Being from LA, I am used to a water system that works without needing power. I think most of CA is like that. It was a surprise to lose the water back east when the power went out during a storm.
The only places I've heard of losing water during power outages are houses that use a private well (no power, no well pump), which would be the case anywhere. Municipal water systems may or may not use power to provide pressure, but are going to have generator power outside of the most severe outages.
I know NYC doesn't treat their water at all, but LA doesn't either?
My city runs on surface water, so we have treatment and then pump to storage tanks. You would have to be out for quite a while to run the city out of water, though - the tanks are large.
LA definitely treats the water. Both the surface water before consumption (I'd be surprised if any city doesn't do this) and the wastewater, for reclamation for nonportable use like irrigation, and for recycling back into the general clean water supply.
The aqueduct water is specifically purified by the Los Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant. That plant is gravity fed, but it doesn't operate without power.
LA just has the advantage of having mountains in the city, so it's cheaper building more elevated water storage so the capacity lasts longer during power interruptions (which are also not as common or extended as they are in the east). They will still eventually run out if they're not replenished by powered pumps.
Growing up in LA, I was fascinated as a kid watching the water flow down this aqueduct. Anytime we drove by it on the way to Magic Mountain, I'd hope that it would be a water-on day.
Sometimes it feels like the US has lost its appetite for grand structural projects like that. Maybe it’s just that I’m unaware of them and that impression is the result of survival bias, but given how impossibly hard it is to just build anything where I live (Seattle), I’m not so sure.
Fair. Maybe I'm too much if the weeds of this because all I can think of is how much of a fight it was to pass ST2 and ST3 and how we haven't even started on the Ballard line despite voting for it in 2016 (10 years ago!) and how it might be delayed forever.
I don't think you're wrong. Every time someone says we can't do high speed rail it makes me very sad. And as far as Seattle goes... my commute is substantially affected by the I-5 closures. It's somewhat shocking to me that we allow infrastructure to decay as much as we do.
I'd be happy about the light rail expansion if they weren't talking about delaying the Ballard line indefinitely. :(
It’s too complicated to corruptly make money off of a large project like that. It’s much easier to just buy a bunch of drugs and needles and give it to the methheads, or spend money on homeless while building zero homes.
I was surprised to find out it was largely uncovered, though I guess it probably makes it much cheaper to construct. I usually think of aqueducts as pipes or tunnels, like Persian qanāts. I wonder how much water is lost due to evaporation.
Correct it's massively energy intensive to filter the salt out the newest best ideas still use ~2 KWh/m3 of water and that's a lab system in perdue that batches the process instead of having it run continuously which is why current RO desalination systems require so much energy.
For usage where the water mostly returns as sewage, is treated and then returned to the ocean, you can just dilute the brine with the treated discharge and then it returns at basically the original salinity.
Came here to post this. Dam good book on the shifty maneuvering that resulted in the Owens Valley Diversion and ultimately the population center that is LA.
Being from LA, I am used to a water system that works without needing power. I think most of CA is like that. It was a surprise to lose the water back east when the power went out during a storm.
The only places I've heard of losing water during power outages are houses that use a private well (no power, no well pump), which would be the case anywhere. Municipal water systems may or may not use power to provide pressure, but are going to have generator power outside of the most severe outages.
[delayed]
The LA water system is dependent on power as a whole. There’s many pumping stations along the various aqueducts.
I know NYC doesn't treat their water at all, but LA doesn't either?
My city runs on surface water, so we have treatment and then pump to storage tanks. You would have to be out for quite a while to run the city out of water, though - the tanks are large.
LA definitely treats the water. Both the surface water before consumption (I'd be surprised if any city doesn't do this) and the wastewater, for reclamation for nonportable use like irrigation, and for recycling back into the general clean water supply.
The aqueduct water is specifically purified by the Los Angeles Aqueduct Filtration Plant. That plant is gravity fed, but it doesn't operate without power.
LA just has the advantage of having mountains in the city, so it's cheaper building more elevated water storage so the capacity lasts longer during power interruptions (which are also not as common or extended as they are in the east). They will still eventually run out if they're not replenished by powered pumps.
"Well There's Your Problem" on the collapse of the St Francis Dam, mentioned in Grady's video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxLgM1vnuUA
Also I love when they refer to it as the "_First_ California Water Wars" in a grim realization of the future of water scarcity in the West
I was in Owens River Gorge last week, it's a very interesting place. It has some of the tallest single pitch rock climbing in the world, sometimes requiring 80M ropes: https://www.mountainproject.com/area/105843226/owens-river-g...
Growing up in LA, I was fascinated as a kid watching the water flow down this aqueduct. Anytime we drove by it on the way to Magic Mountain, I'd hope that it would be a water-on day.
Sometimes it feels like the US has lost its appetite for grand structural projects like that. Maybe it’s just that I’m unaware of them and that impression is the result of survival bias, but given how impossibly hard it is to just build anything where I live (Seattle), I’m not so sure.
Seattle just got done building light rail tracks over a floating bridge.
It is an insane engineering achievement. A train literally running on tracks on a road that is floating on water!
Fair. Maybe I'm too much if the weeds of this because all I can think of is how much of a fight it was to pass ST2 and ST3 and how we haven't even started on the Ballard line despite voting for it in 2016 (10 years ago!) and how it might be delayed forever.
You mean, like NYC Water Tunnel #3? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_No....
I don't think you're wrong. Every time someone says we can't do high speed rail it makes me very sad. And as far as Seattle goes... my commute is substantially affected by the I-5 closures. It's somewhat shocking to me that we allow infrastructure to decay as much as we do.
I'd be happy about the light rail expansion if they weren't talking about delaying the Ballard line indefinitely. :(
Evidently tax cuts for the wealthy are more important than infrastructure.
Those projects would literally be impossible today with the environmental regulations in place, especially in California.
It’s too complicated to corruptly make money off of a large project like that. It’s much easier to just buy a bunch of drugs and needles and give it to the methheads, or spend money on homeless while building zero homes.
I was surprised to find out it was largely uncovered, though I guess it probably makes it much cheaper to construct. I usually think of aqueducts as pipes or tunnels, like Persian qanāts. I wonder how much water is lost due to evaporation.
I really dig the editorial viewpoint of this article. New journalism style meets fun facts about engineering.
I wonder at what point the up-front costs of massive desalination would overcome the (often hidden and externalized) costs of projects like this.
> the up-front costs of massive desalination
Desalination is dominated by operating costs.
Correct it's massively energy intensive to filter the salt out the newest best ideas still use ~2 KWh/m3 of water and that's a lab system in perdue that batches the process instead of having it run continuously which is why current RO desalination systems require so much energy.
I don’t think the brine pollutant issue has been meaningfully solved. You are also now pumping water inland uphill the whole way.
For usage where the water mostly returns as sewage, is treated and then returned to the ocean, you can just dilute the brine with the treated discharge and then it returns at basically the original salinity.
It is common now for treated discharge to be sent to a discharge lake/leach wetlands so it can be used to replenish groundwater supplies.
Nice picture but I've never seen the water anywhere near blue like that.
That's a youtube thumbnail. I believe it's been altered, which also explains the strange brown substance that looks out of place.
Most of the video content has the correct coloring, from my experience observing the aqueduct.
I think it's edited to look like water he uses in his garage demos.
If anyone wants a deep dive on this subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert
Came here to post this. Dam good book on the shifty maneuvering that resulted in the Owens Valley Diversion and ultimately the population center that is LA.
That bit of history can't be left out. The engineering is super cool though.
Or another kind of take:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071315/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8...
(Chinatown)
The California aquaduct system is an engineering marvel.
Really enjoyed watching that. Good luck with water LA.