Calif. Water Shortage To Be Bad

[Ron61]

Wes & Mike,

That is good. And a long time ago when I was working in Enterprise where we had to replace one of the 48V storage batteries I was talking to an engineer about the length of time the batteries could carry the machine before getting below the threshold level. One of the local women asked me how you stored electricity and I told her that over at the dam they had a big room made of rubber and it all went into there until needed. Then I forgot about it. A few weeks later I received a call whenever I was working then and it was her all upset. she had gone and told everyone she knew about how they stored electricity at the dam and now was the laughing stock of the city. Boy, did I get myself into trouble with some people when I was working and all of it I thought was so far out that no one would pay any attention to it.

Ron

[Silverback51]

The LA area has an ocean at it's doorstep and a desert not that far to the East. Pump the water to the desert and build desalinators. Pump it back to where it's needed.

[Ron61]

I saw a short blurb on the news two days ago that they may have to consider building desalinization plants in Southern Calif., as the supply from the Colorado River could dry up. And we sure don't have enough water up here any more to send down to them. They didn't say much about it except that the Governor of Nevada and Arizona had been meeting with our politicians and told them that their states came first. They should have built those plants years ago before it cost so much to do so. I do believe there may be war over food, water, and oil. To me food and water should come first. This country was settled without cars and trucks and may have to learn to survive without them. We can't build more dams as the Environmentalists won't allow that. No more refineries, same reason, so the amount of oil is irrelevant as the refineries are for the most part operating at capacity now. No more electric generating plants, same environmental crap.

Ron

[Wayne Maybury]

Electricity is probably the only area in which we get a real break here in Quebec. Almost all of our power is generated by hydro electric dams and we produce enough power that we fill all of our own demand plus we power most of Vermont and we also sell it to other states as well.

I have a big old 2 story house with a finished basement (really 3 stories) and an attached 2 car garage which is also heated all winter. We are 100% electric; heat, air conditioning, hot water, cooking, etc, etc. Heating in the winter accounts for about 2/3 of our total annual bill. My payments are just over $200 per month. If it wasn't so cold up here in the winter, my cost would be much lower.

One more thing, we don't have water meters so as long as no one reports me, I can water my lawn as much as I want at no charge. Of course that means that I have to cut the grass twice a week.

Wayne

[Ron61]

Wayne,

I will see what I can do about letting the authorities know that you need a water meter.

Here they have a small white car that drives around every day all Summer looking to see if anyone has water going in their yards or is washing a car. They stopped here once a year or so ago when I was washing my car, but once they saw how I do it they said that was ok. I never use a hose or soap. Just get a bucket with about a gallon of water and an old T Shirt and wipe it off then dry it with an absorber. Once I got the wet paint on it, that is all I have ever used to wash it.

Ron

[427sharpe]

I am surprised that Kalifornia has not gome to the old cistern system popular here in West Texas. New houses get built with an underground cistern (usually about 10-20k gallons) that catches what rainwater they have and used (non-toilet) water from the house for re-use on non-potable uses, like irrigation and such. Heck, even the ecomonster George Bush has one in Crawford.....too bad Al doesn't. I don't hear too much from the west (TX) about water shortages there. As for power...the greenies decided long ago that newts and spotted owls were higher priority than humans...hence no power plants (and God forbid NUCLEAR power plants!!) and no dams. Just wonder how long CA can leech off the other states before they put the screws down. Do you think the squeeze will finally bring Kalifornia back to it's senses?

[Joe Wicked]

The cisterns are not a bad idea. Hell that system supplied major populaces in ancient times, no reason it could not do the same today. They even used it for drinking water.

[Ron61]

Some places here used to have them back while the dam was being built. Ran rain water down into a filter system of rock and charcoal and then into the cistern. But I don't think they are allowed any more.

Ron

[wtm442]

Cistern are outlawed in many locations - disease, mosquitoes etc.

Wes and Ron - regarding rubber buckets. Any fool knows that you cannot save electricity in buckets. Ask anyone and they will tell you that you can save steam in a bucket.

My city never has instituted any kind of water ban. Of course, if you go 25 miles away to where one of my sisters lives, they have had a 100% water ban for the last 17 years! No washing cars, no watering the grass, etc.

But what is everybody paying for water? A friend one town away from me pays about $1200 a year for water. WOW.

My water bills have been:
2005 - $201
2006 - $335
2007 - $357

I do a little watering for my plants and garden, but NONE for the lawn.

What is everyone else paying for water?

[Excaliber]

Cisterns are really common on the Big Island of Hawaii, in many locations it is the ONLY source of water. One guy in California mentioned his water bill was about $25 a month, but then again, he wanted to sell me the house, so maybe that $25 when no one lived there!

[Ron61]

I don't water the lawns and use as little as I can when doing laundry and other things and my water bill runs around $17 to $27 per month. Most months it is under $20. But like everything else, the less people use the more they raise the rates. And if you use to much they fine you.

Warren,

Rubber Buckets work just fine for electricity. You just have to be careful when you start to take some out to use. Who would want to save steam?

Ron

[Sharroll Celby]

A LOT of the water California uses is to grow crops, i.e. FOOD for your tables.

[Sharroll Celby]

Originally Posted by Ron61

I don't water the lawns and use as little as I can when doing laundry and other things and my water bill runs around $17 to $27 per month. Most months it is under $20. But like everything else, the less people use the more they raise the rates. And if you use to much they fine you.

Warren,

Rubber Buckets work just fine for electricity. You just have to be careful when you start to take some out to use. Who would want to save steam?

Ron

This reminds me of how "smoke" is stored in electric wires, especially LUCAS wiring systems!!! lol !!!

[bomelia]

Originally Posted by Sharroll Celby

A LOT of the water California uses is to grow crops, i.e. FOOD for your tables.

Right. In the desert. Supply enough water and you can grow just about anything in the desert.

Mike

[Wes Tausend]

...

We have relatively cheap water here, I suppose because we live right on the Missouri River which is a fairly large stream fed by Montana Rockies snow-melt. Below, the water is a minor percentage of monthly billing.

. Our bill date for April 4/9/2008 was:

Water $14.75 (reg@ $2.46 per unit=100 cubic feet)
Water $00.00 (summer@ $1.90 per unit)
sewage $14.62
Garbage $9.55
Street light/signal mtc $$3.95
storm sewer mtc $2.75
serv line repair $1.00
Total $46.62 for month


. August 8/8/2007 (very dry - sprinkler system running)

Water $12.30 (reg@ $2.46 per unit=100 cubic feet)
Water $47.50 (summer@ $1.90 per unit)
Sewage$12.75
Garbage $9.55
Street light/signal mtc $$3.95
storm sewer mtc $2.75
serv line repair $00.00
Total $88.80

Electricity is medium-cost here, with ample hydro-power and coal plants. It's hard to pin it down because of floating cost adjustments.

It is not terribly unusual for someone to have a home-made shallow well here, especially in older parts of the city. I haven't sunk a sandpoint yet but I believe non-potable plant water is about 40 feet down. When I was a kid we lived near a smaller river and non-potable plant water was about 13 feet down, but soft potable at around 200 feet.

It is getting so wells are to be by permit only but I think one could still sneak in a sandpoint. But in order to save "buckets" of electricity, the squeaky windmill would be a dead give-away.


...

[Sharroll Celby]

Originally Posted by bomelia

Right. In the desert. Supply enough water and you can grow just about anything in the desert.

Mike

Um, no. California's Central Valley is NOT considered part of the desert that MUCH od SoCal is.

[bomelia]

Well, it soon will be.

Mike

[Ron61]

We may have more desert up here than we have now if this keeps up. They just announced the lake is at its lowest level for this time of year since 1972. And the price of house boats has gone up, and the price of gas at the marinas they wouldn't even give. I really don't see the tourist trade as bailing us out this year as reservations are way down already.

Ron

[427sharpe]

A properly built cistern is sealed....no mosquitos. Only health problems would be if the filter system failed.. Odd that KA has banned them.....well, maybe not so odd seeing as how its kalifornia!
It just seems to make sense that most water should be used twice before treatment....brush your teeth, cook food, ice from 'first' series, water the lawn, wash the cars from the second. Oh well. If somebody actually started building a cistern they would probably irritate the ground worms...and we can't have that!

[wtm442]

Maybe we can run out of water and gasoline at the same time!

Everything comes down to costs. As costs rise, enterprising humans will invent/discover alternates. But it is best if we conserve our natural resources.

Death is Mother Natures way of telling us to slow down ... this applies to the Earth and its inhabitants.