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1 Skip Intro  May 17, 2015 9:54:52am

This is how they’re conserving water in San Francisco.

Despite drought, demo crews douse Candlestick Park rubble with drinking water

California’s historic drought is so bad people are banned from even hosing dirt off their front steps, but as iconic Candlestick Park is being demolished, thousands of gallons an hour of drinking water — fresh from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir — are being dumped on the rubble to hold down dust.

The daylong dousing with some of the state’s most pristine water has been going on for about eight weeks as the Lennar Corp. razes “The Stick” to build a major retail and housing development.

mercurynews.com

Kind of points out how pointless my navy showers are, especially since where I live two new resorts are planned, with around 500 rooms and a couple of huge swimming pools.

Conservation during droughts only applies to the little people.

2 Great White Snark  May 17, 2015 10:12:58am

re: #1 Skip Intro

That raises more than one good point.
If that was greywater, it would be fine to use like that. Scratch the surface and you might find that the spraying is a regulated requirement because dust takes it’s toll on property and people. Especially on a major project like that one. So what’s the answer? There is a lot of process waste water from industry that at this time they evaporate or have hauled off. Thing is some simple deflocculation and filtration puts that water into good enough shape for uses like the one you named. But industrial practices and related regulations are way behind the times despite this hardly being our first drought! Some of this waste is beyond practical recovery but much is not.

For example, copper pipe is suitable for drinking water use. But if you run that water through copper pipes as part of a machines enclosed cooling system, otherwise uncontaminated except by running through warm pipe, it must be treated as wastewater. $125 to haul a 55 gallon drum plus transportation charges and of course the cost of the DOT approved drum. Right now in Ontario is the shop I help oversee. We are running a solar evaporation system to get rid of that water. Or we can have it takes away. What we can not do yet is water the yard with it, such as it is. remember all we did was warm it in copper pipe. Kinda like your hot shower in the morning.

We have got to look at this from every angle. This thing could render parts of California uninhabitable, arguably it has already in Visalia. I recall the jeers aimed at Santa Barbara for their then very expensive desalination plant. Love to talk to those critics today. Now Orange county is considering the same.

Near my zip code is one of the biggest construction projects in the entire county. It’s an installation of a water reclamation bed, really using the earth itself to reclaim water into the SFV water table instead of letting it run on down the L.A. river into the sea. Huge project. And yes they are running spray trucks to keep the dust down.

Interactive Project Map

3 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave to the waffle light)  May 17, 2015 11:43:41am

So they are poredicting a strong El Nino with heavy rainfall this year. Which means that California will be able to go back to ignoring the underlying issues related to a long-term drought.

4 calochortus  May 17, 2015 12:03:44pm

re: #1 Skip Intro

They are, in fact, required to use drinking-quality water to hold the dust down since it is sprayed into the air and contaminants could affect surrounding communities. I’m not saying that is the best possible use of the water, just that it is apparently required by law.

Laws and infrastructure do need to catch up with reality. That always takes time. In this case, I hope it doesn’t take too much time.

5 Great White Snark  May 17, 2015 12:37:35pm

re: #3 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave to the waffle light)

Maybe. First things first bring the water, let it rain! Maybe a few of us can hold some feet to the fire. it would take years of extra rain to fill the lakes let along up the groundwater.

6 Skip Intro  May 17, 2015 3:26:54pm

re: #4 calochortus

They are, in fact, required to use drinking-quality water to hold the dust down since it is sprayed into the air and contaminants could affect surrounding communities. I’m not saying that is the best possible use of the water, just that it is apparently required by law.

Laws and infrastructure do need to catch up with reality. That always takes time. In this case, I hope it doesn’t take too much time.

I’m aware of that. This just shows that even something as critical as conserving water goes down the drain if it gets in the way of business.

Maybe, just maybe, the city should have put a hold on the Candlestick project until a way was found to keep the dust down without using our increasingly scarce water.

7 Skip Intro  May 17, 2015 3:28:09pm

re: #3 Wendell Zurkowitz (slave to the waffle light)

So they are poredicting a strong El Nino with heavy rainfall this year. Which means that California will be able to go back to ignoring the underlying issues related to a long-term drought.

They predicted that last year to. Even if it does happen, an El Nino is just one factor in determining rainfall here.


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