Possibility of More Drought in CA Disastrous for Golf Courses

[billchao]

http://www.golfdigest.com/blogs/the-loop/2014/09/is-a-disaster-looming-for-cali.html

Quote:

The El Nino weather pattern that was expected to bring vast amounts of rain to the state this fall and winter has been downgraded by the Climate Prediction Center, a National Weather Service agency, in its latest monthly report .

Gleneagles Golf Course (Getty Images photo)

The CPC report said there's still a 60 to 65 percent likelihood that an El Nino will develop, but that “a majority of models and the multi-model averages favor a weak El Nino.”

“If we have another drought year, I think the implication will really be disastrous,” Vaughn Kezirian, executive director of the Northern California Golf Association, said on Friday. “I would believe there would be course closures.

Looks like the water situation in California could get worse. That's bad. Look at that picture of Gleneagles; the place looks like a literal dirt track.

Any of you California guys see any significant impact to your courses?

[RJH999]

Indeed. There is a severe water shortage where I live. Tons of fires do not help either.

[mchepp]

Yes. There will likely be major rationing going on if we don't get a decent amount of rain over the winter.

[Hammer 4]

Was a article in the local paper about this a few weeks ago IIRC. The L.A. county public tracks are cutting back watering by 30 to 40%, in other words, any part of the course that doesn't NEED water, will not get it. Some of the private courses are following along.

and jfyi, I'm only allowed to water my lawn/plants 2 times a week, and the watering time is limited. sigh, my roses are dyin..

So, all of you guys that get a good winters rain/snow, help us and pray for rain for Cali...

[Lihu]

I got rained out on Monday morning, and the ground has been wet every morning that I played. Thursday was also wet, but I only played 3 holes. I didn't go on Friday because of the 9-11 concert at the Rose Bowl.

The drought might last for another few years, and my city has reduced watering to 3 days a week. I'm in the process of reseeding my lawn with a drought resistant dwarf seed. It uses a lot less water, but I need to change the nozzle and watering patterns for the lawn.

My family went for a scenic drive and we noticed the reservoirs above the city are really low, the feeder river down in the valley is also really dry.

What's funny is rain is predicted for Weds. Seems like we are getting more humid days. All last month it's been really muggy.

[billchao]

Was a article in the local paper about this a few weeks ago IIRC. The L.A. county public tracks are cutting back watering by 30 to 40%, in other words, any part of the course that doesn't NEED water, will not get it. Some of the private courses are following along.

That seems to be a growing trend in golf courses around the country. Pinehurst #2 shed a huge spotlight on it this year with the U.S. Open. [quote name="Lihu" url="/t/77161/possibility-of-more-drought-in-ca-disastrous-for-golf-courses#post_1054708"]My family went for a scenic drive and we noticed the reservoirs above the city are really low, the feeder river down in the valley is also really dry. [/quote]Is there a quality of life issue besides lawn and garden care? I know the produce that came from CA was awful this year, but it's not like it's the Dust Bowl, right?

[Lihu]

Is there a quality of life issue besides lawn and garden care? I know the produce that came from CA was awful this year, but it's not like it's the Dust Bowl, right?

In the Central Valley, there is a severe water shortage. Some of the farms have dried up.

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/low-water-levels-are-visible-at-the-san-luis-reservoir-on-news-photo/454716934

It's pretty bad. We're hoping El Nino will bring some rainfall. No one really knows right now.

EDIT: http://www.cadrought.com/

[TitleistJunky]

SoCal had a big fire this weekend. Seems most courses are still pretty green and others are dirt tracks.

[Lihu]

Haven't played in 2 days, because the 104 degree heat is a little overbearing. I might hit the night range tonight. Probably get some ice (really icy) .

[Hammer 4]

Haven't played in 2 days, because the 104 degree heat is a little overbearing. I might hit the night range tonight. Probably get some ice (really icy) .

Well, at least for me being 10 blocks from the ocean it's a bit cooler, like 90. At the range last night at 9pm it was a muggy 75 degrees, and the mosquito's were out in force. They has signs posted about the West Nile virus in the area. I got bit twice..even with repellent on.....

[webb1522]

Very Scary situation. All of the county courses in my area are dirt and yellow. Combo of high heat and no water is bad. Some communities have been forced to share a water reserve that is non drinkable. This situation definitely has opened my eyes to how bad things could get if we were to lose something that we absolutely need to survive

[Lihu]

Very Scary situation. All of the county courses in my area are dirt and yellow. Combo of high heat and no water is bad. Some communities have been forced to share a water reserve that is non drinkable. This situation definitely has opened my eyes to how bad things could get if we were to lose something that we absolutely need to survive

This is why we need large scale desalinization.

We should be pumping salt water into the high desert and use the sun to distill the water on a large scale for farming. The leftover salt can be spread out over the flats near Trono and bring back jobs into that area.

The conservationists shut down a plant that was built a decade ago in Santa Barbara, I bet they regret doing that.

[webb1522]

Th[quote name="Lihu" url="/t/77161/possibility-of-more-drought-in-ca-disastrous-for-golf-courses#post_1055956"] This is why we need large scale desalinization. We should be pumping salt water into the high desert and use the sun to distill the water on a large scale for farming. The leftover salt can be spread out over the flats near Trono and bring back jobs into that area. The conservationists shut down a plant that was built a decade ago in Santa Barbara, I bet they regret doing that. [/quote] There was a discussion about this same thing during lunch last Friday, it was amongst the teachers so I didn't chime in, but some would counter with it wouldn't be cost effective and the energy it would take to produce enough water would polite the air. I personally don't know the process but it seems like it could be a solution to this problem. Edit: just researched solar desalination I agree with you on that. The only byproduct from the process itself would be the salt but what would be the cost of transporting all that water to that location? With that being said, water is a necessity so the cost may and quite possibly not even be a factor, more of matter of when.

[Lihu]

Th

There was a discussion about this same thing during lunch last Friday, it was amongst the teachers so I didn't chime in, but some would counter with it wouldn't be cost effective and the energy it would take to produce enough water would polite the air. I personally don't know the process but it seems like it could be a solution to this problem.

There are solar thermal plants that can be built for about $2/kW-hour. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESolar

This technology can be applied to evaporating water on a large scale. No air pollution. The issue is the residual salt from desalinization. Trono (outside Ridgecrest), is already a salt flat, with capacity for tens of centuries worth of water production.

Solar powered pumps could pull water from the ocean to the high desert through pipes and aqueducts. The pumps would only operate in the daytime, water could condense during the evening.

It would be interesting to build a model of such a system and test it.

The only thing is when the next El Nino comes along and delivers the needed water, interest in the project will wane.

[webb1522]

Solar powered pumps could pull water from the ocean to the high desert through pipes and aqueducts. The pumps would only operate in the daytime, water could condense during the evening. It would be interesting to build a model of such a system and test it. The only thing is when the next El Nino comes along and delivers the needed water, interest in the project will wane.

It does sound like a very intriguing model. And it would definitely create jobs up and down the Central Valley all the way to the coast.

[Lihu]

It does sound like a very intriguing model. And it would definitely create jobs up and down the Central Valley all the way to the coast.

Jobs and water that we can produce rain or shine.

[TitleistJunky]

Nation's largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego; Future of the California coast? By Paul Rogers progers@mercurynews.com Thursday, May 29, 2014 - 2:18 p.m. The Encina power plant is positioned across from the beach in central Carlsbad where cool seawater is used to cool the plant. The new Carlsbad desalination plant is being built behind the power plant and will use the water that is being used by Encina and turn it into drinking water. When completed in 2016, it will be the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere and will produce 50 million gallons per day and will supplement the regional water supply. (Photo by Scott Varley/Media News Group) (SCOTT VARLEY) CARLSBAD -- On sunny afternoons, this stretch of beach 35 miles north of San Diego offers a classic So uthern California backdrop: joggers, palm trees and surfers, flanked by waves rolling in and pelicans soaring overhead. But just across the road, another scene, unlike any other in the state's history, is playing out: More than 300 construction workers are digging trenches and assembling a vast network of pipes, tanks and high-tech equipment as three massive yellow cranes labor nearby. The crews are building what boosters say represents California's best hope for a drought-proof water supply: the largest ocean desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. The $1 billion project will provide 50 million gallons of drinking water a day for San Diego County when it opens in 2016. Since the 1970s, California has dipped its toe into ocean desalination --talking, planning, debating. But for a variety of reasons -- mainly cost and environmental concerns-- the state has never taken the plunge. Until now. Advertisement Fifteen desalination projects are proposed along the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco Bay. Desalination technology is becoming more efficient. And the state is mired in its third year of drought. Critics and backers alike are wondering whether this project in a town better known as the home of Legoland and skateboard icon Tony Hawk is ushering in a new era. Will California -- like Israel, Saudi Arabia and other arid coastal regions of the world -- finally turn to the ocean to quench its thirst? Or will the project finally prove that drinking Pacific seawater is too pricey, too environmentally harmful and too impractical for the Golden State? "Everybody is watching Carlsbad to see what's going to happen," said Peter MacLaggan, vice president of Poseidon Water, the Boston firm building the plant. "I think it will be a growing trend along the coast," he said. "The ocean is the one source of water that's truly drought-proof. And it will always be there." To supporters, the Carlsbad Desalination Plant is a historic engineering marvel. And it is a survivor, having endured six years of government permitting, from the Carlsbad City Council to the California Coastal Commission. Supporters won 14 lawsuits and appeals by environmentalists before finally breaking ground in December 2012. "They went through seven or eight years of hell to get here," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. "But they stuck it out. They got it done. If it succeeds, it will encourage others to try. And if it fails, it will have a chilling effect." To critics, the plant is a costly mistake that will use huge amounts of energy and harm fish and other marine life when it sucks in seawater using the intakes from the aging Encina Power Plant next door. "This is going to be the pig that will try for years to find the right shade of lipstick," said Marco Gonzalez, an Encinitas attorney who sued on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation and other environmental groups to try to stop construction. "This project will show that the water is just too expensive." For the plant to be a success and copied in other parts of the state, Poseidon will have to deliver high-quality drinking water at the price promised -- and not cause unexpected impacts to the environment such as fish die-offs. "It's a test case," said Ron Davis, executive director of Cal Desal, an industry advocacy group. "We like to tease them: Only the entire future of desal is riding on this project. No pressure." High cost Almost every discussion about desalination begins and ends with cost. Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot -- roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. The cost is about double that of water obtained from building a new reservoir or recycling wastewater, according to a 2013 study from the state Department of Water Resources. And its price tag is at least four times the cost of obtaining "new water" from conservation methods -- such as paying farmers to install drip irrigation, or providing rebates for homeowners to rip out lawns or buy water-efficient toilets. "We look out and see a vast ocean. It seems obvious," said Heather Cooley, water director for the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Oakland. "But it's cost prohibitive for most places in California." In Carlsbad, two gallons of seawater will be needed to produce each gallon of drinking water. And to remove the salt, the plant will use an enormous amount of energy -- about 38 megawatts, enough to power 28,500 homes -- to force 100 million gallons of seawater a day through a series of filters. The process, known as reverse osmosis, removes salt and other impurities by blasting the water at six times the pressure of a fire hose through membranes with microscopic holes. San Diego County is better suited than any large California community for desalination. It receives only 10 inches of rain a year, one-third less than Los Angeles, Fresno or San Jose. It has very little groundwater. And it has a large customer base to spread out the cost of the Carlsbad plant, which will provide about 7 percent of the total water needs of the county. The high price is worth it to help San Diego and other regions rely less on water from the Colorado River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, both of which are overdrawn and increasingly unreliable, said Bob Yamada, water resources manager for the San Diego County Water Authority. "You can't conserve or recycle what you don't have," Yamada said. "Desal offers us local control." The authority will pay from $2,014 to $2,257 an acre foot for the water, depending on how much it buys. The agency, which provides water to 3.1 million people in San Diego County, signed a 30-year contract agreeing to buy at least 48,000 acre feet a year. With that guarantee, Poseidon and its investors were able to sell bonds to finance the project. The company will be guaranteed a rate of return between 9 and 13 percent, depending on operating costs. Critics say the agency is getting a raw deal. "It's not a public-private partnership," Gonzalez said. "It's corporate welfare." Nobody disputes that the cost of water will go up. According to Yamada, the average customer's bill, now $71 a month, will rise $5 to $7 to pay for desalination. Santa Barbara redux? Sometimes the high costs can turn off the spigot. After enduring severe water shortages during a drought in the late 1980s, Santa Barbara voters agreed to spend $34 million to build a desalination plant. It opened in 1991 and provided water for four months. When the drought ended, the city shut it down. Water from reservoirs and other sources was significantly cheaper. Similarly, Australia spent more than $10 billion building six huge seawater desalination plants during a severe drought from 1997 to 2009. Today, Cooley noted, four are shut down because when rains finally came, the cost of the water became noncompetitive. "We run the risk of building facilities that we don't use," Cooley said. "And that's a waste of money." Earlier this month, the Santa Barbara City Council voted to spend $935,000 to hire an engineering firm, law firm and lobbyist to try to restart the city's shuttered plant by 2016. "None of us wants to do it, but I was there 25 years ago, and it's really ugly when you run out of water," said Santa Barbara City Councilman Harwood "Bendy" White. "This is one option for stretching out our supplies." Monterey County Similarly, the California American Water Company in Monterey County is studying three locations to build a desal plant to make up for water lost when state regulators ruled the company didn't have valid permits for the Carmel River. In Los Angeles, leaders of the West Basin Municipal Water District, which serves about 100,000 people, built a pilot plant in Redondo Beach and are studying plans for a $300 million desalination plant by 2020. Desal technology continues to improve. It now takes only a quarter of the electricity to generate drinking water as it did in the 1980s because of more efficient pumps, membranes and energy-recovery devices, said Tom Pankratz, editor of the Water Desalination Report, a newsletter based in Houston. But some places are balking. Santa Cruz city officials in August shelved plans for a desal plant after environmental activists raised fears that the new water might trigger more growth. Marin County studied a desal project, then dropped it when water use declined. Long-running plans to build a desal plant in San Francisco Bay near Concord were shelved this year when the region's largest water districts decided they could obtain water more cheaply through recycling and other means. Another key issue looming large is how to get the seawater without hurting the marine environment. The Coastal Commission approved the Carlsbad plant and its open-ocean intake system. But new scientific studies and changing laws mean that most future plants probably will be required to bury intake pipes and pump water at a lower rate to reduce impacts on fish and the millions of larvae, eggs and other sea life that can be killed. "These organisms become things -- like fish -- and we always have to be careful of the perspective that 'Oh, this is just one little piece,'" said Charles Lester, executive director of the Coastal Commission. "It all adds up." Plans by Poseidon to build a desalination plant in Huntington Beach slowed last year when the Coastal Commission said it wanted the company to investigate whether its pipes could be buried, a prospect that will increase costs. For the Carlsbad plant Poseidon was required to build 66 acres of wetlands in San Diego Bay to offset the plant's environmental harm. It also must blend its brine at a 5:1 ratio with other seawater before flushing it back into the ocean so it won't harm marine life. Other projects will have to do all those things to get state permits. But some experts say the plants are coming anyway. "In the next 10 years you are probably going to have three big plants built in Southern California and another plant or two in Northern California," Pankratz said. "The trend is toward more desal. They are the most reasonable insurance policy against a long, protracted drought." Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/PaulRogersSJMN. Marketplace Search autos Jobs Search Real Estate © 2014 Digital First Media v. 0.977 Contact Us Privacy Policy Copyright View Desktop Site

[boogielicious]

California is called "The Golden State" after all.  And it is not because of the gold strike in 1849.  Desalinization is the way to go.