Obama trying to circumvent the law again

[VectorVictor]

A big part of the problem is that cities like LA and San Diego sit in what would be desert, if not for water siphoned off from other sources. As long as we have 30 million people living in the greater Los Angeles/San Diego metropolitan desert, we'll be forced to steal surface water from other areas. I'm not sure what the solution is.

 

One step that could be taken is to ban exportation of water out of the state for retail sale, save for municipal agreements with neighboring states.

 

Makes no sense to have bottled water companies operate in CA and export their water when there's not enough. Then again, bottled water makes little sense to begin with, IMO.

[Abdullah the Butcher]

Salt water treatment plants would help California, they are more expensive but California doesn't care about spending anyways.

[Junior]

 

A big part of the problem is that cities like LA and San Diego sit in what would be desert, if not for water siphoned off from other sources. As long as we have 30 million people living in the greater Los Angeles/San Diego metropolitan desert, we'll be forced to steal surface water from other areas. I'm not sure what the solution is.

 

One step that could be taken is to ban exportation of water out of the state for retail sale, save for municipal agreements with neighboring states.

 

Makes no sense to have bottled water companies operate in CA and export their water when there's not enough. Then again, bottled water makes little sense to begin with, IMO.

 

 

At some point, people are going to have to make usage choices. Watering golf courses and yards or drinking water? That day is coming.

[zoogs]

In California, local counties are starting to pay you to tear up your lawn. There's a movement, I believe, about sustainable and naturally Southern California yards that have, you know, deserty plants and such. It looks ugly, but I like it.

 

ex)

http://www.asla.org/sustainablelandscapes/gardengarden.html

 

[carlfense]

No more mowing?! I'm in! Do you think we can make this movement acceptable in Omaha?

[StPaulHusker]

There is a landscaping company just down the road from my office that specializes in turning your yard into an artificial turf putting green. I think they are on to something.

[carlfense]

Field turf!

 

 

hmmmm . . . would it be worth the increased risk to my ACLs?

[knapplc]

I don't think that looks ugly at all. I would suggest they plant trees for shade, but only if there's a low-moisture-impact tree that grows in that climate. Palms seem to do OK there, but who knows.

 

 

I read up on desalination plants and why they aren't used, and frankly I think the time has come to bite the bullet on cost. An article I read today said groundwater costs about ten cents a gallon, whereas desalinated sea water costs between $1 & $2 per gallon. That's a significant cost increase, but that cost is going to be less of a concern if this drought continues. They gotta do something.

[EbylHusker]

No more mowing?! I'm in! Do you think we can make this movement acceptable in Omaha?

 

Do you mean grassless landscaping in general or a drought resistant yard?

 

You can't really incorporate desert plants in a climate like Omaha's. Too much water on such plants will, at the very least, promote damaging fungus growth, not to mention outright killing some or all of them. And a desert landscaping job in Omaha would just look downright stupid and out of place.

 

However, there are certainly plants that would work in eastern Nebraska that require less water than others. That includes grasses.

[BigRedBuster]

Two years ago we lost our entire yard to the drought. I had planted grass that supposedly took less water than blue grass but unbeknownst to me, at least it needs some or it DIES.

 

We went basically half the summer with nothing but dust in the yard. Weeds didn't even grow. I tried convincing my wife to go with the desert landscaping. She gave me one of those looks that all husbands know and that makes them shiver.

 

So, we are back to having grass.

[TGHusker]

I'll just leave this here....

 

http://mashable.com/2014/08/27/in-pictures-the-west-has-lost-63-trillion-gallons-of-water-during-drought/

those pics are amazing. Really shows how bad things are. We've had drought in Okla the past few years but not to that level. I wonder how this drought has compared to others in the past in the same area?

[TGHusker]

 

No more mowing?! I'm in! Do you think we can make this movement acceptable in Omaha?

 

Do you mean grassless landscaping in general or a drought resistant yard?

 

You can't really incorporate desert plants in a climate like Omaha's. Too much water on such plants will, at the very least, promote damaging fungus growth, not to mention outright killing some or all of them. And a desert landscaping job in Omaha would just look downright stupid and out of place.

 

However, there are certainly plants that would work in eastern Nebraska that require less water than others. That includes grasses.

 

Maybe time to go back to planting the grasses that were native to the great plains before cities and suburbia hit. My oldest son and family live in Co Springs - many homes (esp in the older section of the city) have a desert landscape theme. Looks fine. In Tulsa, we ave around 44 in of rain, so desert may not work, but there are may be other options. There was an article in the paper about a company who turns your loan into a putting green as noted in one of the other posts - they put down several inches of rock,etc and then the field turf- I figured my back yard (normal suburb lot) would cost about $7k - $8k. I can plant a lot of grass for that to replace what burns up during the summer.

[NUance]

In Los Angeles they pump a couple hundred million(1) gallons of fresh, clean water into the ocean each day. Far, far in excess of all the bottled drinking water used in LA every day. Very wasteful.

 

 

I'm talking about the Hyperion water treatment plant in El Segundo, just south of LAX. Okay, sure it's treated sewage water. But the fully treated water that comes out of it is actually cleaner than the drinking water used in LA--measured in ppm impurities. Even if the idea of drinking the treated water was unpalatable, it could at least be used for irrigation purposes. LINK There is a similar, smaller plant in San Pedro. LINK

 

Really, what LA should do is pump all the treated sewage water back into the potable water supply. If people don't want to drink it they could buy buy bottled water from grocery stores. That would solve much of LA's water shortage right there. The amount of water people drink is much smaller than the total water used, per person.

 

 

 

footnote: (1) I'm guessing it's couple hundred million gallons of treated clean water, based on the 350 million gallons of water they process and the 500 tons of biosolids they remove from the sewage water. I'm not sure of the exact amount of clean water produced by the plant and released into the ocean. And I'm not sure how much of it they use for industrial purposes.

[TGHusker]

NUance - do you have some Grey Poupon and some sewage water you can spare? You are probably right and most bottled water is no better than the water out of the tap.

[EbylHusker]

People also need to remember that the last few years (not counting this one) were abnormally dry. Eastern Nebraska does not usually see such severe, sustained drought. It's great to actively work to conserve some water, but we're not anywhere close to a climate where full on desert plants are warranted or necessary.

 

And I'll say again, if you have a desert landscape in an area like this (Omaha), you're a f'ing retard. Not only is it impractical, but it looks stupid and out of place. I personally don't give a f#*k what people in Colorado do. And btw, Omaha, which is the location the question was asked about, gets double the annual rainfall that Colorado Springs does. So I doubly don't give a sh#t what they do when it pertains to the specific question I was answering. That's much closer to desert conditions in terms of annual precipitation, and I'm willing to bet over the course of a year, far more water evaporates out of the ground in Colorado Springs than does in Omaha.

 

So there you go.