I hope those forecasts hold.
A Department of Water Resources crew conducted its fifth snow survey of the year Monday and determined that statewide snowpack was 254% of normal for the date, with the equivalent of 49.2 inches of water contained in the snow.
snip
Snowpack in the southern Sierra Nevada remains even higher, measuring 326% of average on Monday, with 51.2 inches of snow water equivalent.
Generally the valley is not producing wheat and corn. The crops in the valley are not the larger crops in the US. That does not mean globally produced similar crops wont substitute. The $2 billion in effect is larger than it appears. How much larger is another matter.
About 1.2 Billion of that is milk.
The vegetable production around the world is less than corn or wheat and some other crops. This all affects nuts, vegetables, cranberries perhaps…
To provide an update on the water situation on the Colorado River, Lake Mead and Lake Powell water levels are rising, as the winter snow pack in the Rockies melts. Powell has risen more than Mead, but Powell is upstream, so most of the water will eventually make it downstream.
Lake Powell (on the Arizona - Utah border):
Lake Mead (on the Arizona - Nevada border):
These rising water levels are good news in the short term, but are not going to fix the longer term problem. The increased populations of Nevada and Arizona, along with perhaps a longer term drought situation, could well result in lower amounts of available water in the future.
On the flooding front, temps remain below normal for much of the Sierra Nevadas, which is good news.
DB2
Live camera at 11,000 feet atop Mammoth Mountain, my favorite California ski resort,
looking towards the fabled Minaret ridge just south of Yosemite Park, part of the snowshed of the deep valley below, which are the largest part of the headwaters of the middle fork of the San Joaquin River of the central valley.
Mammoth is planning on staying open for skiing (only in the morning as by afternoon the deep snow is all too slushy) at least all the way to a race on the 4th of July.
david fb
I read somewhere that the population uses 14% of the water. Agriculture uses 70% and industry uses the remainder. So all they have to do is simply, over time, move the agriculture to places with more ready access to water and you eventually drop 70% of the water usage.
Population isn’t the problem.
…or put a tiny tax on all aquifer derived water and you would instantly see significant reductions in agricultural use. All over the world (including here in Mexico where I live) aquifers are being idiotically drained AS FAST AS POSSIBLE to grow water dependent crops for instant big cash only because of water laws and customs from a time when wells could not reach much below tens of meters.
What we are seeing now in water usage is the equivalent of the heirs of a hardworking person spending all the inheritance of decades of prudence and labor in just a couple years of whoreing, drug use, status seeking housing and clothing and food, and other deranged debauchery.
Nah, it’s only water.
david fb
Put on your tinfoil hats…might as well tell a fleeting little crazy thought…
Why do we not have graphene water desalination? My thought, the powers that be can not do that for China and India. Those populations have to fall. Particularly in the competition with the west China can not have the water to expand both population and now more importantly their industrial military complex. I think for the first time if graphene sheet desalination is totally doable it is shelved.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
Population is the root of all the problems. The agriculture usage is to feed the population, the industry use is to provide the population with its products etc.
The growth of population is destroying the world.
Where I live (my local water engineer friend confirms), and I think is true of much of southwest America, an enormous amount of the water is used to provide feed to produce hamburgers or to maintain the horses of the wealthy at lowest possible cost. So the current madness is overpopulation, but combined with idiocy and vanity often coming first. The rich who love steaks and horses have insane power in the lower Colorado River share out of water.
David fb
Graphene membrane desalination offers great potential, but it is not necessarily a magic bullet that will solve all problems. The following link describes some of the issues.
From the link, scrolling all the way down to the Discussions and Conclusions section…
“This review has described the latest development of graphene-based membranes for desalination applications. The performance of different nanoporous graphene or stacked GO membranes has been described.”
Some of the problems…
“Based on this review, the performance of pure graphene membranes for desalinization is not meeting original expectations. Research on making high-performance graphene membranes for desalination appears much less active than before. None of the challenges previously identified have been fully addressed and the potentials have not fully been exploited.”
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
As with all things, it all comes down to cost. Graphene membranes might bring down the cost of desalination some, through reduced pumping requirements, for instance. But will graphene bring down the cost enough, compared to traditional methods of obtaining potable water for municipalities and agriculture?
Pete
I’ve been hoping and wondering about graphenes and water, and now I know. Thanks.
Sigh.
david fb
And the rest is being wasted!
regarding waste LOL
Yes, indeed, there is great value in “drug use, status seeking housing and clothing and food, and other deranged debauchery”, but, says this old whorer, whoreing is overrated.
david fb
That may well be an important strategic decision.
That wouldn’t seem to help much with the snow pack and the water level in the Colorado River.
DB2
DB2: That wouldn’t seem to help much with the snow pack and the water level in the Colorado River.
Which is fine because it is absolutely not the intent.
The intent is to shift from thinking of ground water as the property of whoever can pump fastest from whatever postage stamp of land they own to thinking of aquifers as what they actually are – underground lakes that need to be shared out quite differently. Economic efficiency needs us to actually have a useful rather than hopeless pricing system, and given the seeming political impossibility of changing water rights laws a tax is the best substitute.
The drying out of the West now being experienced in diminished snow pack and shrinking Colorado River (and other crux rivers as well) is still primarily due to a centuries long term repeating cycle having nothing to do with GCC. This cycle tipped from peak wetness sometime in the 50’s and we are now entering true dryness. GCC simply makes the situation worse by destroying California’s glaciers – 100s of thousands of years old – that used to provide water flow during summer even in the worst dry years. There were almost 100 when I was young and now only the very largest of those still exist, and they in a miserable shrinking condition. The pineapple express snows bought those survivors a couple years reprieve…
david fb
I saw a documentary long ago which answered your question by saying there is no typical answer.
It depends on the depth of the aquifer, the permeability of the soil above, and the amount of time the water stays on the surface. Obviously if it runs right off there’s virtually no impact. If the aquifer is deep - as farms keep pumping off the upper layers (and the ground sinks to eliminate space) then it can take a very long time - like hundreds or even thousands of years.
According to the film, some aquifers can be replenished in just days or weeks, while others can take many years, and some almost never as geology changes, compresses and compacts the subsurface ability to attract or hold water at all.
I know that’s not a very satisfying answer, but there it is.