Rewton, in the Southern California Low deserts, Windmills and miles of solar panels facing South West are all along Highway 10.  In our case, we put solar panels on our South Facing roof.  Our Electric Bill?  $1.25 / month. 

We have so many beaches where they could put solar panels (kinda on slanted fence type things) to generate the electricity to run the desalination plants, but they are just to stupid to think of that.  I guess Surfer's have a lot of clout with government.

Suzi

Cover the beaches with solar panels........ huhhh?   

Please, let’s not shoot before we aim.  Besides, it’s a battle royal to permit any desal development anywhere near the coast, let alone massive solar fields.  !f the past is any indication.anyway! Think it took Poseidon over ten years to get approval at Carlsbad.   And, that was at an existing power generation property.

If it comes down to power for coastal desal plants, there are thousands of acres of solar fields now in place or under construction in our deserts that would do job.  In day time at least!   We do have existing transmission and distribution pretty much in place!   With a seemingly  never ending glut of natural gas available, gas fired "peaker" power plants, located at the desal plants, would be a logical answer for after-hours cheap electricity..    Assuming no permitting issues……. LOL

Personally, I think it going to take some real pain, true conservation and economic loss to get any action out of the people we elect to manage the big things, like infrastructure or clean water.   Especially since many are still in total denial about obvious weather changes or god forbid “global warming”!    Go figure!   Just my dos centavos on the issue!

Happy figging....

It's my understanding that a lot of southern California's water comes from Colorado Via the Colorado River.  I've heard that the once mighty Colorado no longer makes it to the Sea of Cortez because it has been sucked dry. Part of the problem with water level in the Colorado River basin, other than lakes Powell and Mead, is the ongoing drought in Colorado. We have been mostly on and are rarely off of water restrictions for the better part of a decade, we are on these restrictions do to record low snow pack and record low rain.

It effects everyone at both ends.   So I feel the pain all of you are experiencing, and I certainly hope the end is in the near future.   Interestingly enogh, with urban development here, there is more hard scape here then ever putting more water into the rivers then ever.... yet it is still not enough. 

And check this out, in Colorado, it is illegal to collect rain and snow melt. ... that's right, illegal! !!  They are trying to change it, I guess someone was finally able to convince our politicians that we live in a desert.  Plus a major study in Denver proved that collecting rain water would not effect how much precipitation makes it to the streams and rivers.   Yet the states our forefathers sold our water to are fighting the repeal of the law tooth and nail. 

Yesterday while driving, the newsman came on and said it is supposed to rain here Tuesday, so I looked at Intellicast.  Hmmmm.  Tues night.  Light Rain.  70%.  This probably means no rain.  We'd all love a 3 day downpour, but the flip side of that is floods.  Sad for those who are in states experiencing flooding.

The anti-rain barrel law here is totally ridiculous. I can understand if one were storing the water and exporting/selling it, which sounds crazy in itself, but seriously..the collected water is still on its way to the aquifer. We are just delaying it to a more opportune time.
I would love to have a huge cistern under my yard! One or two big snow storms or spring rain spells would fill it easy.

I am planning on attaching a flexible diverter to the bottom of the downspouts.  If it were raining on the day I need to mix new solution and one were to find it's way into the reservoir... oops.

The Weather Channel gives Santa Barbara a 100% probablity for rain on Tuesday.

In the past, I looked out my living room window in wonder at the torrent gushing past during any descent rain storm.  You see, my street goes straight up hill 1/4 mile.  I suppose all that water goes straight into the Santa Barbara Channel (Pacific), about 5 blocks from my home.

Next Tuesday will be different; I'm getting wet!

Yesterday, I drove 200 mi rt to Los Angeles to pick up 200 ft of  2 1/2" fire hose in time for Tuesday.  Today, I fashioned a funnel from an office rug protector, mat.  A quarter is on top of the wide end, for scale.
 
 

Next season I could have a reservoir  waiting.  For now the plan is to flood my backyard and save my fruit  and redwood (100 ft) trees with water from my street.

I'll let the initial 30 minutes of water flow past. The rest of the street water should be much cleaner, in fact much better for my trees than that salty tap water we drink.  I'll be pushing that salty residue deeper into the earth.

Anticipating the rain, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.

Cheers. 
             Tim Zone 10a

Can anyone recommend a 1500 to 2000  gal reservoir vendor?

good luck with the rain.

Farming is such a small part of CA tax revenue and economy. 40$ billion in revenue of a 1.6 trillion dollar economy. Tax revenues in the state rise and fall with fortunes of Silicon Valley. The Bay Area is the only part of CA economy that has grown in recent years (talking private sector, public sector keeps expanding as always). 

Farmers must pay more for water, it will make them drop water intensive crops that should not be grown in our arid climate. Food prices should go up. Americans pay the lowest proportion of their income to food items than any other country. 

I believe additional storage needs to be built and city folks need to quit blaming agriculture for water woes of California.

Water projects were built with the expressed purpose of irrigating areas of the central valley and contracts granted to those areas.  Some areas, such as mine, have riparian water rights that date back over 100 years.  The right to extract water from the Sacramento River is part of my property.  Now someone else thinks they have a better use for it and want to control what I and others do with OUR property.  I suggest that someone with a 4 bedroom house in Silicon Valley or Malibu be restricted to having no more than 1 inhabitant in their home and solve their water restrictions that way, okay?  Perhaps they wouldn't like my thoughts on how they use their property?  Some people want to change the price of water used by farmers. I pay very little for my water (would pay nothing except for a settlement reached with the state the last time they stole water from us when 1977 when Governor Moonbeam/BROWN was in office the first time around.  As part of that contract, the riparian water rights of north delta users is assured and the state agreed it would pay farmers in our area for any crop losses or crops that were not planted if it was unable to supply the water traditionally available to our area.

The biggest user of water in California is not agriculture.  Environmental uses take up 50% of our water, agriculture about 40%, urban 10%.  Yes, we need to be protective of our environment  but some of this can be done more wisely.  During the winter before this last some environmental researchers discharged something like 900,000 acre feet of water from reservoirs upriver from here to see what influence that would have on the Delta Smelt.  Pretty poor timing when reservoirs were already very low.  I've also read that more Delta Smelt are killed via monitoring/counting of these tiny fish than caught in the screens of the pumps that pump water down south of here.  In December we had rainfall way above normal and our reservoirs only capture a portion of the heavy run-off with high river levels in my area while the water flowed out to sea.  That did not benefit the environment or humans.

The vast majority food consumed in California is consumed by urban dwellers.  They don't need farms here, they get their food from the grocery store.  Yes, that's the mentality of many that like to suggest how others change their lifestyle so they don't need to change theirs.

There has been much reporting lately of how it takes 1 gallon to produce 1 almond.  Almonds are the cause of all of our problems, right?!  California produces more almonds than anywhere else in the world and nowhere else in the U.S. has the climate suitable for growing almonds.  Nearly all almond orchards in California make as most efficient use of water as possible.  People need to realize that their own food consumption affects how water is used.  Most alfalfa grown in California is used by dairies with most of the milk from these dairies consumed in California.  Miilk is expensive to transport but some milk has been imported into California from other southwest states.  I've read that it takes about 150 gallons of water to grow one watermelon.  So, when someone in California is enjoying a watermelon this summer I wonder if they will give much thought to how much water was used to grow it.  Rice is viewed as a huge waste of water but much of that is ignorance, IMO.  Just because it is grown in standing water does not mean it is using more water than a crop in dry land.  Rice grown in California is almost always grown on heavy clay soils that hold the water very well and very little water is released from the rice fields until the end of the year.  These same rice fields are also an important part of habitat for migrating waterfowl.  Processing tomatoes are also a huge crop in California and, again, there is nowhere else in the U.S. with a climate suitable for growing this crop.

Recently there has been the talk that the cost of water should be increased and this would force wiser use of water.  This would likely decrease the use by farms and make many food items more scarce and expensive.  I think the state should place a $100,000 bond on the property of every urban dweller and use those funds to build more reservoirs and subsidize more efficient irrigation systems for some farmers.  But I imagine some folks that own these homes wouldn't like the idea of suddenly having to pay more for something that they already own.  Imagine that.  In reality, I believe the state should look at buying the portion of water rights from many agricultural areas and those growers could use those funds to install even more efficient irrigation systems.  I already use micro-irrigation systems on my chestnuts, pomegranates, and figs.  Last year my partner and I spent $60,000 for sprinkler irrigation equipment for my alfalfa instead of flood irrigating.  I could not justify this for its water savings (I used about 40% less water, however), but did so because of improved uniformity leading to better yields.  This was a difficult decision as I'm a small farmer and the return on this investment will take many years to recover and I work my butt off moving sprinkler pipe.  Subsurface drip irrigation might be even better but would cost much more and have a shorter lifespan.

Lately there has been some complaints that farmers aren't subject to the mandated cut-backs instituted by Governor Brown last week.  He has pointed out that many farmers have been forced to do without any deliveries of water from water projects (some are receiving 5% of their allocated water rights) and that farmers are not making frivolous use of water.  He hasn't said so but, in  most cases, he does not have the legal authority to curtail usage any further in agriculture.

Some people have complained that California farmers should not export any crops.  This comes from people who everyday purchase imported items and who seem to have a strange idea on free trade and trade balances.

The placing of blame on others only ensure that the underlying problems will not be addressed.

crunbar...... I like your idea for capturing run-off.  Only question I would have is, will you have enough pressure or elevation drop to inflate the fire hose?   I was messing with a long light wieght 2" plastic swimming pool discharge hose a few years ago and amazed how much pressure plus volmue it took to inflate it and get measurable water out the other end.

Weather reports claim Tuesday's rain is on track and may provide Santa Barbara a little relief.   I pray it makes it to San Diego County, I'm not seeing much on the radar though.

Best of luck

No matter who has the rights......whatever purpose it is used for......or whoever you want to blame or call someone names....when it is gone.....it is gone.

Lots of clouds today.  Fingers crossed for rain tomorrow.  I wish there was a way to capture the runoff from our steep road.  Even a light rain creates a river down the middle.  Evidently, prior to us moving here, it would make a big lake at the bottom that cars had difficulty driving through, so there are all these speed bump things that catch water and divert it off to the sides and down into the ravines.  Any rain hitting at the top of the hills will tend to transfer down with gravity, so hillside trees here should benefit.

It's a fact that folks who live on the East coast (like me) have no idea what an impact this has on our economy as a whole! I remember just last year looking out as far as the eye could see and see all those walnut trees, tomatoes, watermelons. Wow, until a person visits or lives in CA, they can only imagine. I think it's time to install a major water pipeline from the east coast to the west coast and give states all the water they need!

Jack, thanks for the interest.  When deciding upon the diameter of the fire hose and the dimensions of the funnel, I considered 2 constraints.  1) resistance to flow,  2) limitations of human (my) strength.

The water flowing down the streets hill (guessing 10 to 15 mph) will already have some momentum.  The funnel capacity is about 6 gallons (50 lbs).  There is a 10-11 ft drop in the first 60 ft of 200 ft hose. it's an 18 ft drop if I hold the (clogged?) funnel over my head, which (if then flowing) would cause a temporary suction at the funnel end.  I bet about $300 that will be sufficient.  Of course that is no guarantee.

Jack, thanks to your inquiry it now occurs to me that I could better prime that suction pump by holding the funnel high and having a helper quickly dump a 5 gallon bucket of water into it, then place the funnel on the street and start collecting.  This afternoon I'll do this experiment and see how well that pressure inflates the fire hose.

Thanks for the input.

Tim Zone 10a

I collect rainwater from the roof. I've sawed off one of the downspouts and with ordinary black 4 inch tubing and connectors found at homedepot, collect runoff into ordinary Rubbermaid trash cans. They each old 32 gallons and are more than strong enough. A couple of my old trashcans have small leaks, but those I've lined with very large construction plastic trash liners purchased online.

The amount of rain that can be collected from one modified down-spout is amazing. The biggest problem is having enough containers in which to store it. You also have to be outside when it's raining to move the tube from one can to another as they fill.  

To deliver the water from the cans to plants, I either use a watering can, or for larger jobs, use a submersible pump formerly used in the fish pond. Make sure your pump is plugged into an outlet with a ground fault circuit breaker of course.

If you connect the cans with a piece of two inch pipe, one can will simply flow into the next when it's full.   No needed to move the run off pipe any more. 

Agreed.

Perhaps a permanent solution is not a bad idea. 

It is sad and scary indeed. We need to think of the natural habitat of southern California as being semi arid. There gotta be a better water infrastructure, otherwise only Cacti can thrive there.
The Mediterranean climate is still the most ideal climate for growing Figs and all kinds of fruit trees. 

Here's an interesting piggyback article. Not hard to believe, but it suggests the issue is really multifaceted: political, financial, AND cultural/societal/common-sense:

http://news.yahoo.com/wealth-is-most-reliable-predictor-of-water-use-in-los-angeles--study-184853474.html

Harvey

last night, I think it was ABC News that stated 80% of used California surface water goes to agriculture and 20% to "all other uses." 

As for exporting water intensive crops, is this not a case of the government subsidizing private business?  We in suburban areas pay far higher water prices, even if we are growing food.

Tim  Zone 10a

BTW I also collect rain water from my roof into trash cans.

Tim, did your plan work?  What modifications would you use the next time?