Our cities' water systems are becoming obsolete | Hacker News Reader

Our cities' water systems are becoming obsolete

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50 pointsclumsysmurf20 comments

As far as I can tell, the biggest threat to water in my state are the elected politicians. Certain municipalities are dumping raw sewage into the water. They claim it is due to not enough money to build proper plants, but they keep redirecting the money for other uses. There are now 2 specific taxes to address this, and still the cronies end up with all the money.

Where is this? I'd be interested in reading an article if you could link one.

I learned about this in passing during an urban planning class during undergrad (it was a great elective, and I really think more people should learn that stuff).

Combined sewer overflow [1] is essentially business as usual in many municipalities. I happened to learn about the Detroit sewer system, but even King Co in the PNW has this issue [2]. I like to think areas like that would think ahead about this, given the high annual rainfall, but separate systems are quite the expense.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_sewer#Combined_sewer_... [2]: http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/ehs/toxic/cs...

It happens in Boston too.

http://www.mwra.com/03sewer/html/sewcso.htm

The politicians are right and wrong. The federal government mandates water quality standards, but doesn't fund meeting them.

Where I live (Albany, NY) "fixing" the sweet systems in our country, which is a shared storm/sanitary system built in the early 19th century by burying existing streams, would cost something like $4 billion. The money just isn't there for a county with 300,000 people to fund huge capital projects like that.

As a result, everytime we get a heavy rain, we are dumping raw sewage into the Hudson River.

IMO, the Federal government should buy a few less F-35s and find projects like this -- valuable public works that will employ people and benefit society for 100 years or more.

None of the points in the article seem like anything particularly new. Looking at the points they mention:

1) Upgrades needed - stuff wears out need maintenance - always has done

2) New populations need new stuff - again same old

3) Global warming may cause drought - or it may make it wetter. There have always been droughts - again nothing new

The article also ignores things that are new - in parts of the world ground water is being used up and will need a big change when that runs out. Also greater prosperity my cause everyone to get pools and golf courses.

We will soon be able to make a water treatment plant small enough for a neighborhood or even a house, powered by PV panels on the roof. Then the only water needed would be the small amount needed to make up for evaporation.

The real problem though is golf courses which use as much water as domestic use and ag which uses a whole lot more. We don't have a solution for agriculture yet but parched places such as CA central valley will probably have to give up on ag.

Giving up on ag is an extreme response. The more reasonable approach is giving up on categorically insane water use policies that actually encourage waste by (a) placing a trivial price on each farmer's allotment and (b) reducing their allotment if they "fail" to use every drop allocated in the previous year.

The drought is serious, to be sure, but the severity of the crisis is not a direct function of the drought itself. Rather, it is a function of a serious drought converging with a deeply corrupt political culture that allows an obscenely reckless and short-sighted farming lobby to maintain the worst policy imaginable.

So I actually welcome this drought. I'd be very happy to see our major ag players ruined by the pressure they're under. Given the damage they've done to California, I wish them nothing but suffering in return. And no, we are not "all in this together". Commercial and residential users who have been steadily adjusting to reasonable and climate-appropriate codes for decades have been doing their bit. Ag has not. Indeed, they've been going so far in the opposite direction that they're risking permanent collapse in the aquifer.

A characteristically Californian way of looking at the very real pain they're suffering is seeing it as major karmic payback from their corrupt and corrupting approach to policy. If the outcome of this drought is that we finally break the backs of these people (politically speaking) and free the people of California to make water policy in something other than the most inefficient, wasteful, and environmental degrading manner possible, then I'd say the whole experience is a net positive.

Indeed, if I were a religious person, I'd call the drought an act of divine intervention.

>We don't have a solution for agriculture yet

True, and not just talking about water. All aspects of "conventional" farming (aquifer pumping, mined fertilizers, fossil fuel-derived pesticides, diesel, etc) are by their nature only temporary solutions.

The start of a sustainable water management strategy might be P.A. Yeoman's Water For Every Farm[1], basically designing around land topology to harvest and store/infiltrate rainwater. Modern agriculture shunts rainwater off the land as fast as possible, maximizing runoff so that tractors can drive on it sooner.

Here's P.A. Yeoman's strategy (in cheesy 1950s educational video style): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE-tJLQDZT4

[1]https://www.amazon.com/Water-For-Every-Farm-Yeomans/dp/14382...

The seawater greenhouse lot seem to have some good ideas - http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/

> We don't have a solution for agriculture yet but parched places such as CA central valley will probably have to give up on ag.

The Central Valley is probably the most productive agricultural region in the world. According to the USGS, "Using fewer than 1% of U.S. farmland, the Central Valley supplies 8% of U.S. agricultural output (by value) and produces 1/4 of the Nation's food, including 40% of the Nation's fruits, nuts, and other table foods."[1] California supplies about a third of the nation's lettuce and is responsible for more than 90% of the organic output of grapes, strawberries and other fruits and vegetables[2].

Ag is an important part of California's economy and a critical part of the United States food supply. The loss of California agriculture would be devastating to California and the entire nation on a number of levels[3].

I assume you weren't advocating for the state to "give up on ag" but frankly, that's not going to happen and treating ag as a silo is not realistic. It's easy for many to see this issue as a battle between cities and farms, but most people haven't spent any time in the Central Valley and don't understand how important and unique it is. The number of people in California who don't consume the state's agricultural products and benefit from their contributions to the economy is literally 0.

It's cliché, but we literally are all in this together when it comes to water.

[1] http://ca.water.usgs.gov/projects/central-valley/about-centr...

[2] http://giannini.ucop.edu/media/are-update/files/articles/v14...

[3] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2...

Don't those numbers suggest that most of California's ag output goes to feed people, whereas a lot of the rest of the country's ag output goes to feed animals that feed people (which turns 1 unit of plant food into a much smaller fraction of a unit of meat food)?

I think it's a strategic problem for such a large portion if our food supply to be concentrated in one region.

I think more pain here is good for the nation. There's no reason all of our tree fruits, lettuce, etc need to be trucked out of California. I was in a grocery store in Georgia when traveling awhile back, and couldn't find a single Georgia peach in the produce area of a store, because California agriculture completely dominates.

We have climate issues, but places like New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc could easily provide that same output, and there is plenty of water in most east coast areas.

> We have climate issues, but places like New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, etc could easily provide that same output...

That's unfortunately not true. You need to appreciate just how unique California's soil and climate are. Farmers from others parts of the world come to California and literally marvel at what we have. In many parts of the world the same technologies and techniques that we use are increasingly employed but these regions still can't achieve the same yields.

Even if it's possible to grow certain crops in other areas, you will not be able to produce in the same quantities as California can and, more importantly, you won't achieve the same yields. Settling for substantially lower yields effectively means you are accepting less efficient use of local resources (water, energy, labor, etc.). That would be counterproductive.

> I think it's a strategic problem for such a large portion if our food supply to be concentrated in one region.

Even if there's some validity to this argument, the reality is that you can only reduce the concentration so much. Growing and distributing food at the quantity required in an efficient manner necessitates a higher level of concentration than might be desired in the ideal world we don't live in.

I think you need to consider the long game. California was very forward thinking in investments in academic agriculture resource... The state is the Silicon Valley of produce. That's a miracle, but it only works if key assumptions like that awesome climate remain there.

If we are in fact driving into an era of climate change, doing things like permanently depleting groundwater may irreparably affect the ability to continue the current model. That really worries me... I've never lived in an era or place where food wasn't available. That would be a great shock to the US if it were to happen.

Ag is $50B of a $1.8T economy ( <3% ). CA won't miss it much.

I am suggesting we buy out ag in CA to reduce the adverse pressure on water and the environment..

Putting aside agriculture's direct and indirect economic contributions to California (you completely ignore the latter), California produces half of the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables, and more than 20% of the nation's milk. If you're worried about the "adverse pressure on water and the environment," you should consider the adverse pressure that killing off ag production in California would put on the United States food supply. For many of our agricultural outputs, there is no other state or region capable of picking up the slack.

As a side note, I doubt you're aware of the fact that Kern County alone is responsible for 10% of U.S. oil production and around three-quarters of California's oil production. Do you know how much water is used in oil production? Are you going to "buy out" California's oil producers too?

The water problem in California is a lot more complicated and nuanced than you seem to believe.

They'll be replaced by populations shifting to places that can actually support millions of people.

...or we'll all start living inside favela-style communities in some dystopian future.

> By Brad Plumer

That's quite the coincidence, there.

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