Water Conservation & Bringing water to SoCal

[Owly055]

I'm fortunate in my choice of where to live....... there is a virtually unlimited supply of ground water that is replenished annually from the Crazy Mountains a few miles west of me. I crank the flow wide open on my chiller and don't worry about it. The waste water is going into my septic tank, and ultimately back into the environment.......it really isn't wasted.

Unfortunately folks in the southwest are not so lucky......they pay through the nose for water. However in the discussions about water conservation, I have yet to hear anybody suggest saving this water......... It could easily be discharged into your washing machine, or some other productive use.... washing dishes, flushing toilets, or numerous other uses. Last winter I had two freeze ups, and had to pack water in 5 gallon buckets from across the street. The water I used went to multiple uses. If I took a bath for example....... and I wasn't very dirty, my bath water went into the washing machine to do a load of laundry, and then was saved in buckets to pour into the toilet tank. Needless to say I relieved myself outdoors frequently....... living in a rural area. I got the mostest out of the water I had to physically pack.
I got a taste of what life in SoCal and Lost Wages must be like. I've lived in places where I had to physically pack water before, so it wasn't a huge mental adjustment. I've always appreciated running water......... a huge luxury!

Now the solution to the water crisis in SoCal........and Nevada. It's NOT original, but it is excellent. There have been proposals of putting in pipelines and canals from the Columbia and Snake rivers, fought by the people with rights to that water. Years ago there was a proposal to run a coal slurry pipeline from Montana to SoCal...... it died when someone did the math on water usage from the Yellowstone river and it dawned on them that it was a covert attempt to get water from the Yellowstone river.......Not a bad idea, not a bad scam!
The under sea pipeline from the mouth of the Columbia River is a project that has been occasionally proposed...... A mammoth pipeline, probably 40' diameter or more, it would have to be submerged several hundred feet beneath the surface, and built from a buoyant polymer, anchored by cables to the sea floor. There would be NO water rights to contend with, no rights of way for a pipeline or canal, and minimal pumping because it wouldn't be climbing over mountains, etc. Supplying SoCal would keep the people and valuable industries there, and reduce demands on regular water supplies, allowing agriculture to continue to produce some of the most valuable produce in the nation. It would allow a reduction in demands on the Colorado River, taking the pressure off Nevada, and allowing Lake Powell and Lake Mead to refill. It would be hugely expensive..........but far cheaper than the alternatives. Such a line is now being constructed between Turkey and Cyprus.




H.W.

 

[Snowden]

Water rights are fascinating to me; I was at a conference in Denver in May on wetland mitigation (building wetlands to compensate for those that are filled by development) and it was interesting how the practitioners in the arid west have to work within the bounds of those rights.

Ohio is fortunate water wise; ample precipitation, Lake Erie (but watch out for those algal blooms!), and both deep sandstone aquifers and shallow gravel aquifers in till deposits that can supply thousands of gallons a minute for private and municipal wells.


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[Owly055]

Water rights are fascinating to me; I was at a conference in Denver in May on wetland mitigation (building wetlands to compensate for those that are filled by development) and it was interesting how the practitioners in the arid west have to work within the bounds of those rights.

Ohio is fortunate water wise; ample precipitation, Lake Erie (but watch out for those algal blooms!), and both deep sandstone aquifers and shallow gravel aquifers in till deposits that can supply thousands of gallons a minute for private and municipal wells.


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Here in Montana, and much of the west, water rights laws originated from mining in the 1800's. Water rights claimed far exceed water available or the amount of water a farmer can actually use, as they apply to a specific piece of land. For example if you have X miners inches of water that was originally used for flood irrigating y acreage, and you switch to sprinkler irrigation, you cannot simply irrigate more land with that water.... You can irrigate the same land and have to let the remainder go. Which is fair as there was a great deal of runoff from flood irrigation. We have a big Montana / Wyoming dispute on the Big Horn River over a water agreement that dates back into the days before sprinkler irrigation. The sprinkler irrigation in Wyoming takes the same amount of water (or less) and irrigates more land.... , but because there is no runoff, Montana ends up with less water. The whole thing is a complex mess.

Where I live there is a dispute every year over water. The people downstream have cut off upstream water users year after year due to older water rights (superior), resulting in people putting in center pivots. The result is that like destroying wetlands, there isn't the waste water held in deep soil and rock formations there was in the past with flood irrigation, and the result is that in late summer they have less water. A case of short sighted selfish battling between water users. We have "ditch riders" who are hired to make sure that people aren't using more water than they have a right to use. A tough summer job that often ends up with everybody angry at the ditch rider (whom they hired). A thankless job to say the least. With the authority of a sheriff, you had better go armed if that's your job. A number of them have been shot at over the years. It get's down to people's livelihood. If you can't pay the note at the bank.... You're going to lose the farm!! Or ranch in this case.

Ultimately water will have to be allocated based on "best use"......but who defines "best use"? With the politics today, "best use" might end up being a golf course in San Diego instead of crops in Imperial Valley........ We after all have "the best government money can buy"............

H.W.