Posted on 03/15/2018 3:58:42 AM PDT by blueplum
The Trump administration is pushing forward with a colossal public works project in Northern California — heightening the towering Shasta Dam the equivalent of nearly two stories. The problem is that California is dead-set against the plan, and state law prohibits the 602-foot New Deal-era structure from getting any taller. {snip} The sudden momentum behind heightening the dam — a plan the federal government only a few years ago put on the shelf amid concerns it was incompatible with state environmental laws — threatens to trigger a constitutional conflict that tests the state's authority over what gets built on federal land within its borders...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
California could solve their water problems with more dams and nuclear powered desalination plants. But neither solution is politically correct, and the government is in the business of exploiting problems, not solving them.
Can’t let those farmers in the Central valley to have water for their crops. We need it for the striped minnow in SF swamps.
When california is put under military order as the Territory of California, there will be no state government to protest.
The current state government had declared the state to not be governed by federal law.
Accordingly, the state and local government will be abolished and immediately be replaced with military rule. The military has the ability to take over governments of conquered enemies. In California there will be many pro government people to volunteer to assist in the governance
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The constitutional question is - can the state stop the feds from building on federal land within a state?
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Then Q1 becomes: Define ‘Federal’ land, per the Constitution. Else, 9th/10th kick-in and Fed can go pound sand.
They would pump it. Just like they currently pump significant amounts of water from other rivers out west. They already do (? Or are planning on) pulling water over the continental divide. Yes desalination is expensive, but they already spend huge amounts. I believe it would be better to get their water locally. Closer, no drought worries. And it would alleviate pressure on the rivers out west. You’d think the environmentalists would welcome restoring those rivers and deltas.
Pumping water UPHILL the thousands of feet and thousands of miles from the Lake Superior across the continental divide is only half the problem. Then, after you get it to the Great Basin in Nevada, you have to pump it UPHILL AGAIN several thousands of feet to get it over the Sierra Mountains to get it over one of the passes between the lakes above Sacramento.
And THEN, you still need more room in those lakes to put the water coming back east.
“The constitutional question is - can the state stop the feds from building on federal land within a state?”
Give the land back to California and let them deal with it.
A Columbia River aqueduct would be much easier and economical.
A new desalination plant is in operation in San Diego county. Another is being built in Orange County. Your point is well made, California needs to increase desalination plant capacity more than it needs bullet trains.
Democrats prefer to rule under conditions of resource scarcity rather than abundant resources as the former promotes government dependency and the latter promotes individual freedom.
The Great Lakes are at close to 600 feet elevation, the Cali coast at zero. Once you get the initial flow started, shouldn’t gravity do the rest? (Siphon effect)
Theoretically, it would. But the distance involved through pipes that large mean a siphon cannot establish flow. Even theoretically, you’re asking it to go over two very, very large mountain ranges: The South Pass in Wyoming is 7500 feet.
Also, siphons “break suction” at the point where the surface vapor pressure of the water’s free surface exceeds the vacuum “pull pressure” on the “tube” of water in the pipe. So you cannot go “up” against gravity that far without the water vapor ending the vacuum that is providing the motive force.
And, what is nice about it, is that the dam is in Northern CA. A nice control option should things go south.
Tunnel under—just like New York city’s 92-mile-long Catskill Aqueduct?
Fifty-one cents per metric ton—a cubic meter—better than 261 gallons of fresh water as provided by the desalination plant. That’s the lifetime plant cost for that quantity of water for economics break-even. Cost comparison plants worldwide:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272756219_Desalination_Technologies_Hellenic_Experience
OK, how about lots and lots of very little syphons...capillary action (just kidding).
Your vapor pressure argument convinces.
Of course, they could hire Swiss tunneling experts to mediate that problem... just drill some holes through those mountain ranges...nothing a few $bln wouldn’t sort out ;)
Engineering plans have been designed. Pumps. I lived in Michigan when California tried to pull this cr@p.
Desalinization is very well developed in Israel. They actually pay LESS per cubic metre of water they have to manufacture than I pay for stuff that falls from the sky.
Must be because “Da JOOOZ!
The Pacific coast has a weather phenomenon called atmospheric rivers. Where massive amounts of water can pour down on the coastal states in a short period of time. The reason the dams were built in California in the first place was to keep the flatlands down to Sacramento and beyond to the Central Valley from flooding 20 to 30 feet deep. There was no way the state could have afforded the dams on their own. And no way 80% of the state could be settled permanently without them. The state has relied for decades on the feds to fund maintenance and operations- with taxdollars from every state. For dams at least, wouldn’t the feds have some sort of vested interest above that of the state, 9th and 10th excepted?
1862 Great Flood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
And make California pay for it!
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There was no way the state could have afforded the dams on their own. And no way 80% of the state could be settled permanently without them.
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Stats\sources? As if Fedzilla were ‘wise’ enough, more so than the State or the Citizens thereof\moving in, that could not determine the need and how best to handle.
Your presumption implies the interstate system, or the Hoover Dam, could not have been completed were it not for the ‘jobs programs’ and Big Brother’s
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The state has relied for decades on the feds to fund maintenance and operations- with taxdollars from every state. For dams at least, wouldn’t the feds have some sort of vested interest above that of the state, 9th and 10th excepted?
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Forts, postal roads, etc....Nothing in A1S8. I note *nothing* re: damns, let alone ‘vested interest’.
It is the ‘compelling State interest’, all too often, used to camel nose vs. inalienable Rights. ‘Tis but *another* ‘Commerce clause’....all encompassing and wholly abused; rarely (that I can recall) on the side of the Citizen.
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