The California Drought

As of 1 November, the 12 "key reservoirs" in California held only 23% of their combined capacity. The average content as of that date is 56% of capacity.

At this time of year, the reservoirs are normally low, waiting for the spring and summer snow-melt to refill them. However, they currently hold less than half the amount of water that they would normally hold.

Precipitation in the first month of the current rain-year -- which started 1 October -- was below average at 16 weather stations. Two stations were above average. Yosemite had 3.21 inches in October, 60% above average; this should help the water supply for San Francisco. Death Valley had 1.08 inches in October, more than 15 times the average for the month.

Reply to
David E. Ross
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i keep following the news and radars as the whole system and situation are interesting.

the few recent storms that have gone through have left the snow pack in the mountains above average and they've opens ski resorts in some places early. this is good and a welcome start to what may be a very interesting time.

i also notice any mentions of rain water capture projects that are being funded and put into place, but really the entire state should be out en mass putting in swales, seeps and sinks to capture rains as much as possible. sure beats sitting around and feeling like little can be done... some farmers are ahead of the game and have already changed their fields to act as ground water sinks if the El Nino comes through.

if you need the inspiration go looking for John Liu's movies about China's Loess Plateau and other movies about wide scale landscape restoration efforts around the world. they work if the people will get out and do it.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

On 11/19/2015 12:34 PM, songbird wrote [in part]:

[snipped]

Where I live, the soils are so mineralized that any ground water (including captured rain) is unfit for agricultural use, let alone domestic use. We do have seeps and springs in the area. During a drought about 30 years ago, however, a study determined that mixing only one part of ground water with nine parts of California Water Project water would yield something that would be illegally tainted.

Reply to
David E. Ross

David E. Ross wrote: ...rainwater capture, swales, seeps, soaks, etc...

that sounds rather extreme, but i'd assume the native plants manage.

rainwater capture in barrels and lined ponds would be another option for such an extreme case. water right from the roof and other hard surfaces would avoid most of the problem.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

I recently had my roof's rain gutters cleaned. The gunk removed would likely be harmless to my garden but would definitely not be potable. There were several years of ash fallout from brush fires and Italian cypress needles from my neighbor's trees. I often hear squirrels running across my roof, so I would not be surprised if the gunk included squirrel droppings.

After a long period without rain, the public is advised to avoid Pacific beaches near storm drain outlets. For the same reason, the first rain on my roof -- even after having my gutters cleaned -- is not very good.

In the fall, I use large amounts of gypsum to make my clay soil more porous. I also mechanically aerate "lawn" areas, which are NOT grass but a drought-tolerant ground cover. All this is an attempt to capture rainfall to irrigate my garden.

In 2005 during an exceptionally heavy rain storm, the hill in my back yard failed. In repairing it, two concrete V-ditches were built. One runs across the top of the slope and feeds into another that runs down the middle to a catch box at the bottom. Additionally, drain lines were buried at four levels across the slope. I questioned the fact that three separate lines were to be installed to covey water from the slope to cutouts in the curb at the street in front of my house: one from the catch box and one each from the drain lines on the left side and right side of the slope. I was told the county (from which I needed a grading permit) would not approve allowing the water to flow into my garden. By the way, the damage is not insurable; the cost of repairing my hill amounted to four times what I paid to buy my house.

Reply to
David E. Ross

What do you mean "not very good"? Are you saying that the first rains caught in rain barrels should NOT be saved for irrigating plants? Or?

HB

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Reply to
Hypatia Nachshon

Hypatia Nachshon wrote: ...

many rain capture systems include some sort of arrangement for rejecting the first number of gallons of water so that contamination (from dust, bird droppings, etc.) is reduced. when using the water for a garden most of what is there isn't harmful anyways so i'd not worry. the concern is more geared towards those in areas of harmful dust fallout and those who are using the water for drinking, cooking or other house- hold uses.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

If there were recent brush fires dropping ash in your area, the first rains will be quite alkaline. Our southern California soils are generally too alkaline already. I am always using sulfur around many plants in my garden to make the soil more acid.

Reply to
David E. Ross

Hmmmm. I doubt whether any of that would be of concern to Australian rural dwellers such as myself. We collect rain water from our roof and although I have no idea what a squrrel poop looks like, bird poop is not a problem and possum poo (not opossum) being from a marsupial is not seen as a problem. Our roof water is used in our house (unfiltered and untreated) for all the usual sorts of domestic activities.

Reply to
Fran Farmer

A friend of ours used to have a first flush diverter on his household rainwater tank (cistern in USian) but took it off after a year or so because he found it flushed away too much water and a short passing shower would result in his not getting any water into his tank (cistern). And dust or crap settles to the bottom of the tank in a very short time and is not a worry until it becomes time to desludge the tank. the tank (cistern) was to supply water for all his household use so the loss of any water was a problem.

Reply to
Fran Farmer

snip...

Even if there were concerns about the quality of collected water for consumption the cost of equipment needed to clean it up, at least in smallish quantities, is not extreme. There are pathogens in every sort of excreta and what is there and what it will do is pretty hit-and-miss for any individual. For the garden, I'd say that anything goes since what is coming from the roof is exactly what would have fallen on the garden.

Reply to
John McGaw

Is that to say the water isn't even boiled before drinking it?

bob prohaska

Reply to
User Bp

No. I've lived rurally for over 50 years of my life and the vast majority of people who live outside towns or villages collect rainwater off the roof for use in the house. I've never heard of anyone getting sick from it or installing any treatment system.

I have heard of local villages advising residents to boil water before use. Those village uses ground water and it's more suspect IME than rainwater.

Reply to
Fran Farmer

Fran Farmer wrote: ...

that must be a fun job!

in a place where there are distinct rainy seasons it would probably be worth letting the first rains go with the diverter on and then after things are rinsed off it could be turned off.

my sister had to have their cistern cleaned out as when it was installed the contractor put it down too deep and when they weren't around the top lip got filled over and then a lot of stuff got in so they had to get the gunk out and put on a taller lip and ... they're all set up now and have actual heat and running water. been a long road for her with the property and having enough $ to put up a house and have it habitable. now she finally has a place away from the city like she's always wanted.

i don't think they have rain water collection set up yet which will be a shame as it will be a higher likely rainfall year with El Nino. her partner is a gardener and also is learning how to forage and prepare native plants. still haven't met him yet (it's a long haul from here to there and i hate flying).

songbird

Reply to
songbird

...

yeah, living a long ways from larger cities the air is likely to be much cleaner. i think i'd be ok sometimes but other times (after high winds and a lot of dust or times when they're spraying crops) i'd much prefer to drink well water.

in my continued studies i'm seeing more and more reports of septic systems not really doing much at all and so for the longer term a better method should be adopted. it's really a shame that so much good stuff for plants is being wasted.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Is household wastewater really ok for plants? Cleaning agents are usually rather alkaline, laundry and auto dishwasher powders are downright caustic. Won't they make trouble over time?

I always thought the point of septic systems was to do as little as possible; control pathogens, certainly, but no more. The goal always seemed to be simplicity. It's little technical challenge to make sewage drinkable using aeration, settling and maybe partial reverse osmosis to get the TDS down. On a single-house scale the economics are daunting, but that seems like the greatest hurdle. The hardware appears to exist. Becaue water stores well intermittent power sources like wind and solar are quite usable to drive the process.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska

Reply to
User Bp

some of them can be problems, in general if you are going to use household waste water for the gardens it is a good idea to switch to products which can be biodegraded (often via what is called a reed bed) in some manner before it gets to the gardens. some things are toxic above small amounts so should not be used.

the idea was that the soil should filter and clean the remaining water coming from it, but they are discovering that the soil does not clean it as much as expected so effluent plumes are getting into the rivers and lakes. in the end mixing human waste with water makes the problem much worse than needed because then the human waste has to be taken back out of the water anyways. why not just keep it from the water to begin with? so until people realize that the initial design is horribly flawed we'll be stuck with this rotten and pollution encouraging mess instead of doing things in a much smarter way.

with cheap energy much becomes possible, but if you design a smarter system that doesn't pollute water to begin with you can avoid a lot of problems (and expenses).

songbird

Reply to
songbird

On 29/11/2015 7:50 AM, songbird wrote: it

Prince Charles has a reed bed sewage treatment set up installed at his home, Highgrove.

BTW, for those people who enjoy gardening books, the book on his garden is called "The garden at Highgrove". This is not a cheap book and I debated long and hard with myself as to whether I should bother to pay the money for a book on the garden of a rich royal whose lifestyle is nothing like mine or even in the same country or in the same gardneing conditions. I'm so glad that I did eventually buy it as it's real eye candy and his attitude to his garden resonates with me. He even ignored advice given to him by that guru Sir Roy Strong because it didn't fit into what he wanted to do.

I keep pulling it off the shelves when I need a bit of inspiration. Wonderful book, even more wonderful garden (this is about another book by him but there are good pics here of his garden):

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Reply to
Fran Farmer

Are there detergents that really work and don't louse up the water? Borax is obviously out of the question, bleaches will have to be h2o2 based, but I think they're available.

Nutrients, or pathogens?

Composting toilets are a good option in low-density environments, but would they work in higher density places, say 10ksf lots, 3bd/2ba houses? What about apartments?

Most of the developed world uses single-stream sewage collection and already makes at least a token effort to clean up the wastewater. With a little more effort and energy the water could be cleaned up enough to go back in the supply. From what I gather, solar energy in Germany has fallen to zero cost for portions of the day. The same is apt to happen here if wind and solar investments continue. Reverse osmosis plants can stop and start relatively quickly, that seems like a good use for the excess energy.

Here's a link that some might find interesting on the subject of reverse osmosis and its efficiency:

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The article focuses on seawater desalination but the discussion makes it very clear that domestic wastewater is much more efficient to recover, especially if the degree of desalination is modest.

Hope this is of interest,

bob prohaska

Reply to
User Bp

Household grey water including human waste is only problematic depending on concentration. There are two humans here living on 16 acres using a septic system... very conservatively there's a thousand times more wild critter waste, probably that much just from song birds, not counting water fowl, and mammals... and then there are reptiles, probably more poop from bullfrogs just in my streams than in my sceptic system. I have my own private well, it's tested yearly, passes with flying colors every time. Global warming is a red herring, used to cover up the real problem, over population... California especially has way too high a concentation of humans, mostly unproductive subhuman imbeciles that are in dire need of expiration (conservatively 60% gotta go). If CA got rid of all those fast food dives there'd be plenty of water, lots less pollution, and far lower medical costs from not eating that mystery meat poop. And of course bacon and other cured meats need to be outlawed, bacon pollutes far more than laundry detergent (nitrates/nitrites pollute), can always pick out the bacon addicts, they all weigh over 300 pounds.

Reply to
Brooklyn1

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