How ****ed is the Southwest?

[Pitt Gorilla]

I'm sure most people heard about the dead dude found in a barrel in Lake Mead. This underscores the crazy drought conditions that have been plaguing the southwest since 2000 or so. Now, **** appears to be getting real real.

Colorado River Reservoirs Are So Low, Government Will Delay Releases
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/c...r-drought.html

Groundbreaking Law Requires Businesses Replace Decorative Grass
https://www.nevadabusiness.com/2022/...orative-grass/

Etc.

Any CP folks actively dealing with this situation?

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Here's a naive question about water.

We're a closed system. When we drink water it doesn't cease to exist. We sweat it out or we urinate in jdubya's back yard and it goes into that whole evaporate-rise-condense-fall cycle. So theoretically we should never run out of water; we should just cycle it faster, right?

Yea, but some water is more useful than other water.

Requiring houses in my neighborhood to have low flow shower heads and low flow toilets don't serve much purpose.

The water comes out of the Sacramento river, it gets treated, it comes into the house, and it goes down the drain, it gets treated, it goes back into the Sacramento river, and it is available to be pumped south to grow almonds and strawberries. Sure, a little is lost to leaky pipes or shower humidity, but almost all of it gets back to the river.

The water that is used to water a lawn: that water doesn't disappear, but extremely little of it is going to show back up in the Sacramento river (in any reasonable time scale). It is going to turn into grass. Some of it will evapotranspirate. But it's not like you get any rain/precip in the spring/summer watering season so that moisture will blow away.

Now a community that is taking their water out of wells may be a different story, so I realize it is hard to have perfect policy everywhere. But during periods of drought when I hear an advertising campaign saying I should take a shorter shower:

If the average shower uses 17 gallons of water (random google result and that seems high for a low flow shower head). And say that 90% of those 17 gallons of makes it back to the Sacramento river so my shower consumes 1.7 gallons of water (the other 15.3 gallons makes it back to the river anyway).

If I cut my shower in half I save ~0.8 gallons. Not even enough to grow one additional almond...

And that is assuming that the entire 0.8 gallon makes it south, which isn't true. There are losses in the system, so you start with 0.8 gallon in the Sacramento delta but less than that will be available by the time you take it out further south due to evaporation in the canals and groundwater seepage, etc.

[displacedinMN]

Originally Posted by jdubya

How much water to produce a 12 pack of coors lites? Am I being environmentally friendly when I recycle right back into the ground in my back yard?

11.5 oz x 12= 138 oz

[ArrowHeader]

Within a few years environmentalists will have to accept the deleterious affects of diverting 100 million gallons of water per day to a climate that just evaporates it. They will have to drink their own piss. It is inevitable.

[Stewie]

I spent a few years in Arizona doing research for the aerospace industry. During my time off I went on day trips to Native American sites. Very cool!

After doing research on why natives left the area about 700 years ago, it was drought. Not just drought, but a mega drought.

There's a pattern of mega droughts repeating in the SW and west coast. A mega drought can last decades/centuries.

Proceed with caution. It seems they are sudden and persistent.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Here's a naive question about water.

We're a closed system. When we drink water it doesn't cease to exist. We sweat it out or we urinate in jdubya's back yard and it goes into that whole evaporate-rise-condense-fall cycle. So theoretically we should never run out of water; we should just cycle it faster, right?

I guess there are some practical issues. Maybe some sinks into the mantle or gets salty or something. But on the other hand, we know the reciped for water and as far as I know there's a lot of hydrogen and oxygen floating around.

Yeah, I've always thought the same. The problem is that we are too dumb to live and do agriculture in the areas that receive adequate rainfall. We keep stubbornly trying to build cities and farms in deserts.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Here's a naive question about water.

We're a closed system. When we drink water it doesn't cease to exist. We sweat it out or we urinate in jdubya's back yard and it goes into that whole evaporate-rise-condense-fall cycle. So theoretically we should never run out of water; we should just cycle it faster, right?

I guess there are some practical issues. Maybe some sinks into the mantle or gets salty or something. But on the other hand, we know the reciped for water and as far as I know there's a lot of hydrogen and oxygen floating around.

Most of that has to do with locational drought. It's not that we run out of water overall. The problem is that some specific locations that need water the most don't have a chance to refill because of drought conditions. Lack of water in one location results in excess water in other locations. So it evens out overall, but some locations are still screwed. Lots of farming depends directly on natural sources like Lake Mead for yearly needs. Continued drought over a matter of years has decimated many sources like this just because of specifically regional lack of rainfall. Rainfall just shifts to a different location.

[Stewie]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Here's a naive question about water.

We're a closed system. When we drink water it doesn't cease to exist. We sweat it out or we urinate in jdubya's back yard and it goes into that whole evaporate-rise-condense-fall cycle. So theoretically we should never run out of water; we should just cycle it faster, right?

I guess there are some practical issues. Maybe some sinks into the mantle or gets salty or something. But on the other hand, we know the reciped for water and as far as I know there's a lot of hydrogen and oxygen floating around.

Arkansas and Louisiana grow most of the rice in the US. How does that work? My pissing regime hasn't changed all these many years.

[displacedinMN]

Originally Posted by ArrowHeader

Within a few years environmentalists will have to accept the deleterious affects of diverting 100 million gallons of water per day to a climate that just evaporates it. They will have to drink their own piss. It is inevitable.

Look into the play Urinetown.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Here's a naive question about water.

We're a closed system. When we drink water it doesn't cease to exist. We sweat it out or we urinate in jdubya's back yard and it goes into that whole evaporate-rise-condense-fall cycle. So theoretically we should never run out of water; we should just cycle it faster, right?

I guess there are some practical issues. Maybe some sinks into the mantle or gets salty or something. But on the other hand, we know the recipe for water and as far as I know there's a lot of hydrogen and oxygen floating around.

So you are saying theoretically we are drinking each others and animals sweat and piss? Practically everything you drink has water so everyone is drinking piss daily. Thank you Rain Man for that information now I won't drink anything ever again and die from dehydration. Well~Bye

[Rasputin]

FYI I like to pee in the back yard a lot so it evaporates and then becomes rain clouds that go across the state probably as far as Missou. Everyone has been drinking my piss according to Rain Man.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

So you are saying theoretically we are drinking each others and animals sweat and piss? Practically everything you drink has water so everyone is drinking piss daily. Thank you Rain Man for that information now I won't drink anything ever again and die from dehydration. Well~Bye

Your water and beer and Pibb Xtra has gone through a million bladders since the dawn of time. Invertebrate sea creatures have previously drunk it, stegosauruses have previously drunk it, those little three foot tall Lucy creatures have drunk it, woolly mammoths have drunk it, Egyptian pyramid builders have drunk it, and Revolutionary War soldiers have drunk it. Now it's your turn.

[displacedinMN]

Rain man is 100 percent correct

Search up the water cycle. You are drinking dinosaur pee, plant sweat, others urine (without the bad stuff)

Here, we are drinking pee from St. Cloud, we use it, clean it dump it back into the river so Red Wing can do the same thing.

[displacedinMN]

Beer is roughly 90-95% water

— UberFacts (@UberFacts) May 6, 2022

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by displacedinMN

Rain man is 100 percent correct

Search up the water cycle. You are drinking dinosaur pee, plant sweat, others urine (without the bad stuff)

Here, we are drinking pee from St. Cloud, we use it, clean it dump it back into the river so Red Wing can do the same thing.

Heh. Sounds like the natives bitching about their neighbors in The Man Who Would Be King.

"Whole tribe comes out and pisses downstream, when we go bathing."

[displacedinMN]

Originally Posted by Frazod

Heh. Sounds like the natives bitching about their neighbors in The Man Who Would Be King.

"Whole tribe comes out and pisses downstream, when we go bathing."

At least this is cleaned.