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halfmanhalfbronco

Large part of California could become a vast inland sea in the next 40 years.

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On 8/12/2022 at 6:56 PM, CPslograd said:

Sometimes in the spring you get a feel for how spectacular it must have been here at certain times of the year.  
 

 

On the other hand, when you drive through the Mojave for hours, then come over the hill and drop into the tree and row cropped San Joaquin Valley it takes my breath away too

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On 8/12/2022 at 6:59 PM, CPslograd said:

On the other hand, when you drive through the Mojave for hours, then come over the hill and drop into the tree and row cropped San Joaquin Valley it takes my breath away too

At one time during the glacial melt thousands of years ago, Death Valley was a large inland lake - Lake Manly 

http://www.ohranger.com/death-valley/poi/lake-manly

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/flooding-creates-10-mile-long-lake-death-valley-180971699/

Flooding Creates a 10-Mile-Long Lake in Death Valley

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On 8/12/2022 at 6:59 PM, CPslograd said:

On the other hand, when you drive through the Mojave for hours, then come over the hill and drop into the tree and row cropped San Joaquin Valley it takes my breath away too

Now that they don't do flood irrigation anymore, I deeply miss driving through the country on a summer night feeling the temperature drop and the air get a little balmy right when you start driving between flooded orchards. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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On 8/12/2022 at 6:13 PM, smltwnrckr said:

True, tho there are some. pretty gnarly accounts of how close things got to being overwhelmed on the American River system at folsom and elsewhere in 1997. So catastrophic failure would change the calculus.

Pretty much unrelated, but I remember taking a trip up to Sacramento area in early to mid 2000's and I remember there was a huge flood scare at the time. Not sure if it was just heavy rain or infrastructure issues. Or maybe it was just my angsty teenager brain thinking our rainy vacation totally sucked.

Californians love to act tough and brag about sleeping through earthquakes. But if a little rain starts to fall they act like the world is ending.

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On 8/12/2022 at 7:01 PM, UNLV2001 said:

At one time during the glacial melt thousands of years ago, Death Valley was a large inland lake - Lake Manly 

http://www.ohranger.com/death-valley/poi/lake-manly

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/flooding-creates-10-mile-long-lake-death-valley-180971699/

Flooding Creates a 10-Mile-Long Lake in Death Valley

I've never been to Death Valley, but am looking to do a buddies trip there and stay at the resort.

Welcome - The Oasis at Death Valley

Take pictures at sunrise, play golf, drink and hang out at the pool, take pictures at sunset, drink and play cornhole till we pass out.

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On 8/12/2022 at 8:47 PM, misplacedcowboy said:

Pretty much unrelated, but I remember taking a trip up to Sacramento area in early to mid 2000's and I remember there was a huge flood scare at the time. Not sure if it was just heavy rain or infrastructure issues. Or maybe it was just my angsty teenager brain thinking our rainy vacation totally sucked.

Californians love to act tough and brag about sleeping through earthquakes. But if a little rain starts to fall they act like the world is ending.

Sac area gets legit rain.  And when it does rain in SoCal, it can rain really hard, which causes serious issues because of drainage.  Everything is paved, so the water turns into urban rivers in a hurry.

I"m not disagreeing with your point about Cali's and rain, but I've been in SoCal when the rain is no joke.

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On 8/12/2022 at 10:02 PM, CPslograd said:

Sac area gets legit rain.  And when it does rain in SoCal, it can rain really hard, which causes serious issues because of drainage.  Everything is paved, so the water turns into urban rivers in a hurry.

I"m not disagreeing with your point about Cali's and rain, but I've been in SoCal when the rain is no joke.

Agree. Used to live in the high desert, and drove the Cajon pass at least twice a week. Doesn't rain often, but can get nasty in a hurry down there. Was caught in a similar one in Phoenix last week that made me nostalgic. Those desert storms really are something else.

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On 8/12/2022 at 4:16 PM, smltwnrckr said:

I wouldn't mind a couple in the next 20 years or so. We need to recharge some of our aquafers and get the suitcase farmers out of here. 

Agree.  Hopefully the Valley could be built back with better planning and newer tech to reduce water usage.  

Also would be a great time to use insurance money to pay off a bunch of almond farmers so they plant something different.  

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On 8/13/2022 at 8:35 AM, Wyobraska said:

Agree.  Hopefully the Valley could be built back with better planning and newer tech to reduce water usage.  

Also would be a great time to use insurance money to pay off a bunch of almond farmers so they plant something different.  

The Valley uses drip and other modern methods.   Drip has drawbacks too, it salinates the soil a lot faster than flood irrigation 

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On 8/12/2022 at 9:02 PM, CPslograd said:

Sac area gets legit rain.  And when it does rain in SoCal, it can rain really hard, which causes serious issues because of drainage.  Everything is paved, so the water turns into urban rivers in a hurry.

I"m not disagreeing with your point about Cali's and rain, but I've been in SoCal when the rain is no joke.

It's been something like 25 years since we've had that kind of rain. So long that I'm becoming concerned that a lot of areas have become so bone dry that when we do have another 30+ inches in a single year, much of it won't sink in and we're going to have major mud slides in the hills and mountains.

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On 8/13/2022 at 2:36 PM, CPslograd said:

The Valley uses drip and other modern methods.   Drip has drawbacks too, it salinates the soil a lot faster than flood irrigation 

Yea, there are a bunch of drawback to drip, most notably lack of slack in the system, less recharging of ground water, and frankly efficiency has ultimately just enabled expansion of crops that probably shouldn't be expanding in parts of the valley. Drip has made farming more efficient, but it hasn't helped overall ag water usage as much as people say it does. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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On 8/13/2022 at 8:35 AM, Wyobraska said:

Agree.  Hopefully the Valley could be built back with better planning and newer tech to reduce water usage.  

Also would be a great time to use insurance money to pay off a bunch of almond farmers so they plant something different.  

I don't think a massive flood and insurance payout would do it at all. What has to happen is those farms that have put trees in places where they never grew trees before a few years ago, and those orchards funded by international capital and hedge funds that are running off groundwater for (relatively) short-term returns, need to fail. Like, not enough water for a year, treed dead, so sad, fail. They've been growing almonds in the valley for generations, through multiple brutal droughts. It can be done on a limited scale. It's possible, but it is not sustainable with the growth we've seen since the early 2000s... really, after '08.

It's why you're seeing more pistachios, too. Those trees can live better on saltier water, and I believe they can also hold over better in short water years. Almonds cannot. 

Planning is an exercise of power, and in a modern state much real power is suffused with boredom. The agents of planning are usually boring; the planning process is boring; the implementation of plans is always boring. In a democracy boredom works for bureaucracies and corporations as smell works for skunk. It keeps danger away. Power does not have to be exercised behind the scenes. It can be open. The audience is asleep. The modern world is forged amidst our inattention.

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On 8/12/2022 at 7:02 PM, smltwnrckr said:

Now that they don't do flood irrigation anymore, I deeply miss driving through the country on a summer night feeling the temperature drop and the air get a little balmy right when you start driving between flooded orchards. 

They still do flood irrigation in the little valley that I live in in southern Nevada. I have some really good memories of when my dad would irrigate, and it really does bring the temp down at night, with quiet water moving to cool things down. He always brought some down to the house to water the trees, roses, pomegranates, etc. I do miss it, we played in that water constantly, lol.

 

On 8/12/2022 at 9:00 PM, CPslograd said:

I've never been to Death Valley, but am looking to do a buddies trip there and stay at the resort.

Welcome - The Oasis at Death Valley

Take pictures at sunrise, play golf, drink and hang out at the pool, take pictures at sunset, drink and play cornhole till we pass out.

Stayed there during Thanksgiving week once, the weather was perfect.

 

On 8/13/2022 at 12:09 PM, azgreg said:

Every time, lol.

 

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The notion of the aquifer being replenished has a caveat. The aquifer volume has decreased as the land squashed some of that empty volume. That lost volume cannot be recovered.

Wildfires have stripped a lot of the vegetation which could slow flooding down. Things could get real ugly fast.

One of the Final Five..........

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