Cambria, where I live, halfway between San Francisco LA, is particularly hard hit. Cambria is supplied completely by well water. We had been trying since 2008 to build a desalinization plan, but had been blocked at every turn by the Coastal Commission and other regulatory bodies, because we would have had to dig a pipeline across the beach to get to the salt water. As a result draconian conservation measures were put into place. We were allocated only 50 gallons per person per day. If you exceeded your allotment, you were fined, two periods in a row your water was cut off. There was an immediate 40% drop in water usage. That wasnt enough. Last year with only a 6 months water supply left. The Community Services District decided to build a brackish water treatment plant. Treated water from the sewage treatment plant was to be pumped into the aquifer and withdrawn and treated by a reverse osmosis purification plant. Even then there were a whole bunch of regulatory hassles including that the $3 million plant be used only for the current drought without being recertified again.
EDIT: Cambria is in one of only three Monterrey Pine forests in CA, essentially an urban forest. The drought has exacerbated the pitch canker and beetle infestations. Forty per cent of the pine trees died last year. I lost four of the five on my property. Another four had died earlier. We are in danger of an explosive urban fire like the Oakland hills fire of 1991. One huge problem is the pines are protected. You cannot cut down one without a permit at $125 + $25 for each additional tree, plus restoration requirements. Most lots are small and close together so it may cost up to $2000 to cut down a tree. I had only four and I said screw the permit. But my neighbor has hundreds. It will cost millions to clear out the dead trees in town, but no state or federal grants seem to be forthcoming, but if you dont cut down your trees, after all the red tape, you get fined.
Just to correct a couple things the brackish/treated water Cambria plant, which cost $9 million not $3 million, was approved and completed in 'record time' (quote below). The picture of intractable government being painted in the comments here is only partially accurate.
In nominating the Cambria project, GWI said the fast-tracked construction of the project “is unprecedented in California” and “sets a new benchmark for what is achievable in the face of severe water stress.”
...
The nomination also said, “Although the city had looked at seawater desalination before, Governor (Jerry) Brown’s declaration of a drought emergency freed up the possibility of developing an alternative brackish water option, which was exempt from a burdensome environmental review process, enabling it to move ahead in record time.”
If you want to see what life is like without environmental regulations take a trip to any major Chinese city. Has the pendulum maybe swung too far in the us? Perhaps, certainly in some ways and combined with nimby zoning there's certainly a lot of room for improvement. But in other ways it's worked great and with climate change you could argue the reverse.
Sorry, you are correct. The original estimate was $3 million (probably from the consulting company), as built $9 million. It was built in record time, but it would have been built even quicker if the coastal commission had been more cooperative. The CSD finally gave in. Examples of current restrictions: it can be used only for stage four droughts. It must go through the whole permit process again if it is to be used again. It has more stringent water quality restrictions. It cannot be used as the basis for additional water connections. Cambria has had a moratorium on new water hookups since 1991. If I spent $9 million on something, I would like to use it more than once without going through the whole process.
BTW, The link to the Tribune just goes to their front page, but that's always problem if one is not a subscriber.
The original desal plant wasnt just looked at. It was fully funded as demonstration desal plant in 2009 by Obama's jobs program.. It was finally killed by the Coastal Commission's refusal to allow the drilling of a test well on the beach to measure water flow.
I'm not against environmental regulation. I certainly wouldnt want to live China or even Texas. We need more or more effective. Dont get me going on Wall street or regulatory capture or Citizens United.
Thanks for this. I was having trouble finding things newer than about 2010.
I also note that one of the things that makes life more difficult for the water situation there is that they lost use of an aquifer due to gasoline contamination by Chevron.
Chevron was forced to clean it up. Last fall the contaminated well was tested, found contaminant free, and brought back online. Since the cleanup was something like 20 years ago, I feel safe in drinking the water.
My wife grew up in the Del Monte forest, and they had a number of dangerous trees on their property. Her parents applied for a permit to fell the worst ones but was denied because the trees were only mostly dead.
Next winter, there was a windstorm and a tree fell on a neighbors house.
Well then some hooligans might poison those trees and oh look, now they are completely dead (easier to do than you might think, copper nails driven in will do the trick).
> We had been trying since 2008 to build a desalinization plan, but had been blocked at every turn by the Coastal Commission and other regulatory bodies, because we would have had to dig a pipeline across the beach to get to the salt water.
Except that you seem to conveniently omit the fact that there were also anti-tax people complaining about the unfair burden it would put on ratepayers.
In addition, part of the whole deal is that a desalinization plant is intended to allow more people into the area rather than simply servicing the existing ones.
Finally, I have a better solution. Let's shut down the town. It would be cheaper to dump all your sorry asses somewhere that has desalinization already.
Now, how about that solution? Oh, you don't like that solution? Gee, perhaps there's a bit of tension between different groups and the different solutions?
I am curious of what would happen if you all agreed to cut down the dead trees on mass? Can this level of civil disobedience really be stopped by any Californian authority? To allow a situation to continue that puts dead trees ahead of human life is totally insane.
> Can this level of civil disobedience really be stopped by any Californian authority?
Cambria is only 6,000 people, so, yeah, it probably could.
> To allow a situation to continue that puts dead trees ahead of human life is totally insane.
Except that fire is a standard part of the lifecycle of those trees. So, that town is in the middle of a known fire hazard area. And, given the population age and that there are practically no jobs other than tourism in the area, most of the people probably chose to buy a house there after they made their money elsewhere.
This is kind of like people who get flooded after they build a house in a flood plain.
I was actually in Cambria on Wednesday, for the first time ever, visiting a friend and his family that moved there a few years ago for his job as a CA state ranger. They shared the opinion on the job market and the people that live there. It came up in conversation, as we discussed the reason why small two bedroom one bath house with little to no extra land close to them was recently rented for $1800 a month, by an older couple.
Yes I can understand this. We had a similar issue here in Australia where we let people build in the middle of the forest (tree changers they are called). The stupidity of allowing this building was found out in the last big bush fire where 173 people died.
I was civilly disobedient and had my trees cut and chipped. We are not a geriatric community, but there are a lot of elderly, so they cant do it on their own. More serious problem is that most people dont have the skills to fell an 80 foot tree on a 50 foot wide lot next to another 50 foot wide lot. There are a lot of vacant lots the are owned by nonresidents. And large chunks of Cambria are owned by the state and conservation groups. They arent doing anything yet.
This sounds like a nightmare. Here in Australia we (population and authorities) are really sensitive to the hazards of bushfires and what can happen when you let fuel loads get out of control [1]. Lets hope for all your sakes that the latest el nino brings the risk down - unfortunately it is going to have the opposite effect for us :(
My family is conserving water in N California to water 100 ft (30 m) trees to prevent them from weakening and being colonized by borer insects which will then kill the trees. Having a tall dead around suburban homes is a very dangerous thing. They're also in an extremely risky area for fast-moving forest fires and a dried tree is fuel too. In addition to enough water, trees often need systemics (chemical treatment if there are specific pests) and annual inspections by arborists.
I saw on some web discussion area a post by an Australian who casually mentioned he killed a spider in his kitchen by tipping his refrigerator over on it.
The other Australians in the forum thought that was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
So...a place with spiders so big that people consider tipping over a refrigerator a reasonable approach to killing them, or a place with earthquakes.
Tipping a fridge is a bit extreme - you might spill the beer :)
Actually as far as dangerous animals here they are pretty rare in the cities where most people live. I grew up on a farm and snakes there were very common (not too many spiders though). I would run across a deadly snake around once or twice a week except during winter when they were hibernating. I was never bitten, but I did catch quite a few - it is not too hard to do as long as you use a long stick and have a strong bag without any holes to put them into.
It is probably the deadliest animal in the USA too. I have to say I would rather be stung by a bee than bitten by a death adder [1] or brown snake [2].
The brown snake is by far the most dangerous snake in Australia, since it is aggressive, and even though there is effective anti-venom, it the venom kill you quite quickly.
I actually used to fear death adders more. Brown snakes 99% of the time hear you coming and all you see is them taking off at high speed away from you. Death adders on the other hand lie still waiting for their prey to come to them so don’t move. Since they are camouflaged that can be really hard to spot in the leaf litter. When I would go exploring in the bush around my home I would always take my dog and make him lead the way - he would bark and let me know if a death adder was up ahead. Of course there were a very high rate of false alarms (goannas mostly), but I would rather a 100 false positives than have one false negative bite me.
Actually we have it. The new desal plant pumps treated water into the aquifer towards the ocean from the intake, reducing the intrusion of brackish water from the ocean. The desal plant is more for purification, but it does handle any brackish water that gets through. This is a much more cost effective model than direct ocean desalinization. Our plant was entered into a worldwide competition for brackis water desalinization and came in second.
A couple of decades ago I was on the board of a small mutual water company on Skyline above Woodside. We were having trouble meeting water quality standards, no serious violations, but the county was hassling us. We built a desal plant strictly for filtering water and removing minerals. Worked like a charm.
Elsewhere, Ed Begley, Jr.'s house awesomely reuses and captures water. Such technology should be cheaper, subsidized and actively encouraged so that it's mostly required where it wouldn't make people destitute.
EDIT: Cambria is in one of only three Monterrey Pine forests in CA, essentially an urban forest. The drought has exacerbated the pitch canker and beetle infestations. Forty per cent of the pine trees died last year. I lost four of the five on my property. Another four had died earlier. We are in danger of an explosive urban fire like the Oakland hills fire of 1991. One huge problem is the pines are protected. You cannot cut down one without a permit at $125 + $25 for each additional tree, plus restoration requirements. Most lots are small and close together so it may cost up to $2000 to cut down a tree. I had only four and I said screw the permit. But my neighbor has hundreds. It will cost millions to clear out the dead trees in town, but no state or federal grants seem to be forthcoming, but if you dont cut down your trees, after all the red tape, you get fined.