?

In Colorado it sure is legal, though it is not a simple process. You have to go through a "change of water rights" case in water court, which is lengthy and expensive. And "buy and dry" is a very touchy subject here, politically speaking, because it does more than just move water to the city from a particular farm, it decimates rural communities and the rural environment (as land is fallowed, it can make the whole local environment drier and dustier).

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

They aren't all crybabies IMO. Their argument is that they shouldn't give up their water rights because a buncha assholes hundreds of miles away decided to build major cities in a desert is valid IMO.

Whoa, what about the buncha assholes who started major farms in a desert using subsidized water?

[Toadman]

Yup. People in general don't even begin to fathom the land area required to feed our water needs, or the size of the lakes needed to attempt to capture and hold onto it. The Central Valley is something around 27,000 square miles, which is somewhere between South Carolina and West Virginia for land mass. To contemplate that a large portion of that land was a seasonal lake to recharge the ground water during the winter boggles the mind. Tulare lake was 800 square miles worth of standing lake in the south valley and it's gone now because we diverted everything. For reference, Tahoe is about 200 sqmi, so this lake that is flat ass gone is 4 Tahoes. More reservoirs aren't going to solve the issue, unless we just go back to the idea of putting up a dam on the golden gate (which is a whole other bunch of disasters).

Pump it under ground. I know not as easy as it seems.

[LongShortLong]

They aren't all crybabies IMO. Their argument is that they shouldn't give up their water rights because a buncha assholes hundreds of miles away decided to build major cities in a desert is valid IMO. But it would be nice if they compromise a bit for the greater good of humanity. Or maybe they sell their rights to cities for a fortune and quit farming? - not that I have any idea if that's possible legally?

Likewise, do farmers have any right to that water just because a bunch of assholes claimed it over a hundred years ago so they could run low value businesses in a desert? Surely ancient claims is one of the stupidest inefficient ways to allocate resources.

Legally, anything the voters want is possible.