Sunday, December 27, 2015

Anthropogenic Drought Literally Sinking California

by JASmius



And can we recall that the Acupulco Golden State was already suffering from a government-mandated and -inflicted drought which the natural one has simply exacerbated? And that California (predominantly Donk) governments going back as long as half a century have either refused to, or been thwarted by incessant greenstremist litigation from, constructing reservoirs and other infrastructure that would and could have addressed just such (non)-rainy days as these? Indeed, Los Angeles residents should thank the good LORD above that Hoover Dam - which is the only reason why the L.A. basin is habitable at all - was built eighty years ago, before the rise of environmental extremism, because there's not a snowball's chance....wait, does anybody down there still remember what a snowball even looks like? There's a better chance of seeing Miley Cyrus in a chastity girdle than that Hoover Dam could ever get built today.

You know Arizona? Next State to the east? Mostly desert? They're not suffering from any drought. They also built reservoirs. Largely because they don't give a good GD about inedible fish as opposed to human beings.

- Me, April 9th, 2015


Here is a typically expensive, but novel in its own right "unintended" consequence of the water shortage that environmentalists have inflicted on the State of California: It is, as the headline states, literally sinking into the surface of the planet:

A canal that delivers vital water supplies from Northern California to Southern California is sinking in places. So are stretches of a riverbed undergoing historic restoration. On farms, well casings pop up like mushrooms as the ground around them drops.

Four years of drought and heavy reliance on pumping of groundwater have made the land sink faster than ever up and down the Central Valley, requiring repairs to infrastructure that experts say are costing billions of dollars.

This slow-motion land subsidence — more than one foot a year in some places — is not expected to stop anytime soon, experts say, nor will the expensive repairs.

"It's shocking how a huge area is affected, but how little you can tell with your eye," said James Borchers, a hydro-geologist, who studies subsidence and says careful monitoring is necessary to detect and address sinking before it can do major damage to costly infrastructure such as bridges and pipelines.

The bitter sardony of government-inflicted and naturally-exacerbated drought damaging aqueducts and canals whose purpose is the transportation and distribution of water that have never been maintained or augmented now crumbling and collapsing because of Californians being forced to empty entire aquifers and keep tapping deeper and deeper beneath their State in order to avert dying of thirst and starvation and even keep it habitable is cynically breathtaking.  The additional irony being that this is another incentive for Californians to flee to neighboring States before their own completely implodes into the Pacific, maybe in concert with the 8+ San Andreas earthquake about which geologists keep warning.  And the irony hat trick?  Residents will be too impoverished by Sacramento to relocate anyplace.

While greenies have allowed California's water infrastructure to fall into disintegrating disrepair, they made sure nothing would befall the public "infrastructure" projects they actually do care about:

A sixty-mile stretch of California's High Speed Rail track, designed to whisk passengers through the Central Valley in excess of two hundred mph, will be built on a bed of rocks. This design is more forgiving and easier to maintain and repair if the land sinks than other stretches built on highway-like slabs, said Frank Vacca, the rail authority's chief program manager.

The whole State may be drying up on the delta smelt's behalf and cratering into the planet's mantle, but by Gaia, we're going to make sure your desiccated skeletons can get from Frisco to L.A. in an hour!

Serious question: Why do any of you stay in that Japan-size commie nuthatch?

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