[HN Gopher] The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild
___________________________________________________________________
The Los Angeles Aqueduct Is Wild
Author : michaefe
Score : 265 points
Date : 2026-03-17 18:43 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (practical.engineering)
(TXT) w3m dump (practical.engineering)
| anjel wrote:
| Nice picture but I've never seen the water anywhere near blue
| like that.
| Supermancho wrote:
| That's a youtube thumbnail. I believe it's been altered, which
| also explains the strange brown substance that looks out of
| place.
|
| Most of the video content has the correct coloring, from my
| experience observing the aqueduct.
| w4der wrote:
| I think it's edited to look like water he uses in his garage
| demos.
| 3happyrobots wrote:
| Really enjoyed watching that. Good luck with water LA.
| bombcar wrote:
| I wonder at what point the up-front costs of massive desalination
| would overcome the (often hidden and externalized) costs of
| projects like this.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the up-front costs of massive desalination_
|
| Desalination is dominated by operating costs.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Correct it's massively energy intensive to filter the salt
| out the newest best ideas still use ~2 KWh/m3 of water and
| that's a lab system in perdue that batches the process
| instead of having it run continuously which is why current RO
| desalination systems require so much energy.
| smm11 wrote:
| California pays other states to take its excess solar
| energy. Power for a project like this isn't the issue,
| actually building the system is the issue.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _California pays other states to take its excess solar
| energy_
|
| Intermittently. Essential services like water (with
| expensive fixed costs) aren't a good fit for absorbing
| variable supply.
|
| > _Power for a project like this isn 't the issue_
|
| California has the country's most expensive power [1] in
| part due to policymakers constantly assuming it's free.
|
| [1] https://www.electricchoice.com/electricity-prices-by-
| state/
| rtkwe wrote:
| They wouldn't if you switched just Urban water use from
| natural sources to desalination. To do that you need to
| replace the ~5 million acre feet of water, ~6,167,400,000
| m3, that goes into the Urban bucket which is all of the
| water used to keep people alive, clean, and all
| industrial uses of water. [0] That comes to ~ 12BkWh of
| energy needed to scale up batched reverse osmosis to take
| over just the life and job required water needs which is
| about 25% of the total solar power generated in all of
| 2025 via grid-scale solar farms. CA does export some
| during the day due to excess solar but is still a net
| importer of power.
|
| [0] p2 of https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-
| Website/Files/Documents/2019/...
| bombcar wrote:
| Those are the numbers I was looking for - that means that
| (ignoring build-out costs) total desalination for CA
| would be on the order of 10% of the 3 gorges dam yearly
| output (max).
| rtkwe wrote:
| Using a system that's currently in a lab scale only and
| ignoring other energy costs like moving the water to the
| plant, mixing the briny output back down to acceptable
| levels, and then pressurizing the system to replace the
| gravity fed design it currently uses.
|
| For a rough estimate for replacing agricultural uses too
| ~6x that urban figure at least then weep at the amount of
| pumps you'd need to bring that water up and inland to the
| farm lands from the coast. At least for replacing urban
| use most of the population lives on/near the coast where
| the water would be produced.
| bombcar wrote:
| Farm use is by far the biggest, but "taking" water from
| the inland empire and dragging it to LA is also a cost.
|
| But all of this is firmly in the "we could do it if we
| really wanted/needed to" not "needs more energy than the
| sun will produce in its lifetime".
| detourdog wrote:
| A scaled down perspective is....
|
| The most efficient commercial desalinator for boats is 32
| Watts a gallon.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| Do you mean 32 Watt- _hours_ / gallon?
| detourdog wrote:
| Hard to say. The spec sheet calls out 4 Amps for the 12
| Volt system or 32 Watts for a single gallon.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| If it includes the time it takes to produce that gallon,
| there would be enough information to do the energy
| calculation.
| detourdog wrote:
| I guess it would be 48W/h as it makes about 1.5 gallons
| an hour.
| rtkwe wrote:
| Which to scale back up and complete the comparison to the
| state of the art in lab "batch reverse osmosis" systems I
| was originally talking about that's ~12.7 kWh/m3.
| masklinn wrote:
| For a real world comparison, the Perth desalination plant
| claims ~4kWh/m3.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| I don't think the brine pollutant issue has been meaningfully
| solved. You are also now pumping water inland uphill the whole
| way.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| For usage where the water mostly returns as sewage, is
| treated and then returned to the ocean, you can just dilute
| the brine with the treated discharge and then it returns at
| basically the original salinity.
| kenhwang wrote:
| It is common now for treated discharge to be sent to a
| discharge lake/leach wetlands so it can be used to
| replenish groundwater supplies.
| kibwen wrote:
| As long as we don't try to hide and externalize the cost of all
| the hyper-saline brine management that comes with desalination.
| bombcar wrote:
| We can store it in the remains of Owens Lake ;)
| hparadiz wrote:
| The California aquaduct system is an engineering marvel.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| If anyone wants a deep dive on this subject:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Or another kind of take:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8...
|
| (Chinatown)
| willturman wrote:
| Or another kind of take:
|
| Land of Little Rain by Mary Hunter Austin
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91707.The_Land_of_Little.
| ..
| jackconsidine wrote:
| Came here to post this. Dam good book on the shifty maneuvering
| that resulted in the Owens Valley Diversion and ultimately the
| population center that is LA.
| hvb2 wrote:
| That bit of history can't be left out. The engineering is
| super cool though.
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| Being from LA, I am used to a water system that works without
| needing power. I think most of CA is like that. It was a surprise
| to lose the water back east when the power went out during a
| storm.
| duomo wrote:
| The LA water system is dependent on power as a whole. There's
| many pumping stations along the various aqueducts.
| devilbunny wrote:
| I know NYC doesn't treat their water at all, but LA doesn't
| either?
|
| My city runs on surface water, so we have treatment and then
| pump to storage tanks. You would have to be out for quite a
| while to run the city out of water, though - the tanks are
| large.
| kenhwang wrote:
| LA definitely treats the water. Both the surface water before
| consumption (I'd be surprised if any city doesn't do this)
| and the wastewater, for reclamation for nonportable use like
| irrigation, and for recycling back into the general clean
| water supply.
|
| The aqueduct water is specifically purified by the Los
| Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant. That plant is gravity fed,
| but it doesn't operate without power.
|
| LA just has the advantage of having mountains in the city, so
| it's cheaper building more elevated water storage so the
| capacity lasts longer during power interruptions (which are
| also not as common or extended as they are in the east). They
| will still eventually run out if they're not replenished by
| powered pumps.
| simtel20 wrote:
| Where did you get that idea about NYC water being untreated?
| NYC treats its water. Chlorine is added if and when needed.
| Testing stations exist to evaluate water quality all around
| the boroughs, etc.
|
| You can't have a city of millions of people and have the
| water be potable from the tap without testing and treatment
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.nycfoodpolicy.org/10-facts-you-may-not-know-
| abou...
|
| > New York City's water (including drinking water) is
| unfiltered, making it the largest unfiltered water system
| in the country. Were New York to begin filtering its water,
| it would cost the city approximately 1 million dollars per
| day to operate the filtration plant.
|
| They have hundreds of sampling stations to check daily.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/nyregion/nyc-tap-water-
| qu...
|
| This causes some issues for observant Jews, because the
| water technically might not be kosher.
|
| https://oukosher.org/blog/consumer-news/nyc-water/
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/nyregion/the-waters-
| fine-...
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Ok, but unfiltered does not imply untreated. Maybe that's
| where they got the idea, though.
| devilbunny wrote:
| It is, indeed. I'd edit the post but... too late.
| valarauko wrote:
| It's largely unfiltered, but it is still treated for
| disinfection. Chlorination and UV is standard for NYC
| water, and its fluoridated as well.
| markdown wrote:
| Treatment is usually just the addition of chlorine and in
| some countries, fluoride.
|
| Filtration isn't common.
| mikestew wrote:
| _I know NYC doesn 't treat their water at all..._
|
| EDIT: I'm a dork an grabbed the wrong URL. Changed URL to a
| PDF for lack of better.
|
| A major metro doesn't treat its tap water? Where on earth did
| you get that crazy idea?
|
| <old URL deleted>
|
| https://www.nyc.gov/assets/dep/downloads/pdf/water/drinking-.
| ..
|
| I'll save some digging: _" Even without filtration, the water
| is carefully treated to reduce the risk of harmful
| microorganisms."_
| jmalicki wrote:
| He was talking about the drinking water that comes from the
| faucet, not the sewage.
|
| The untreated NYC water has tiny crustaceans in it, which
| make it not Kosher, which is why thee bagels from a Jewish
| deli in NYC are so good. Go figure.
|
| https://newsfeed.time.com/2010/08/31/drink-up-nyc-meet-
| the-t...
| mikestew wrote:
| Thanks for the correction, I should have looked harder at
| that page before posting. I've since corrected.
| markdown wrote:
| There's no way the water is untreated. Like just about
| everywhere else on earth, they will add chlorine when
| necessary.
| johngunderman wrote:
| You linked to wastewater treatment, not drinking water.
| Wastewater is definitely treated in NYC.
|
| Tap water _is_ treated (UV and chloride disinfecting), but
| is largely _not_ filtered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ne
| w_York_City_water_supply_sys...
| macNchz wrote:
| The only places I've heard of losing water during power outages
| are houses that use a private well (no power, no well pump),
| which would be the case anywhere. Municipal water systems may
| or may not use power to provide pressure, but are going to have
| generator power outside of the most severe outages.
| MrZander wrote:
| Also, water towers. As long as the power isn't out long
| enough to deplete the tower.
| mono442 wrote:
| Apartment buildings often have pumps to increase pressure in
| the basement. Without power, the higher floors lose water.
| larkost wrote:
| I wonder if this was in an apartment building. We owned a condo
| in a 5 story (4+1) apartment building and because it was taller
| than the San Jose water system was built for, our building
| needed (electric) pumps to provide water pressure to the
| building (there were tanks on the roof). If we lost power, then
| we lost water.
|
| Now that we have moved to a 2 floor detached home (also in San
| Jose) we do not have that issue, and everything is gravity fed.
| fhdkweig wrote:
| Do you lose water in the whole building, or just those
| apartments above the water-line?
| larkost wrote:
| We happened to live on the top floor, so I don't have
| personal experience for the lower floors, but the
| communication on the (non official) group chat for the
| building always hinted that any water outages (we had a few
| non-power issues with the pumps as well) applied to to the
| whole building. But thinking back that could be an
| unfounded assumption.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Usually these relatively low height kinds of top-tank
| systems lose water for the entire apartment building,
| because there's one pump to raise the water to the tank,
| which then passively provides the pressure (usually through
| pressure regulators at each floor if I remember right).
|
| Larger buildings tend to have multiple independent systems
| tjwebbnorfolk wrote:
| We do not lose water on the east coast when the power goes out
| Spooky23 wrote:
| It depends where you are. Most cities in the Northeast you
| are correct. But coastal areas, big swaths of New Jersey and
| Long Island IIRC are definitely dependent on power. Towns
| with water towers usually pump it from the ground.
|
| Alot of suburbs that can't or won't hook into city supplies
| will sometimes need more active measures to filter their
| water as well.
|
| Sanitary sewers are _heavily_ dependent on power.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Odd. Most places use water towers to provide water pressure and
| have backup generators for the pumps that fill them.
| rimunroe wrote:
| I was surprised to find out it was largely uncovered, though I
| guess it probably makes it much cheaper to construct. I usually
| think of aqueducts as pipes or tunnels, like Persian qanats. I
| wonder how much water is lost due to evaporation.
| jonathonlui wrote:
| There's some testing to see how covering open irrigation canals
| with solar panels which would reduce evaporation and generate
| power
|
| > Their analysis found that putting solar panels over the 4,000
| miles of California's open canals could save up to 63 billion
| gallons of water annually
|
| https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/solar-panel-cove...
| rimunroe wrote:
| Thanks! I forgot that article, but now I remember that I read
| or skimmed it when it made the rounds last year. It's
| actually where I first learned that the aqueducts were
| uncovered!
| masklinn wrote:
| > could save up to 63 billion gallons of water annually
|
| To put it into perspective, 63 billion gallons is 193340
| acre-feet, which is 0.5% of california's water use (a bit
| under 40 millions acre-feet). That's a tenth the water
| consumption of lawns, which is 1/15th the water consumption
| of agriculture.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Or about 4 hours of Mississippi River discharge.
| markdown wrote:
| But how many football fields?
| kyledrake wrote:
| I was in Owens River Gorge last week, it's a very interesting
| place. It has some of the tallest single pitch rock climbing in
| the world, sometimes requiring 80M ropes:
| https://www.mountainproject.com/area/105843226/owens-river-g...
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Sometimes it feels like the US has lost its appetite for grand
| structural projects like that. Maybe it's just that I'm unaware
| of them and that impression is the result of survival bias, but
| given how impossibly hard it is to just build anything where I
| live (Seattle), I'm not so sure.
| BryantD wrote:
| I don't think you're wrong. Every time someone says we can't do
| high speed rail it makes me very sad. And as far as Seattle
| goes... my commute is substantially affected by the I-5
| closures. It's somewhat shocking to me that we allow
| infrastructure to decay as much as we do.
|
| I'd be happy about the light rail expansion if they weren't
| talking about delaying the Ballard line indefinitely. :(
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Evidently tax cuts for the wealthy are more important than
| infrastructure.
| zardo wrote:
| Can't do highspeed rail because it's too impractical and
| expensive, while we're spending a west coast highspeed rail
| network worth of money on the least popular war in US
| history.
| coryrc wrote:
| California is spending the money and what they're building
| is useless (oh big passenger demand from Merced to
| Bakersfield, fuck right off with that) and costs 10x what
| China, France, Japan, etc pay.
| coryrc wrote:
| The commute is slow because the light rail is slow. It's the
| wrong technology for commuter rail and there are too many
| stops. (I'm assuming you live north).
|
| (more details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47457884)
| dogemaster2025 wrote:
| It's too complicated to corruptly make money off of a large
| project like that. It's much easier to just buy a bunch of
| drugs and needles and give it to the methheads, or spend money
| on homeless while building zero homes.
| jcranmer wrote:
| You mean, like NYC Water Tunnel #3?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_No....
| com2kid wrote:
| Seattle just got done building light rail tracks over a
| floating bridge.
|
| It is an insane engineering achievement. A train literally
| running on tracks on a road that is floating on water!
| strongpigeon wrote:
| Fair. Maybe I'm too much if the weeds of this because all I
| can think of is how much of a fight it was to pass ST2 and
| ST3 and how we haven't even started on the Ballard line
| despite voting for it in 2016 (10 years ago!) and how it
| might be delayed forever.
| coryrc wrote:
| No, it's not an insane engineering achievement. It's just a
| normal one, because nobody else has floating bridges, nobody
| else needed it. It's also years late and costs 10x more than
| it should.
|
| It's also the wrong stupid technology. The trains are
| constrained on space because of the low-floor bullshit. It's
| the longest light rail in the country, it's too fucking long
| and slow. Even if we fully built out ST3 it can't handle more
| than ~20% of commuters. It can't be expanded with express
| tracks because it's built deep underground, so the commute is
| so much slower than the equivalent in other countries and
| will NEVER compete with the automobile except during peak
| rush hour. The northern stations are next to the freeway so
| over half the land that could be transit-oriented development
| can't be, and then what's left is devoted to parking anyway.
| Complete, total waste of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,
| built and planned by people who don't and won't ever use
| transit.
|
| That 10x cost directly makes it so we can't build out our
| system properly and we keep building out car infrastructure
| because people would rather have a car and save 2 hours a day
| commuting.
| com2kid wrote:
| > No, it's not an insane engineering achievement. It's just
| a normal one, because nobody else has floating bridges,
| nobody else needed it. It's also years late and costs 10x
| more than it should.
|
| Your other points aside -
|
| Doing something no one else has ever done is the definition
| of an engineering achievement.
|
| There isn't a set of best practices. There aren't a bunch
| of off the shelf parts, there aren't any contractors who
| can help you out because they've done it a dozen times
| before. It is an original engineering challenge.
|
| Pulling it off is by definition an achievement.
|
| That said, 100% agree about the station placement. Heck the
| stations that are well placed were poorly designed, they
| should be profitable by including commercial real estate
| and residences, with the revenue from both going to Sound
| Transit to pay for the system.
|
| But no, we didn't do that and I can't even get a cup of
| coffee, in Seattle, at our light rail stations.
| coryrc wrote:
| I said it was, just not an "insane" one. It's not the
| Hoover Dam. Trains get on to boats all the time. It's
| innovation.
|
| Oh yeah, and we hamstring ourselves because every extra
| property can only be used for "affordable" housing and we
| paid top dollar for it, then limit how much it can be
| used and tie up prime property which could have been used
| for more purposes. Gee, why is everything so expensive!?
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| I get that it is neat but it's hardly the Hoover dam is it?
| dontlikeyoueith wrote:
| No, it's significantly more complex.
| darknavi wrote:
| It's not exactly brain surgery, is it?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I
| rabid_0wl wrote:
| Those projects would literally be impossible today with the
| environmental regulations in place, especially in California.
| OskarS wrote:
| Certainly that's part of it, but also just NIMBYism. Los
| Angeles were able to defeat the Owen's Valley farmers back
| then, I don't think they would be now.
| kibwen wrote:
| If you watch the OP, you'll see that the construction of this
| aqueduct caused billions of dollars worth of environmental
| devastation. Rail all you want against regulations, but when
| an argument boils down to "I wish we didn't have to
| internalize all these costs and could just push them off on
| someone else", I'm not especially sympathetic.
| rabid_0wl wrote:
| LA has paid billions to remediate, but the actual cost is
| incalculable. Not sure who is "railing against regulations"
| but there are obviously downsides to heavy environmental
| regulations. Debatable if CA is striking the right balance.
| schlauerfox wrote:
| We're literally right now building a huge high speed rail
| project that is planned to link san diego to san francisco
| through LA, bakersfield and fresno. Progress is made on it
| daily. https://www.youtube.com/CAHighSpeedRail
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Progress is made on it daily? Great. How soon can I ride it?
| Animats wrote:
| Caltrain, from SF to SJ, is part of the California high
| speed rail system, and you can ride it right now. It's now
| electrified at 25KV, welded rail, concrete ties, and
| compatible with high speed rail. The Stadler trains are
| capable of 125MPH but are run slower because there are so
| many stations.
| jimbokun wrote:
| And when did that project start and how much has it cost and
| how far can you ride on what they've completed up until now?
| baggy_trough wrote:
| That may be true for some twisted definition of "building".
| Most people would say the money is simply being wasted by
| bureaucrats, consultancies, etc.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Rejoice. It will be the world's slowest and most expensive
| "high speed" rail.
|
| So slow, in fact, many countries have faster regular rail.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| The grand projects the US has embarked on have been completed
| using unethical means and without regard for real environmental
| consequences.
| z3ugma wrote:
| "Well There's Your Problem" on the collapse of the St Francis
| Dam, mentioned in Grady's video
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxLgM1vnuUA
|
| Also I love when they refer to it as the "_First_ California
| Water Wars" in a grim realization of the future of water scarcity
| in the West
| hamdingers wrote:
| There is no water scarcity in California, only misallocation.
| The vast majority of our water is heavily subsidized and used
| for agriculture, and a substantial amount of those crops are
| grown for export, yet agricultural exports makes up an
| insignificant part of California's economy.
|
| We could end all California water scarcity talk today, with no
| impact to food availability for Americans, by curtailing the
| international export of just two California crops: almonds and
| alfalfa.
| weaksauce wrote:
| to put this to numbers... the exports are just about 0.5% of
| california's GDP. so yeah pretty much a rounding error.
| chrisrogers wrote:
| 0.5% is a far cry from a rounding error..
| panzagl wrote:
| 0.5% is like the literal definition of a rounding error.
| SCUSKU wrote:
| Anecdotally, my friend's grandma was an almond farmer. As
| they drove past a river in the Central Valley, she exclaimed
| "Why is there water in that river?! Those could be watering
| my almond trees!"
| kccqzy wrote:
| So why hasn't that been done? Have some representatives and
| senators set limits on almond exports. Surely they wouldn't
| be voted out in the next election given how farmers are
| outnumbered.
| patmorgan23 wrote:
| Because farmers are making money off of exporting and have
| significant lobbying power
| markdown wrote:
| Bold of you to assume that ordinary voters matter more than
| Billionaires like the Resnicks of The Wonderful Company.
| coryrc wrote:
| Almonds are climate-appropriate product and valuable. Alfalfa
| can cheaply be grown off rainwater in the Midwest and it
| alone frees up sufficient water.
| kenhwang wrote:
| The problem is alfalfa is expensive to transport (heavy due
| to desired moisture content). So while it can be cheaply
| grown in the Midwest, it can't be cheaply transported from
| the Midwest to where buyers of alfalfa are (typically
| overseas).
|
| Alfalfa is also a staple for crop rotation, so any farming
| operation will still grow some alfalfa to maintain rotation
| for good soil health (or during bad condition seasons since
| it's hardier to poor conditions and not a permanent crop).
|
| If alfalfa cannot be exported (through policy or economic
| conditions), the low price attracts more livestock
| production in-state (which would be even worse for water
| use).
|
| Those things makes it a hard crop to target for
| sustainability and export.
| coryrc wrote:
| > it can't be cheaply transported from the Midwest to
| where buyers of alfalfa are
|
| Trains.
|
| Alfalfa isn't the only alternative, and they should
| switch to higher-value crops anyway. They would if they
| had to pay for water. We simply need to charge everybody
| for water usage.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| In Arizona we grow alfalfa as well -- it's mind boggling to
| me that in places where water is so scarce we use so much of
| it on such a low value crop.
| crooked-v wrote:
| That alfalfa gets extensively exported as livestock feed...
| and alfalfa is literally mostly water by weight. So the
| arrangement is literally shipping out local groundwater in
| bulk to other countries.
| babblingfish wrote:
| I really dig the editorial viewpoint of this article. New
| journalism style meets fun facts about engineering.
| mjamesaustin wrote:
| Growing up in LA, I was fascinated as a kid watching the water
| flow down this aqueduct. Anytime we drove by it on the way to
| Magic Mountain, I'd hope that it would be a water-on day.
| whalesalad wrote:
| My dad lived in Palmdale, my mom lived in Glendale. I made that
| trip a LOT. It's cool when it is all lit up with the colorful
| lighting.
| jedberg wrote:
| The norcal/socal divide caused by the river is funny to me. I
| grew up in LA, then moved to the Bay Area for college. In LA we
| never really talked about where our water comes from. But we were
| always 'in a drought' and always taught to conserve water.
|
| My wife grew up in the Bay Area, and was told the same.
|
| But her family is from Sacramento. Up until about 15 years ago,
| everyone in Sacramento paid the same for water (based on square
| footage of your home). There were no water meters. So they didn't
| conserve. They ran the sprinklers in 100 degree heat for hours,
| they washed sidewalks with water instead sweeping, and all the
| other things.
|
| But when the meters came, her Uncle blamed SoCal for "stealing
| his water". He complained every month when the bill came about
| how he has to pay more now because of SoCal.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Owens valley, where LA "steals" water from, is on the eastern
| side of the Sierras.
|
| NorCal, including Sacramento, is on the western side of the
| Sierras.
|
| So unless they planned on pumping the water over/under the
| mountain range that surrounds it in every direction except for
| towards LA, that water was never available for any NorCal city
| to use.
| dgaultiere wrote:
| LA also gets water from the state water project which does
| come from northern california: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w
| ikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Ca...
| jlhawn wrote:
| they are saying that LA takes water from sources which would
| otherwise drain into the sacramento and san joaquin river
| delta. The video from this post mentions the California State
| Water Project which takes water from the Feather River
| (Oroville Dam) and distributes it along the Western edge of
| the central valley South to Bakersfield where it is then
| pumped over the mountains both towards Los Angeles and
| further East to San Bernardino and Riverside. It provides way
| more water to SoCal than the two Los Angeles-specific
| aqueducts from the Owens Valley on the Eastern side of the
| Sierras.
| mutagen wrote:
| The California Aqueduct delivers water from the western
| Sierras through the Central Valley and to Los Angeles. This
| is likely what NorCal refers to when they say SoCal is
| 'stealing our water'.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct
|
| Would be interesting to see the relative amounts of use by LA
| and by agriculture in the Central Valley though.
| nostrademons wrote:
| This infographic basically explains it:
|
| https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
|
| tl;dr: Urban water use is tiny. In NorCal, the vast
| majority of the water flows unimpeded to the sea. In the
| Central Valley, most water is used for agriculture.
| Agricultural water use in any _one_ of the 3 major basins
| in the Central Valley is more than all urban areas in
| California combined. Unsurprisingly, urban use is the
| primary one in the SF and LA areas, but the absolute totals
| are very small compared to total CA water supplies.
| kenhwang wrote:
| SoCal does, yes; about half the water going through the SWP
| from NorCal, or ~75% if you include Bakersfield/Kern as
| part of SoCal (though most would consider it Central
| Valley).
|
| But SoCal isn't only LA. LA itself gets a bit less than
| half of their water from MWP, which manages the water from
| the SWP and the Colorado. About the same amount it gets
| from the the eastern Sierras. These are supposed to drop to
| ~10% of LA's water supply as recapture/recycling projects
| complete.
|
| Or computed the other way around, LA only has rights to
| ~20% of the water managed by MWD. Of course water supply,
| distribution, and rights are all blended and traded around
| all the time, but generally speaking it's not "LA" using up
| that water from NorCal, the consumption is significantly
| more from the cities and farms that came after.
| vondur wrote:
| Owens valley is basically dried up from the water that LA
| takes. It's interesting as you drive in the towns in the
| Valley and you see all the LA Department of Water and Power
| offices over 200 miles from Los Angeles. The courts had to
| force the LA DWP to quit taking too much water from the
| streams that feed Mono Lake as it was in danger of drying
| out.
| kenhwang wrote:
| Yep, Owens valley is basically an environmental disaster
| created by LA. So in the grand scheme of things, buying
| water from NorCal is better than stealing from the Owens
| valley through antiquated water rights.
|
| But really, California (and really the entire Western US)
| needs a water rights governance overhaul. Right now the
| focus is all on urban water use, which is practically
| negligible compared to the agricultural water rights usage.
| paradox460 wrote:
| Much easier to tell Joe homeowner he's not allowed to
| have a lawn than to close down the country club. Where
| would the rich relax then?
| ashdksnndck wrote:
| The country club is also negligible compared to
| agriculture. Farmers are politically not an attractive
| punching bag though.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That's a money play too. Some of the best farmland in the
| world is now the endless subarban Boston->DC corridor.
|
| We created the miracle on the desert, and billions were
| made in real estate.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| It isn't dried up, they maintain a certain water level in
| the various lakes.
| bronson wrote:
| The lake is completely dried up.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owens_Lake And other lakes
| in the area are in really bad shape.
| dpe82 wrote:
| Old men yelling at the sky don't often seek rationality or
| nuance in their cries.
| jsLavaGoat wrote:
| Yes, Norcal spent decades wagging fingers at SoCal about this.
| There were books like Cadillac Desert.
|
| Meanwhile, San Francisco drinks clean glacier water that a
| valley in Yosemite was destroyed to provide this and they
| refuse to repurpose a downstream damn that has enough capacity
| to do it.
|
| Physician, heal thyself.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Crystal Springs isnt anywhere near Yosemite if that is what
| you are referencing. That being said it supposedly was
| gorgeous and almost as amazing before being filled with water
| dontlikeyoueith wrote:
| They are referring to Hetch Hetchy.
| jsLavaGoat wrote:
| Not Crystal Springs. Hetch Hetchy, the damning of which
| legendarily caused John Muir, the founder of the Sierra
| Club, to die of a broken heart.
| stouset wrote:
| It's a nitpick but the words you are looking for are
| "dam", "dammed", and "damming". Damning is a very
| different thing entirely.
| CalRobert wrote:
| They both work, really
| ashdksnndck wrote:
| Can you clarify what you mean by: "they refuse to repurpose a
| downstream dam"
|
| California has insufficient water storage to meet demand,
| it's not like we have huge dams lying around that we leave
| empty when there is water available to fill them.
|
| You might be referring to Don Pedro dam - but we are already
| filling that up (modulo what we need to keep empty for flood
| control). SF has some contractual right they could possibly
| exercise to water in Don Pedro but that doesn't magically
| result in California's water supply being held constant if we
| stop storing water in the Hetch Hetchy. If SF gets the Don
| Pedro water, that means someone else that was going to get it
| is deprived.
|
| Now, you could argue that the state can get by with lower
| storage because ag needs to consume less or more groundwater
| recharge or whatever, but that's a different question.
| wolandomny wrote:
| I remember hearing years ago that this aqueduct was going to be
| shut down and then it just... never was? Does anyone else recall
| that?
| TheGrassyKnoll wrote:
| Some say the LA aqueduct saved Owens Valley from development.
| (I'm sure the old timers out there would have a different
| opinion)
| bell-cot wrote:
| > (I'm sure the old timers ...
|
| Something along the lines of "we fought tooth and nail to save
| LA from development"?
| TipsForCanoes wrote:
| For anyone interested in a deep dive, I recommend the book Vision
| or villainy: origins of the Owens Valley-Los Angeles water
| controversy.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| Why is that picture an extreme recolor of the original?
|
| https://images.nebula.tv/5ba7e541-f57c-44cc-a91d-6a89bad158d...
| observationist wrote:
| To make people click.
| retrac wrote:
| There's a poem carved into the stonework of Washington Union
| Station, part of the art installation _The Progress of
| Railroading_ from c. 1909:
|
| the old mechanic arts / controlling new forces / build new
| highways / for goods and men / override the ocean / and make the
| very ether / carry human thought
|
| the desert shall rejoice / and blossom as the rose
| willturman wrote:
| > the desert shall rejoice / and blossom as the rose
|
| Or, rewritten for the Los Angeles Aqueduct:
|
| the desert shall wither / and blossom in a plume of dust [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-06-19/owens-v...
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| Looking at what Tehran is facing (not related to the war, water
| shortage), I'm wondering why california isn't investing in more
| desalination for SoCal, especially for LA.
|
| I see some here:
|
| https://lynceans.org/all-posts/status-of-desalination-plants...
|
| But there are only a few in SoCal and they're for smaller
| communities like carlsbad or santa barbara. So it is there and it
| is working for some, why not more? naturally i assume it's
| because everything costs more at the coast.
| peterbecich wrote:
| There are environmental and financial concerns
| https://calmatters.org/environment/2022/05/california-desali...
|
| I don't understand the financial concern at all. How could
| increasing the water supply increase the price? It only makes
| sense to me if the price is artificially low right now.
|
| Environmental damage by a desalinization plant couldn't
| possibly be worse than overdrawing the acquifer -- the defacto
| solution.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Building an industrial facility in california is much more
| difficult and expensive due to numerous regulations.
| bsder wrote:
| > I'm wondering why california isn't investing in more
| desalination for SoCal, especially for LA.
|
| Because California has plenty of water for residents. What
| California doesn't have is plenty of water for agribusiness.
|
| And the agribusinesses do _NOT_ want people paying close
| attention as all the valid solutions to water problems are
| basically "shut down agribusinesses in arid areas".
| scoofy wrote:
| Just a quick plug for _Cadillac Desert_. People don 't realize
| how fragile the urban areas of Coastal California are. We should.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert
| rkagerer wrote:
| Am curious, how have the shade balls been working out in terms of
| maintenance, coating wear, leeched microplastics, containment (so
| they don't wind up in oceans), etc? In retrospect, did it make
| sense compared to the $250M or so uplift it would have taken to
| build a conventional roof?
| lazide wrote:
| No way they could feasibly have built a roof over that
| reservoir.
| hnburnsy wrote:
| My favorite part of this video is where they divert and dry up
| one lake, and then build two reservoirs further downstream.
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