Comments | eeblet: Water Vampires

eeblet

Water Vampires

Jul 22, 2006 23:33

( Read more... )

Comments 12

dr_memory July 23 2006, 07:06:14 UTC

Jake Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?
Noah Cross: Oh my, yes.
Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?
Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gitts, the future.

Forget it, Jake -- it's Chinatown.

eeblet July 23 2006, 07:40:43 UTC

Ha!

gayathri July 23 2006, 08:45:51 UTC

oh yea, Nate says "hi!"

http://wsoweb.ladwp.com/Aqueduct/historyoflaa/index.htm

http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/la/scandals/owens.html

http://www.dbc.uci.edu/~sustain/global/sensem/beked297.htm

the comic/movie "Tank GIrl" had people pitted against "Water and Power" -- I suspect that the next wars will be fought again over water and not over oil.

lightcastle July 23 2006, 16:54:07 UTC

Damnation! You beat me to it. :)

scherzoid July 23 2006, 07:22:10 UTC

L.A. pulls its water supply from reservoirs far north of the city -- I'm sure this is an office related to that. See the California Water Wars article on Wikipedia for more.

eeblet July 23 2006, 07:40:35 UTC

Thanks, am linking to the article in the photo's description now. This is indeed Owens Valley....

dooneling July 23 2006, 12:06:27 UTC

The cement lining is already a measure to keep the water from leaching away into the ground and being lost for its intended use. It's not a good as a proper river for all the territory between source and the destination, but it's more efficient, in a way.

eeblet July 23 2006, 21:33:35 UTC

but why not cover it in some way? seems like so much would be lost to evaporation. This wasn't a paving of an existing river (like the LA River or Ballona Creek), but a steep manmade diversion from a lake or reservoir.

dooneling July 23 2006, 22:46:04 UTC

I don't know. I'd guess that either
A: the additional cost for labor, materials and maintenance to cover it was more than any expected monetary savings from slowing loss to evaporation
or
B: the designers thought of water as a plentiful and free natural resource, and thus were not inclined to protect every little drop.

eeblet July 24 2006, 03:43:00 UTC

Thanks for your guesses -- I'd guess they're slightly more educated than my guesses, but it's only a guess.

I am rereading Dune now, and between that and just having seen An Inconvenient Truth for the second time, I'm all like "Watttterrrr, my precccioouussssssss".

_nicolai_ July 23 2006, 21:39:50 UTC

Related to this, you may like to read "The Control of Nature" by John McPhee. The last third of it deals with controlling flooding and erosion, or rather making sure that the floods and erosion don't take away the houses in their path. His writing style is described on the back as "lyrical". He'd have been right at home in Victorian times, I think. He doesn't quite make it to "bloody annoying" and he's quite informative despite the grating style.

scp12357 July 24 2006, 20:55:11 UTC

I agree, it seems like a very wasteful transport method in terms of water at point A vs. water at point B. Not only do you have evaporation, but I have never seen a form of concrete that isn't somewhat permeable, thus some amount of water is seeping through the channel lining itself. On the other hand, one might argue that exposing the water to air and profuse sunlight is a good way to prevent anything from growing in that water. Enclosed moist spaces like water pipes are fantastic places for mold, algae, and a number of other things that you really don't want in your water. But judging from past experience with civil engineering projects, I'd chalk this design up to rushed work and cheap materials rather than any concern over microbial invasion.