Jay Famiglietti , a senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory , has a terrifying piece in theLos Angeles Timesabout the futurity of California ’s water . According to Famiglietti , the land has just one twelvemonth of weewee in reserves :
Data from NASA orbiter show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basin — that is , all of the snowfall , river and reservoir piddle , H2O in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million Akko - feet below normal in 2014 . That red ink is nearly 1.5 times the capability of Lake Mead , America ’s large source .
Statewide , we ’ve been dropping more than 12 million Akko - feet of total weewee every year since 2011 . around two - thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for farming irrigation in the Central Valley . Farmers have small choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts , especially when their surface urine allocation have been slashed 80 % to 100 % . But these pumping rate are excessive and unsustainable . Wells are running dry . In some areas of the Central Valley , the Din Land is sinking by one foot or more per year .
And it gets worse . Apparently we have no real programme for dealing with the continuation of our current drouth . So what ’s Famiglietti ’s result to this job ? Immediate mandatory H2O rationing , the acceleration of legislation that focuses on sustainability , and the creation of a fresh State Department task force to come up with prospicient term solutions . Pffffft . Good luck .
That all sound hard . Like really heavily . Even in a land that did n’t havecompletely dysfunctionalgovernment , that would be hard . So may I suggest an idea from history ?
In the early 1950s a construction locomotive engineer by the name of Sidney Cornell proposedshooting man - made geysersfrom Northern California to Southern California . The exemplification above ran in the October 1951 takings of Mechanix Illustrated mag , indicate how this whole thing was suppose to work . The organization would leapfrog weewee down the Department of State , with plants space one mile apart . Of naturally , with Northern California also struggle , we ’ll have to pull that water from somewhere else . Alaska , maybe ?
Yes , it ’s a really preposterous theme . But it seems about as probable as getting anything done politically at any level in California ’s government right now . Forget theHyperloop . Bring on the water cannons !
prototype by Frank Tinsley viaModern Mechanixblog
get through the author at[email protected ] .
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