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Comment by rllearneratwork | Hacker News Reader

In November 2014, California voters approved Proposition 1: The Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act. The $7.5 billion bond dedicated $2.7 billion for the public benefits of new water-storage projects.

But no new reservoirs have been built. This may or may not be changing now [1].

[1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/10/opinion-voter-approve....

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https://cwc.ca.gov/Water-Storage/WSIP-Project-Review-Portal/...

My understanding is they went pretty gung-ho building them and there aren't great spots left and new ones would severely disrupt or destroy entire ecosystems, like damming the Klameth.

Maybe you could just make the existing dams higher? That way, a lot of the new water sits on top of old water, and the undammed rivers continue to flow.

Disclaimer: I know very little about dams. But it has been done:

https://www.denverwater.org/grossreservoir/construction/rais...

If you build on top of an existing dam, the whole thing needs to be stronger top to bottom, the water pressure at the bottom increases when you add water on top. Sure there are places where this is possible but not everywhere.

Plus the existing reservoirs aren’t full ever, what’s needed is new watersheds to capture new water (or to use less, etc)

Making existing dams taller just adds empty space.

The sites reservoir looks like it will be built finally.

What if they built thousands of smaller lakes?

My guess is its not economical.

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