|
Everything bad about Riverside development can be summarized by this factoid: Less than a mile from my old house (built on an orange grove that they bulldozed in '89), they are going to demolish the neighborhood's last remaining orange grove and replace it with a strip mall containing a Target.
|
#
?
Sep 3, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 18:17 |
|
|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:If they widened out the 91 and 15 the developers would just build more tract houses and strip malls along the 15 corridor down to Temecula to clog it back up again. They've already bulldozed parts of Norco and built mini-malls and houses on former pastures and that's only going to get worse. One of the challenges of the Inland Empire, IMO, is that it desperately needs to increase density to help minimize sprawl and improve QoL but at the same time wants to offer large lots to attract home buyers. The two are mutually exclusive and the lack of a region-wide planning authority (as well as a lack of interest in any kind of high-density housing from the population or developers) has realistically crippled any chance to halt the sprawl. Hey, I live in those cow pasture tract housing! They're doing a 1.3B expansion of the 91 that is admittedly desperately needed, but they're removing HOV lanes to add more toll roads to service the folks in south Corona. I15 is also expanding from the 91 to the 60 freeway, except the additional carpool lane the promised is also being swapped for a toll road. I figure we'll get maybe 5 years out of the expanded roads before it all goes to poo poo. Ontario is finally gearing up their "New Model Colony" plan to build out the last bit of prime "LA/OC adjacent" property. The last of the remaining dairy farms are leaving and Ontario is going to be doubling their population, adding an additional 200k residents in about 20 years time.  Megaman's Jockstrap posted:Everything bad about Riverside development can be summarized by this factoid: Less than a mile from my old house (built on an orange grove that they bulldozed in '89), they are going to demolish the neighborhood's last remaining orange grove and replace it with a strip mall containing a Target. Eh, I don't really mind that, orange groves are a novelty at this point. FCKGW fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Sep 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 00:26
|
|
|
I would say that we can't afford to water orange groves any more... but I bet a sprawling housing development full of 4000-square-foot homes with swimming pools and green lawns uses several times more water per acre than an orange grove.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 00:51
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:I would say that we can't afford to water orange groves any more... but I bet a sprawling housing development full of 4000-square-foot homes with swimming pools and green lawns uses several times more water per acre than an orange grove. If there's ~10 trees/person then they use equivalent amounts of water.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 01:11
|
|
|
Are you accounting for the fact that humans use treated water, vs. untreated water for ag, and that a lot of ag water is recovered, and that streets have to be cleaned? But yeah hmm I guess oranges are very water intensive. We really shouldn't be growing them here.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 01:45
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Are you accounting for the fact that humans use treated water, vs. untreated water for ag, and that a lot of ag water is recovered, and that streets have to be cleaned? I bet you can have an orange grove that uses less water per acre than your average neighborhood and a neighborhood that uses less water than your average orange grove. With good water conservation you can do either with a lot less than we normally use.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 01:49
|
|
|
Kobayashi posted:What's an area code? If yours is 818 and mine is 310 I can look down my nose at you
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 01:50
|
|
|
FCKGW posted:Hey, I live in those cow pasture tract housing! The original plans for this expansion were drafted over 10 years ago. Also I can't tell what is going on since the story keeps changing. So the "HOV Expansion" from Adams to the 60 is now part of the toll? Originally I thought the Riverside County toll was supposed to (if headed east) start at the county line where the other one ends and go past the 15 and dump off in Riverside. Now I'm hearing that it is going to the 15 and dumping into south Corona instead. And yeah, the no compete bullshit is nuts. I think the only reason the 91 is finally getting one extra regular lane is because the no compete expired on the current toll lanes as now Orange County owns it. They also keep advertising transponders on the radio when they should close registration for a bit, the current toll lanes are only viable on a couple of days due to it getting congested. It slows down at the long straight. I think people freak when they see the sea of cars in front of them and slow down. edit: Found this, so looks like the regular HOV lane project through Riverside will stay a regular HOV. The toll lanes heading east will dump you at 15/91. If you want to go into south Corona there will be a direct path to their as well. quote:You will be able to enter and exit the express lanes at three Aeka 2.0 fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Sep 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 04:42
|
|
Have you seen my apex seals? I seem to have lost them.
|
Aeka 2.0 posted:The original plans for this expansion were drafted over 10 years ago. Also I can't tell what is going on since the story keeps changing. So the "HOV Expansion" from Adams to the 60 is now part of the toll? Here are the relevant sites: http://www.sr91project.info http://i15project.info 91 freeway will continue the two toll lanes each direction from the county line to I-15. They will then split off, one lane continuing east into standard lanes and one will be a single toll lane south on I-15 to Ontario Ave. Riverside is getting an additional lane past I-15 by restriping only, no road widening or any toll lanes. The separate I-15 improvement project is still in the environmental phase and won't break ground until 2018. They're looking at running a 2-lane toll road from the 91 all the way to Victoville. If they can't get a toll road then a new HOV lane is all they say they can afford. One of the worst stretches of road in the entire nation:  Progress!
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 05:21
|
|
|
FCKGW posted:I figure we'll get maybe 5 years out of the expanded roads before it all goes to poo poo. Ontario is finally gearing up their "New Model Colony" plan to build out the last bit of prime "LA/OC adjacent" property. The last of the remaining dairy farms are leaving and Ontario is going to be doubling their population, adding an additional 200k residents in about 20 years time. Nope, it will be congested the minute it is built.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 05:49
|
|
|
FCKGW posted:Here are the relevant sites: I don't know why they are saying its restriping. There is widening for the 91 east of the 15, they possibly mean restriping between the 15 and Adams. East of Adams there is a huge project. Work started in 2012 and ends in 2015. Bridges have been widened, a worker was killed when removing an old section.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 05:57
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:I would say that we can't afford to water orange groves any more... but I bet a sprawling housing development full of 4000-square-foot homes with swimming pools and green lawns uses several times more water per acre than an orange grove.  Source: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-californias-water-going
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 06:51
|
|
|
SirPablo posted:
It would be nice if they could normalize this by serving or mass or something.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 06:53
|
|
|
Yeah that's a really stupid infographic. edit: But hahahah holy hell 5 gallons of water for a single walnut lol
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 07:26
|
|
|
And also control for water absorption vs. runoff. If they're strictly going by how much water goes into an irrigation system, without accounting for water reclaimed as it exits the system, it's basically worthless. In fact it also says basically "assuming 100% of the water comes from irrigation" which is kind of like basically saying if it never ever rained in California this is how much water stuff would use. That's retarded especially for loving trees, which can draw water from below the surface, and can store it for months. Also, from the same article (but keep in mind these are 2010 numbers):  Lol at Palm Springs. What the gently caress are they doing there.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 07:28
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Lol at Palm Springs. What the gently caress are they doing there. Lotta golf.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 07:34
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Lol at Palm Springs. What the gently caress are they doing there.   
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 07:39
|
|
|
So an acre of 110 orange trees needs 30 acre-inches of water. So that's 2,231 Gallons a day per acre. (http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/files/orangevs07.pdf) The average person in Chino, CA (using them because of that pic linked) uses 237 gallons a day. (http://www.mercurynews.com/data/ci_25059942?appSession=274120857280354) So yeah, the orange groves would probably be using less water, unless the density of the new developments is <10 people per acre which is unlikely. Plus big lots use more water (lawns). Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Sep 4, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 07:50
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:So an acre of 110 orange trees needs 30 acre-inches of water. So that's 2,231 Gallons a day per acre. (http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/files/orangevs07.pdf) Agriculture is like 80% of southern California's water usage. There is no comparison between people and crops.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 08:23
|
|
|
Pohl posted:Agriculture is like 80% of southern California's water usage. There is no comparison between people and crops. And yet somehow, our water policymakers will have to allocate a finite resource between those two and other essential needs. The question was: is more water being used now that the land is houses or was more water used when that land was orchards? The answer is most likely more water will be used now.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 08:30
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:And yet somehow, our water policymakers will have to allocate a finite resource between those two and other essential needs. No, the answer is that more water is being used now because there is more demand. The question is irrelevant. Reality doesn't care. Farmers need to ensure that they are using the best equipment and practices for saving water, and homeowners need to stop wasting water by watering their lawns and poo poo. Frankly, when water supplies get low enough, lawmakers are going to have to choose between farmers and voters, and the farmers are going to have to eat poo poo. When things get tight, you can bet on residential water flowing, the farmers are going to have to rely on their tears.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 08:37
|
|
|
Voters may have votes, but agribusiness has money. Never count out money when it comes to politics.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 08:39
|
|
|
Pohl posted:Frankly, when water supplies get low enough, lawmakers are going to have to choose between farmers and voters, and the farmers are going to have to eat poo poo. When things get tight, you can bet on residential water flowing, the farmers are going to have to rely on their tears. I think you're wrong because I think there's jack poo poo Sacramento can do. When the next major drought hits, city taps will stay on because cities will out bid farmers dollar for dollar. Will cities go to (real) mandatory restrictions? Probably, but you can bet some farmers will be hurting and some will be selling their water and leaving fields fallow. As much as there is political hay to be made over the agribusiness/city water fight for the most part its over. All the water (and more) has been allocated and those farms and communities foolish enough not to secure reserve sources will pay the price. In what ways (that don't violate US contract law) do you think Sacramento could realistically side one way or the other? Voters respond to water and food pressures too quickly for anything beyond a mutual circle-jerk to happen. Look at the current water bond. That's filled with juicy projects for agribusiness and cities.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 08:53
|
|
|
Leperflesh posted:Voters may have votes, but agribusiness has money. Never count out money when it comes to politics. The obvious answer is to cut of farmers completely. The rest of the country can eat canned vegetables from south america most of the year. I don't think people in the US care or understand what is happening in California, but they really should. This is a loving disaster.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 08:55
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:I think you're wrong because I think there's jack poo poo Sacramento can do. When the next major drought hits, city taps will stay on because cities will out bid farmers dollar for dollar. Will cities go to (real) mandatory restrictions? Probably, but you can bet some farmers will be hurting and some will be selling their water and leaving fields fallow. Idaho told farmers to gently caress off a long time ago, so I'm not sure why California hasn't. It blows my mind that California isn't capable of establishing realistic water laws.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 08:59
|
|
|
Pohl posted:Idaho told farmers to gently caress off a long time ago, so I'm not sure why California hasn't. It blows my mind that California isn't capable of establishing realistic water laws. You mean like the brand new groundwater laws just passed? http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_26433546/california-assembly-passes-historic-groundwater-legislation quote:Lawmakers approved a package of bills Friday designed to regulate the pumping of groundwater for the first time in California history. But I'm also pretty sure Idaho didn't just void or buyout water contracts either.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 10:23
|
|
|
Yea in a state where agriculture adds only 2% to the stat's GDP (source) but uses 8 of every 10 gallons of surface water (source), I'm not sure why people have such a hard time figuring this out. I often hear "you want to eat?" Sure, but a lot of that food being grown is exported to other countries (I don't have a source for exact numbers, would love that though). Also hear that it'd devastate the Central Valley; has anyone been to the CV? Unemployment of 30% is not uncommon for the small rural towns, not like they are economic powerhouses already (source).
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 22:41
|
|
|
The absurdity of water politics in California versus the severity of drought is almost beyond reconciling. It's a glimpse into the future I'm sure as well.
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 23:54
|
|
|
SirPablo posted:Yea in a state where agriculture adds only 2% to the stat's GDP (source) but uses 8 of every 10 gallons of surface water (source), I'm not sure why people have such a hard time figuring this out. I often hear "you want to eat?" Sure, but a lot of that food being grown is exported to other countries (I don't have a source for exact numbers, would love that though). Also hear that it'd devastate the Central Valley; has anyone been to the CV? Unemployment of 30% is not uncommon for the small rural towns, not like they are economic powerhouses already (source). It'll temporarily devastate what's left of the economy in the Central Valley (since industry bailed in the late 90's to China), but mostly the reason lawmakers care is because it'll hit some fairly rich and influential families there, since we have some really big ag companies that are private. It'll probably also put a good dent in the illegal immigrant population since there won't be ag jobs. I'm not sure of the direct effect on foods, especially produce, but it's not like we're in a spot where it's hard to ship stuff in, so prices shouldn't jump too much unless we get gouged (though we always get gouged and it's blamed on "liberal" policies, see the summer of Enron). The usual conservative rumor mongering seems to be around how there's been lots of water releases for fish and whatnot last year and this year (AKA government waste), but I suspect the biggest reason the water deliveries will happen in Sept/Oct or even later is to keep the reservoirs full enough to generate enough electricity in the summer, since head pressure and generator capacity is based on water levels. There has been a fair amount of lawsuits over the last decade and change about water releases/management, but in most of those cases the original plans and environment assessments were basically ignored whenever convenient, so the state had no real leg to stand on. The "congress created dustbowl" signs are all over on I-5 still, which was funny as hell. It didn't seem like there was all that much visible crop impact from the drought yet, though I think some of the orchards were only given enough water to survive and not actually produce. I still saw tons of corn/tomatoes (and way more corn than a couple of years ago).
|
|
#
?
Sep 4, 2014 23:55
|
|
|
Zeitgueist posted:It's a glimpse into the future I'm sure as well. http://www.theguardian.com/environm...ircular-economy
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 00:18
|
|
|
SirPablo posted:Yea in a state where agriculture adds only 2% to the stat's GDP (source) but uses 8 of every 10 gallons of surface water (source), I'm not sure why people have such a hard time figuring this out. I often hear "you want to eat?" Sure, but a lot of that food being grown is exported to other countries (I don't have a source for exact numbers, would love that though). Also hear that it'd devastate the Central Valley; has anyone been to the CV? Unemployment of 30% is not uncommon for the small rural towns, not like they are economic powerhouses already (source). For some context the national average is that agriculture uses 62% of the water withdrawn (if you're excluding thermoelectric withdrawals, since they aren't consumptive). And California produces 1/2 of the US fruit, nuts and vegetable crops. (http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/PDFs/ResourceDirectory_2013-2014.pdf) If you're trying to get Americans to eat healthier, Californian crops are an important part of that. Besides, what do you think the state should do? Should the state use eminent domain to acquire water rights and water contracts off of farms? Edit, for fun here are the crops California produces >75% of the US crop: Artichokes, Broccoli, Carrots, Caulifower, Celery, Garlic, Lettuce, Processing Spinach, Processing Tomatoes, Almonds, Apricots, Avacodos, Raspberries, Strawberries, Dates, Figs, Grapes, Kiwifruit, Lemons, Nectarines, Olives, Clingstone Peaches, Pistachios, Plums, Walnuts. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Sep 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 00:19
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Besides, what do you think the state should do? Maybe get ag to even attempt to use better practices for water conservation? They've been fighting anything like that every step of the way.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 00:25
|
|
|
Zeitgueist posted:Maybe get ag to even attempt to use better practices for water conservation? They've been fighting anything like that every step of the way. Californian agriculture already has some of the best water conservation methods in the nation. Even if farmers get cheaper water than they should, its still one of their largest costs. California has the biggest agricultural industry in the nation, but compared to Iowa, Nebraska, Texas or Minnesota the agricultural industry has a lot less political power here (because the cities are so powerful).
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 00:31
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Californian agriculture already has some of the best water conservation methods in the nation. Even if farmers get cheaper water than they should, its still one of their largest costs. That's not what, I've heard, but hey I don't work in Agriculture. According to this report, the industry has been propped up by luck in the form of groundwater reserves.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 00:42
|
|
|
Zeitgueist posted:That's not what, I've heard, but hey I don't work in Agriculture. Right, that's a big reason California just passed huge new groundwater regulations. But the fact that agriculture doesn't have enough surface water deliveries has nothing to do with how effective they are at using the water they get delivered. Farms can be using all efficiency techniques and still not have enough water for their acreage. As the drought worsens some farms and crops will fail if they don't have strong enough water rights including now, limits on pumping groundwater too. 
Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 00:53 on Sep 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 00:50
|
|
|
Well fair enough, I'm going by hearsay as agriculture's not my bag. I am curious as to what part all the private water bottlers in the state play in this. I know at least one that's working on a reservation.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 00:54
|
|
|
Zeitgueist posted:Well fair enough, I'm going by hearsay as agriculture's not my bag. Don't get me wrong, there's room for agricultural water effieincy improvement (and I'm not a farmer myself, I just have a water nerd for a friends): http://pacinst.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2014/06/ca-water-ag-efficiency.pdf posted:In 2006, CALFED released its Water Use Efficiency Comprehensive Evaluation. This study focused on the entire state and evaluated efficiency actions under differentpolicies and investment levels. One scenario examined the statewide technical potential in agriculture, defined as all of the technically demonstrated practices that could be implemented regardless of cost. The authors estimated that irrigation water use in California could be reduced by 6.3 million acre-feet per year, of which 2.0 million acre-feet per year would be reductions in consumptive use, freeing up water that could be available to other uses. Agricultural withdrawals are ~30-45 million acre-feet a year. So even if money wasn't an issue, there's not too much additional efficiency to be had. Instead since money is always an issue, I imagine we'll do the cheapest of the efficiency options and then fallow some of our crappiest acreage.
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 01:04
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Edit, for fun here are the crops California produces >75% of the US crop: Artichokes, Broccoli, Carrots, Caulifower, Celery, Garlic, Lettuce, Processing Spinach, Processing Tomatoes, Almonds, Apricots, Avacodos, Raspberries, Strawberries, Dates, Figs, Grapes, Kiwifruit, Lemons, Nectarines, Olives, Clingstone Peaches, Pistachios, Plums, Walnuts. How much of this list could be productively grown on some of the land in the Midwest we've devoted to extracting as much corn and soybeans as we possibly can from?
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 01:12
|
|
|
Dominus Vobiscum posted:How much of this list could be productively grown on some of the land in the Midwest we've devoted to extracting as much corn and soybeans as we possibly can from? I'm not sure but I'm pretty certain fruits/nuts/vegetables are all more profitable per acre than grains/soybeans already. For example, in California (since I'm too lazy to look up Iowa's poo poo...) UC Davis estimates you can get $325 profit per acre of almonds versus $143 per acre of corn. So I would imagine that if these higher profit crops were extensively growable in the Midwest we would already be doing so. Edit: Digging around on the internet a bit and I did find an argument from agribusiness in the Southeast that they should increase their irrigated acreage so as to be able to localize agribusiness away from California and the Midwest. An interesting idea. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 5, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 01:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 10, 2024 18:17 |
|
|
Yea I'll preface my posts too that I'm not an ag expert. I am a drought expert though (gov meteorologist/climatologist that lives/works in the CV). Next year will be ugly as we're very unlikely to "end" the drought this winter. For example, Shasta is currently at 1.3M AF. A typical winter brings an inflow of 1.2M AF, which would (math!) but Shasta near 2.5M AF in May 2015. That would be 64% of average. And even though we'll probably have an El Nino event this winter (~60% chance), that has absolutely no bearing on rainfall for NorCal in the winter (the correlation is about 0.2). That just puts more stress on the ground water (anecdotally been told the water table has dropped 200 feet in some areas of the CV just this past year). CA is hosed :\
|
|
#
?
Sep 5, 2014 02:34
|
|