Octopus Overlords

Scuzz wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:

Scuzz wrote:http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott ... cks-salmon


Each mature marijuana plant uses 6 gallons of water a day, and there are at least 1,000,000 of them in Mendocino County alone.

Of all the users of water resources, I would think those using water to grow an illegal/unlicensed crop would be the easiest targets for enforcement.

I know the quasi-illegal nature of weed has made cops sort of pick and choose. I think in places where the crop is not harming anyone they may leave it alone. Around here they make big busts in the national parks and anything close to schools. I think in Mendocino they tend to ignore it unless it is just to freakin obvious. It is a huge cash crop up there.

Biyobi wrote:At this stage of non-information, I'm willing to believe that the illegal growers may be diverting up to six gallons per day per plant, but I have serious doubts that each plant is actually taking in that amount of water. If that were true, police would have a far easier time finding illegal indoor grow houses. A hundred plant grow house (small operation) would soak up 600 gallons per day. Water companies in the state will send out attack dogs for doing a one-time fill of a swimming pool. Six gallons per day, per plant for the 5 month growing cycle is going to get noticed faster than the large amounts of electricity used for the grow lights, which is usually how they find them.

Biyobi wrote:At this stage of non-information, I'm willing to believe that the illegal growers may be diverting up to six gallons per day per plant, but I have serious doubts that each plant is actually taking in that amount of water. If that were true, police would have a far easier time finding illegal indoor grow houses. A hundred plant grow house (small operation) would soak up 600 gallons per day. Water companies in the state will send out attack dogs for doing a one-time fill of a swimming pool. Six gallons per day, per plant for the 5 month growing cycle is going to get noticed faster than the large amounts of electricity used for the grow lights, which is usually how they find them.

They did a hell of a job. A watershed built for 2 million people now supports nearly 8 million, and another 50 million tourists each year.

After a century of development, half the Everglades is dead and the other half is on life support.

This is a problem, not just for the gators and snakes.

It is a problem for the eagles, panthers, snails, dolphins, hawks, manatees, flamingos, vase sponges, black bears and ghost orchids that make up the most unique, diverse wetlands in the world.

And most of all, it is a problem for people.

Because most of the drinking water in South Florida comes from the aquifers beneath the Everglades

Last week, Lake Mead, which sits on the border of Nevada and Arizona, set a new record low—the first time since the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s that the lake’s surface has dipped below 1,080 feet above sea level. The West’s drought is so bad that official plans for water rationing have now begun—with Arizona’s farmers first on the chopping block. Yes, despite the drought’s epicenter in California, it’s Arizona that will bear the brunt of the West’s epic dry spell.

Too often we try to wrap it all into convenient, simple packages — Central Valley and nut orchards — when more specificity is required to grasp the nub of the problem.

What part of the vast Central Valley? How dry is it and what's being grown there?

Let's begin with the basics. The Central Valley stretches 450 miles from Bakersfield north to Redding and is divided into significantly different hydrology regions that affect crop growing. Actually, they should affect it more, but farmers are free to plant whatever they want.

The long valley essentially is divided into two valleys — the San Joaquin and the Sacramento. It's the much drier San Joaquin that usually is referred to casually as the Central Valley — and sometimes a looming dust bowl...

...The importance in all this is that it's much drier — and more water-gulping for crops — in the southern Central Valley than in the north.

Look how the average annual rainfall increases from south to north: 6.5 inches in Bakersfield, 11.5 in Fresno, 18.5 in Sacramento, 26.7 in Chico, 34.6 in Redding. That's a 28-inch spread from very dry to very wet...

...Numbers have been compiled by Josue Medellin-Azuara, senior researcher at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. He figures it takes 4 acre-feet of irrigation water to grow an acre of almonds or pistachios in the Tulare Basin, where nut orchards have expanded the most in the last decade.

In the rest of the San Joaquin Valley, it requires 3.4 acre-feet. But in the Sacramento Valley, these nuts need only 2.4 acre-feet. That's a difference of roughly one acre-foot, or nearly 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two households for a year.

There are 916,000 acres of almond and pistachio trees in the semi-arid San Joaquin, Medellin-Azuara says, but only 162,000 acres in the wetter Sacramento Valley.

The Sacramento used to be the main producer of these nuts, but when the federal and state water projects brought irrigation to the San Joaquin, the increasingly profitable and exported crops took off there.

Stone fruit — apricots, peaches, cherries — also require more irrigation in the south than in the north, 3.8 acre-feet compared with 2.8. Same with alfalfa, nearly 5 acre-feet contrasted with 4.

Enough wrote:Nobody actually knows how much water farmers in California use.

If you ever wonder if LA is doing their part on water conservation I'm here to report they are not.
After spending a week vacationing around Disneyland I've witnessed people spraying down their yard, parks being watered nightly. The place we stayed had their sprinklers on every morning.
Meanwhile we are on tight restrictions and we are shipping Northern California's water supply to them while they waste it.

LordMortis wrote:It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/rich-c ... ar-BBl6vyY

Let them eat cake!

Sometimes I wonder exactly how close we are to rioting in the streets. And while I hate my lawn, I love the rain that makes it grow. The only time I have ever watered my mess of a yard is when I use weed killer that requires a hose... I made the mistake of using a hose based Weed and Feed once... Once...

California is sinking – and fast.

While the state’s drought-induced sinking is well known, new details highlight just how severe it has become and how little the government has done to monitor it.

Last summer, scientists recorded the worst sinking in at least 50 years. This summer, all-time records are expected across the state as thousands of miles of land in the Central Valley and elsewhere sink. ...

...The cause is known: People are pulling unsustainable amounts of water out of underground aquifers, primarily for food production. With the water sucked out to irrigate crops, a practice that has accelerated during the drought, tens of thousands of square miles are deflating like a leaky air mattress, inch by inch.

Some places in the state are sinking more than a foot per year. The last time it was this bad, it cost the state more than a billion dollars to fix...

...The sinking, which peaked in the late 1960s, wreaked havoc on the state’s rapidly expanding infrastructure, damaging highways, bridges and irrigation canals. One estimate by the California Water Foundation put the price tag at $1.3 billion for just some of the repairs during that time.

The sinking did not slow until the 1970s, after California had completed its massive canal system – the most expensive public works project in state history. It delivered water from wetter parts of the state to farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere, relieving their reliance on groundwater. The problem was fixed – at least for a while...

...Last year, the state passed its first law attempting to regulate groundwater, but farmers won’t be required to meet goals until 2040 at the earliest. And the information on who is pumping what will be kept private.

“A doomsayer would say we will run out of water,” said Matt Hurley, general manager of the Angiola Water District, near Bakersfield. “But I don’t believe we’re heading there. We’ve been given a good opportunity with the sustainability law.”

But Devin Galloway, a scientist with the geological survey, sees devastation of a historic proportion returning to California. He says that even if farmers stopped pumping groundwater immediately, the damage already done to aquifers now drained to record-low levels will trigger sinking that will last for years, even decades.

“This could be a very long process. Even if the water levels recover, things could continue to subside,” he said. “This is a consequence of the overuse of groundwater.”

Daehawk wrote:I went and looked at a lot of info and pics of this. The pics of the sprinklers full on and it running down the road pissed me off and I dont live there. Why dont they have workers out marking these homes and businesses wasting water when told not to and shut their watre off for a week as punishment? They'd learn.

Daehawk wrote:I went and looked at a lot of info and pics of this. The pics of the sprinklers full on and it running down the road pissed me off and I dont live there. Why dont they have workers out marking these homes and businesses wasting water when told not to and shut their watre off for a week as punishment? They'd learn.

rshetts2 wrote:I saw this on Facebook. I havent done any checking on its numbers or accuracy but it does give one cause for thought.




If true, thats a lot of water to be spending on what is already a questioned practice.

LawBeefaroni wrote:Not that pumping saltwater oil slicks into the ground is great for freshwater reserves but would have to see the real numbers to get a feel for the true impact.

LawBeefaroni wrote:

rshetts2 wrote:I saw this on Facebook. I havent done any checking on its numbers or accuracy but it does give one cause for thought.




If true, thats a lot of water to be spending on what is already a questioned practice.

Need more detail. How much of that 80B gallons is salt water or other non-usable water, including recycled fracking water? Not that pumping saltwater oil slicks into the ground is great for freshwater reserves but would have to see the real numbers to get a feel for the true impact.

Reuters recently reported that, according to California officials, oil and gas operations used 214 acre-feet of water in the process of hydraulic fracturing. That’s the equivalent of 70 million gallons, or what 514 California households need for a year.

Investigations about how state regulators are overseeing the disposal of that wastewater (and admissions by the regulators themselves) have revealed problems with the state’s oversight of this water.

Last fall, the EPA issued emergency closure orders for 11 injection wells, most of which were illegally dumping wastewater in groundwater aquifers meant to be protected.

Scuzz wrote:I also would like to know where those 2 million people are without water. I do know a couple small towns in the valley have water problems, and at least half of one city (Porterville) went without plumbed water last year but I believe that has been resolved now.

2 million people is a very large number and nothing like that has been in the news.

Alefroth wrote:

Scuzz wrote:I also would like to know where those 2 million people are without water. I do know a couple small towns in the valley have water problems, and at least half of one city (Porterville) went without plumbed water last year but I believe that has been resolved now.

2 million people is a very large number and nothing like that has been in the news.

How many homeless do you think there are in the state? I imagine a lot of the migrant population doesn't have reliable access to water either. I think you get to two million pretty quickly.

Moliere wrote:California Assemblywoman: Drought Represents God’s Wrath Over Abortion

Scuzz wrote:

Alefroth wrote:

Scuzz wrote:I also would like to know where those 2 million people are without water. I do know a couple small towns in the valley have water problems, and at least half of one city (Porterville) went without plumbed water last year but I believe that has been resolved now.

2 million people is a very large number and nothing like that has been in the news.

How many homeless do you think there are in the state? I imagine a lot of the migrant population doesn't have reliable access to water either. I think you get to two million pretty quickly.

But the implication is that these are people who lack water do to either the oil industry or the drought. The migrant population or homeless would be in the same situation without that.

Regardless that number is large. It is 5% of the general population. It is not like water spigots all over the state have just been turned off.

Alefroth wrote: Hmm... I didn't think that was the implication.

Alefroth wrote:

Scuzz wrote: But the implication is that these are people who lack water do to either the oil industry or the drought. The migrant population or homeless would be in the same situation without that.

Regardless that number is large. It is 5% of the general population. It is not like water spigots all over the state have just been turned off.

Hmm... I didn't think that was the implication.

LordMortis wrote: I still think the implication is wrong because as far as I know fracking doesn't use potable water.

LawBeefaroni wrote:it can damage drinking water supplies

LordMortis wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:it can damage drinking water supplies

This is the single largest complaint I've heard about fracking.

Isgrimnur wrote:The next town over is being sued by the state over their municipal fracking ban. The outcome of this will resonate across the nation.

LordMortis wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:it can damage drinking water supplies

This is the single largest complaint I've heard about fracking.