Water in California and the rest of the western USA - going, going, gone...

[etrain16]

Here you go, etrain:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=+total+world+water+supply&l=1

I've already been to that site and read that article - I found it while I was trying to locate where you got that graphic. I also read articles from a number of other sources, as I noted above. I don't see that that graphic proves anything, since, as I noted above, the amount of water on the Earth remains, essentially constant. It just varies where and when it is available and in different forms. Better managing that is a good idea, but I am still not convinced that we are facing a calamity of global proportions.

 

[chemist]

Then you need to go back to that USGS site again, and to NOAA. The upshot of an increasing global temperature is more rain falling over the seas, and less over land. One of the few exceptions is Cascadia, where the long-term trend is predicted to be wetter, not drier. Of course the other critical prediction is for much more variability in rainfall and temperature, so let's hope our dry 2014-2015 isn't overcompensated by a monsoon year.

 

[45alive]

The growth rings of very old trees are proof of the cycles of lean water years and plentiful water years, some have showed a bad Drought in the 1500s. The Redwoods are living proof and they are still alive. Droughts come and go and has been documented for a very long time.

 

[Brutus57]

Ya'll do realize USGS and NOAA won't get the funding they want to grow and grow as bureaucracies are wont to do if they have no "Crisis" to point toward justifying they need more money and people to throw at this "crisis". Computers are great but are still garbage in, garbage out and living your life based on someone who has an axe to grind to get funding from NSF is not a good method. YES, the climate does change and HAS for 100s of millions of years. "Climate science" has far too few data points gathered to prove their theory. Better usage of resources is a good idea, but fear mongering the sea is rising and the sky is falling for profit is what one should closely examine. Growing rice in a semi desert was a good point by a previous poster. California has dug their own dry well due to mismanagement of their resources not having a rainy day, pun intended plan. We have climate cooling periods as well. I have nothing against science and have studied it and worked with good, honest scientists but the global warming fraudulent science was exposed a number of years back. So, caught out, they simply changed the name to climate change....
Ozone layer is back, BTW, too. But it's OK to force a Montana coal fired power plant
to shut down so my taxes have to be raised in Washington state...

Brutus Out

 

[trainsktg]

I question that tiny, tiny drop of water representing all of the potable fresh water on the planet. Lake Tahoe alone, even during this drought, has enough water in it to cover the entire state of California in 14" of water. And as expressed above, the Great Lakes have much, much more.

Keith

 

[Medic!]

If you were lost at sea you would try to collect every drop of water. You would use the sales and anything else available to do so.

We have not really even tried to collect all the rainfall that falls. Instead we rely on passive methods to collect rainfall.

When we get really serious about collecting rainfall and all other water. Then I will worry.

 

[oknow]

If you were lost at sea you would try to collect every drop of water. You would use the sales and anything else available to do so.

We have not really even tried to collect all the rainfall that falls. Instead we rely on passive methods to collect rainfall.

When we get really serious about collecting rainfall and all other water. Then I will worry.

the worry will be on weather or not you can afford the taxes they will impose for collecting government water.

 

[The Heretic]

If you were lost at sea you would try to collect every drop of water. You would use the sales and anything else available to do so.

We have not really even tried to collect all the rainfall that falls. Instead we rely on passive methods to collect rainfall.

When we get really serious about collecting rainfall and all other water. Then I will worry.

A lot of off the grid people collect rainwater in a number of ways.

However, a number of states (one of which might be Oregon and/or Washington IIRC), have regulations about collecting rainwater.

There are basically four places for rainwater to go:

It can seep into the "groundwater" which is not an aquifer, but simply the water in the top layer of the ground. This can be used by vegetation. Trees use a LOT of water - think of them as great big columns of water that suck up water out of the groundwater and transpire it back into the air. I see this often on my way to work; orchards and some crops that have a layer of fog above them.

Runoff into gullies and creeks and then down into rivers and then back to the ocean eventually. This is your "watershed" that municipalities use as their primary water source.

Ponds and lakes and such.

Aquifers - under the ground, aquifers store water that has seeped down into spaces between rocks and other sediment. This is where I get my water. A lot of aquifers are being depleted. Between the watersheds (rain and snowpack) being very low due to drought and depletion and the aquifers being depleted - both because there are more and more people every year, we have a fresh water problem.

Deniers can say "oh we have plenty and it is never really used up, it just goes out and comes back" are completely ignoring the population problem. Ignoring the droughts and climate change (which is a stupid thing to do, but let's humor those who think this is a trivial issue because they just can't see it), there simply is no denying that every day we add more people to the world population.

More people + finite fixed amount of water == less water per person every day. This is why we are running out of water - you can't make more potable water without spending a huge amount of money and energy that we simply do not have to spend. So every day, the fixed amount of water gets smaller because there are more people.

If someone can't see this - they need to go back to elementary school and learn basic division: if Mary has ten gallons of water, and has to give ten people each an equal amount of water, how much water will each person have? One gallon. If she has to divide up the water among 20 people, how much water will each person have? One half gallon. Forty people? One quarter gallon.

It is BASIC arithmetic. Do the math. There is basically a fixed amount of potable water and every day we have to divide it up with 230 thousand more people. Every day. Every year, 84 million more people - net (includes people who die).

And the rate simply increases. This year it is 84 million people per year, next year it will be more.

As I have said, this will cause serious problems. It already is very serious in some large parts of the USA. It will cause problems with crops, it will make all kinds of food more expensive. It will cause large numbers of people to move out of those areas, putting increased pressure on other areas - i.e., Californians will move here, demanding jobs, food, land, shelter and water - making those things more scarce and more expensive. Many will also bring with them all kinds of political beliefs about guns and welfare and other "free" government programs with them that caused California to go bankrupt.

Ignore this at your own peril. You can't prevent it. You can prepare for it, but you can't prevent it - it is happening now. The world population is going up and it will keep going up - you can't stop it. The only thing that will stop it will be when it reaches the point where the earth simply cannot support that many people and then people will start dying - by the millions.

Until then, and even afterwards, food, energy, land and water will be increasingly expensive and harder to acquire. There will be wars over these things - there are now (if you think the Iraq war was about WMDs, I have some swamp land I would like to sell you).

 

[oknow]

A lot of off the grid people collect rainwater in a number of ways.

If someone can't see this - they need to go back to elementary school and learn basic division: if Mary has ten gallons of water, and has to give ten people each an equal amount of water, how much water will each person have? One gallon. If she has to divide up the water among 20 people, how much water will each person have? One half gallon. Forty people? One quarter gallon.




what do the 10 / 20 people do with the water. do they retain the water or do they eliminate it as they take in more? are they all drinking at the same time or different times meaning they
eliminate at different times. the body is just another storage device just like a rain barrel with a leak (pun intended)

 

[arakboss]

A lot of off the grid people collect rainwater in a number of ways.

However, a number of states (one of which might be Oregon and/or Washington IIRC), have regulations about collecting rainwater.

There are basically four places for rainwater to go:

It can seep into the "groundwater" which is not an aquifer, but simply the water in the top layer of the ground. This can be used by vegetation. Trees use a LOT of water - think of them as great big columns of water that suck up water out of the groundwater and transpire it back into the air. I see this often on my way to work; orchards and some crops that have a layer of fog above them.

Runoff into gullies and creeks and then down into rivers and then back to the ocean eventually. This is your "watershed" that municipalities use as their primary water source.

Ponds and lakes and such.

Aquifers - under the ground, aquifers store water that has seeped down into spaces between rocks and other sediment. This is where I get my water. A lot of aquifers are being depleted. Between the watersheds (rain and snowpack) being very low due to drought and depletion and the aquifers being depleted - both because there are more and more people every year, we have a fresh water problem.

Deniers can say "oh we have plenty and it is never really used up, it just goes out and comes back" are completely ignoring the population problem. Ignoring the droughts and climate change (which is a stupid thing to do, but let's humor those who think this is a trivial issue because they just can't see it), there simply is no denying that every day we add more people to the world population.

More people + finite fixed amount of water == less water per person every day. This is why we are running out of water - you can't make more potable water without spending a huge amount of money and energy that we simply do not have to spend. So every day, the fixed amount of water gets smaller because there are more people.

If someone can't see this - they need to go back to elementary school and learn basic division: if Mary has ten gallons of water, and has to give ten people each an equal amount of water, how much water will each person have? One gallon. If she has to divide up the water among 20 people, how much water will each person have? One half gallon. Forty people? One quarter gallon.

It is BASIC arithmetic. Do the math. There is basically a fixed amount of potable water and every day we have to divide it up with 230 thousand more people. Every day. Every year, 84 million more people - net (includes people who die).

And the rate simply increases. This year it is 84 million people per year, next year it will be more.

As I have said, this will cause serious problems. It already is very serious in some large parts of the USA. It will cause problems with crops, it will make all kinds of food more expensive. It will cause large numbers of people to move out of those areas, putting increased pressure on other areas - i.e., Californians will move here, demanding jobs, food, land, shelter and water - making those things more scarce and more expensive. Many will also bring with them all kinds of political beliefs about guns and welfare and other "free" government programs with them that caused California to go bankrupt.

Ignore this at your own peril. You can't prevent it. You can prepare for it, but you can't prevent it - it is happening now. The world population is going up and it will keep going up - you can't stop it. The only thing that will stop it will be when it reaches the point where the earth simply cannot support that many people and then people will start dying - by the millions.

Until then, and even afterwards, food, energy, land and water will be increasingly expensive and harder to acquire. There will be wars over these things - there are now (if you think the Iraq war was about WMDs, I have some swamp land I would like to sell you).

Reviving thread instead of starting new one:

Water crisis 'couldn't be worse' on Oregon-California border

The water crisis along the California-Oregon border went from dire to catastrophic this week as federal regulators shut off irrigation water to farmers from a critical reservoir and said they would not send extra water to dying salmon downstream or to a half-dozen wildlife refuges that harbor...

www.foxnews.com

 

[The Heretic]

May could be another record-breaking dry month for Portland

Portland is shattering records that climatologists don't want us to break. Last month, the city set a new record for the driest April since 1956, and May isn't far behind. Out of the 22 full days we've had in May, just three have had measurable rain in Portland. There were several days where...

katu.com

 

[arakboss]

May could be another record-breaking dry month for Portland

Portland is shattering records that climatologists don't want us to break. Last month, the city set a new record for the driest April since 1956, and May isn't far behind. Out of the 22 full days we've had in May, just three have had measurable rain in Portland. There were several days where...

katu.com

Thank goodness we can drink out of the Willamette river.

 

[Mark W.]

And in Silverton in my part of town you can dig a post hole for a fence in July and hit water.

 

[Mathias]

http://www.wired.com/2015/10/devastating-chart-shows-why-el-nino-wont-fix-the-drought/

It isn't just the drought, and it isn't just California.

Oregon has severe aquifer problems too.

http://www.opb.org/news/article/study-aquifers-draining-quickly-less-in-pnw/
http://www.blueoregon.com/2007/03/oregons_approac/

And indeed, the rest of the country too:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...er-california-drought-aquifers-hidden-crisis/

Clean water for drinking, cleaning, growing food and other uses is very important for survival.

The basic problem boils down to this: there is a finite amount of clean potable water; 97.5% of the water on earth is salt water, that leaves 2.5% being fresh water, with over 1.5% being locked up in frozen water (mostly the polar ice caps), which leaves less than 1% being usable potable water.

Every day the earth's population grows.

The math is inescapable and should be plain for anybody to see; more people equals plus a fixed finite amount of potable water equals less water per person. Even if we solve the problems with pollution, even if we are lucky enough to live in an area where climate change won't have a local effect on our water supply (and given this summer, I have a real doubt about that supposition), more people will mean less water - and people are not inclined to stop reproducing.

The bigger picture is that here in the USA, and worldwide actually, water is in short supply. This is causing problems. It will increasingly cause problems. California produces a lot of food. Oregon, it seems to me, is somewhat self-sufficient (or could be) right now when it comes to water, food and energy - but our population is still growing. Don't think for a second that won't continue. Indeed, as California gets worse, I expect to see a significant increase in migration from California to the PNW.

Prepare for it.

On an anecdotal level; my neighbors have their wells drilled to 250' to 450' deep. Mine is 120' and I have not problems with water supply. One at 250' just had to have his well pump lowered because his water level dropped 40' in the last decade. Here on the mountain we get 50% more rain than the valley, but most of it runs off down into the valley. This was a pretty dry year for us too - we had to be very careful about fire danger.

Two words.....DESALINATION

 

[Flymph]

The rivers around my place already look like they're drying up...

The OP reminds me of this experiment...

 

[The Heretic]

Two words.....DESALINATION

Very expensive and energy intensive. Very few installations for those reasons. I doubt there would be enough energy and $ to use desalination to replace the water we need, especially since that need increases every day and the sources decrease in capacity.

 

[Flymph]

Two words.....DESALINATION

What's the the other word?

 

[Tony617]

They build that California Aqueduct that carries water from Northern California down to Southern California. Years ago when I was living in Northern California I was always aware about rain fall but in Southern California it was business as usual and nothing said about the lack of rainfall in Northern California which would eventually affect Southern California.

The California Aqueduct is not covered so a lot of water evaporates for long trek down to Southern California as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct

 

[wjv]

Build nuke plants to power desalination plans

 

[The Heretic]

Build nuke plants to power desalination plans

Yeah - that's going to happen.