The Central Valley is far-and-away the country’s most significant region that almost never gets any attention. With almost 7 million people living here generating a third of the nation’s fruits, nuts, and vegetables, it’s high time we get megaprojects like this one and CAHSR (no matter how slow they’re moving). Thanks B1M for bringing eyes to the Valley!
exactly! Lived in Kings & Tulare Counties most of my life and no one talks about what dominates the interior of this state. everything is always about SoCal or the Bay Area, never what connects those 2 places.
@aneagleinyourmind2415 dude nobody gives af. And they would be perfectly fine without you. Apparently you didn’t know that Oxnard is the Strawberry Capital of the World. THAT is where they are grown year round. And Santa Maria is number 2. That’s SoCal in case you were wondering. More strawberries are grown there than anywhere else in the world. Salina’s is the only town in the Valley with any real strawberry production and even that pales. And just an fyi. Florida is the biggest producer of melons in the USA so none of the foods you mentioned will be missed by them if the CV suddenly got nuked out of existence. And most moms in the states are grown in China anyways. You must be from out there. Valley people always have an oversized sense of worth.
@aneagleinyourmind2415ummm I live in NY and my neighbor has 180 acres where he grows nothing but strawberries. So yeh, where do you get your information?
I'm working on a rehabilitation at a plant in Sunnyvale not to far from Sacramento (very similar project on a smaller scale). A lot of people don't regularly think about where the water goes after the toilet is flushed. The water infrastructure all around California is built in the 60s and 70s and its all past its service life and falling apart. WATER IS IMPORTANT
They are not important at all, wastewater will degrade quickly leaving mostly just the water behind. Waste of money. You want to keep the water in California? Start Planting dense forests. 70% of Earth is water, if you don't have water, you created the situation you are in. It's really that simple
@@jasonhaven7170 The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of the word 'native', when being used as an adjective: "Of a country, region, etc.: that is the place of a person's birth and early life; that is the place of origin of a plant or animal. Occasionally with…" As I am both a person and an animal (humans belong to the Kingdom Animal in the biological classification system), and Sacramento is a region that was the place of my birth, this choice of wording stands. Stop trying to be cute and go away. All people like you ever accomplish is to drag any chance of meaningful discourse on the Internet right into the gutter.
@@word42069 Not just California. Much of the region that relies on the Colorado River is experiencing some level of water rationing which will only get worse. Over 40 million rely on the river in seven states.
Same here, as well as being a food exporting nation, my country never really had any food shortages. Still yet to find another country that sells a bottle of water at the equivalent of 0.20 USD, with multiple local brands to choose from at that!
Which, bringing the governor's name up, and with how much California has in cost overruns on the "bullet train to San Fransisco," I am surprised that the Fine Govenor of California did not trumpet enough on one of the state policies coming in ahead of anything ever attempted in my lifetime. Well, there have probably been a few lynchings that were under budget and hung before they had planned it to, but we are going back a few years for that.😆
Very cool video! I've had the pleasure of working at the SRWTP for over a decade (since the EchoWater Project's inception), and it's really neat to see the enthusiasm shown in this video! Us engineers geek out over this kind of stuff, but seeing it translated in a way that relates to the public is quite refreshing. I'll need to share this with my friends and family so they see there is a lot more to it than the "poop plant" that they all envision in their minds :)
Part of the groundwater issue is the restriction of the rivers in the valley that historically would flood across vast areas, completely saturating the ground and adding to ground water. The rivers are now damned and channelized by levees. So it’s likely that the drought is irrelevant to the issue of subsidence
@@cerebrumexcrement This is genuinely one of the silliest, most childish comments I've ever seen, to the point where I'm afraid that posting this comment means I'm probably bullying an actual child who accidentally found their way onto their parents iPad instead of their regular, child-locked one.
You seem unaware of the extensive ground-water pumping that goes on, especially when surface water sources are unavailable. Those big wells are in competition with one another in their race to the bottom. If allowed, they will pump every drop, and the future be damned. Salt water intrusion has already fouled traditional fresh water aquifers. And land subsidence eliminates aquifers as well.
Cool to see you doing a video on sewage treatment. You should try and do one on Beckton in the UK - largest treatment works in Europe and constant huge cinstruction works going on. Also the end point for tideway
I work at new PCB manufacturing facility, in the last 2 years we’ve been running we have learned so much about recycling our waste water. We reuse 100% of the liquid waste and seeing the amount of water we process every day I’m sure regulations should be tightened up to control all industrial manufacturing plants. Our humidifiers alone(just infrastructure of the building) can use thousands of gallons per day and we are now reclaiming that water and using in our manufacturing processes. Aside from people that need to maintain their sprinklers and are watering the street I would assume businesses are the biggest water users and knowing the laws that they have to abide by so much water could be getting wasted. Breaks my heart to think of the world we are leaving for our children. Great video B1M!! Important topic!!
NorCal and Sacramento are the gateway to huge playgrounds for fishing, water sports…you name it and we’ve got it within the Sacramento/American River delta (>1,000 miles of water ways chock full of bars/restaurants to the foothill lakes to the North American Crown Jewel…Lake Tahoe for year round outdoor activities. The Pacific is 1.5 hours away. San Diego/Santa Barbara have their haughtiness and the ocean and surrounding hills….and 4x >population. No comparison.
Besides the self evident content, the comments show how substantial the contribution of this channel is. What a wonderful achievement! Keep up the good work! And a big thank you!
As someone who lives in Elk Grove and drives past this facility on the way to downtown Sacramento, it's kinda nda cool to know what all the construction equipment was for. Also kinda cool to see a @TheB1M video cover something so close to home!
Only someone who has not done real engineering work would consider a Wastewater plant upgrade to not be a big deal. It's water. If anything goes wrong, the whole city or county loses water, or gets an outbreak, or has to pay for tanker and bottled water. It's super critical and extremely time sensitive. As important as running a multichannel 24 hour banking system or airline flight management or ticket booking system. Logistics, civil engineering, control systems, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and electrical engineering. Not to mention management of finances. To have it done at less than the budgeted cost is an incredible achievement. Kudos 👍
I live in the IE, and I'm always trying to help the environment in any way possible, I started by removing the lawn all around my house and replacing it with stone and pea gravel cactus and other desert plants, by doing this I was able to reduce my home water consumption by 50%, plus, I don't have to mow the lawn every two week's 😊😊
I always recommend food not lawns. Cost of farmers markets are a major cost offset, and if you are like me with a project like that, although I currently do not garden, you can have year long greens at least, and if you pickle, year long supplies such as tomato sauce can occur. Your yard is typical, lots of people are doing that, & that's amazing @ -50%. We need larger scale data relative to *food not lawns* ASAP. [In many regions rain capture is legal.]
I’m amazed at the number of negative comments on this video. Did those commenters even watch it? There is nothing but good news in here. The project was successfully completed and under budget allowing another water infrastructure investment to be made.
Good comment and you're right. These attitudes seem to be ubiquitous in current political climate if not the either-world where every uninformed knucklehead feels the need to be heard.
@@malahammer any mention of California is likely to be met with poliitically-motivated anger and outrage from them. just look at that evil grifter Nick Johnson.
Projects like this are going to become more and more necessary over time, but if we keep treating them as bespoke systems designed to the specific needs of the host region, they will remain fantastically expensive. We need to standardize the systems used, layouts of plants, methods of construction, etc. Allow room for scaling up or down the size of the plant, but that should be just about all that ought to be customizable.
The plant I worked, Duffin's Creek Water Pollution Control Plant, is a larger processing facility with the same technology from like 10 years ago. The sheer scale of the site mainly is coming from the large additional settling ponds. Additionally using chlorine is a bit old fashioned, still works fine but there isnt the need anymore.
Ozone and UV were piloted prior to construction. UV was no-go due to lack of transmittance and both UV and Ozone were unacceptable due to the unusually long effluent manifold (3+ km) where regrowth occurs. That generally leaves hydrogen peroxide (expensive) and sodium hypochlorite (not chlorine, as stated - they're different).
The San Joaquin Valley, the southern part of the Great Valley, needs projects like this even more. What was once productive farmland was turned into desert during the Great Drought. Once the Bay/Delta replenishment quantities are met, the remainder can be used for ground-water recharge.
Even though I’m not a fan of our winters here in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (I have to write that out in full to avoid confusion with Ontario CA (California), we are blessed with the Ottawa River, perhaps “the” major tributary of the St. Lawrence River. It meets our drinking water needs, and with good sewage treatment plants in place, provides beaches safe for swimming in the summer months.
The waste water in Ottawa is mostly floating downstream towards the East. Our luck. Wastewater is still a big issue in Ottawa. There were plenty of episodes of waste overflow., and many in 2023. Just type “Sewage Issues Ottawa Ontario” in your browser. Our reality is as bad as other big cities.
I grew up in Ottawa, on the river actually, Lac Duchenes. One thing I want to note is that I notice big money tends to settle around Capital cities. 🙂 I miss skating on the lake, and the cold winters.
California would have plenty of water if it weren’t for the fact that we have more people than the entire nation of Canada, and are the lead food supplier in the USA (and even significant food supplier globally). California really is a country unto itself.
Thank you for a feature on my home area. I live in Sacramento county. It is an important project especially here. Great video footage of the area too. Keep up the good work. JV
Maybe 60 years ago. There's already a ton of reservoirs around the state, and getting the environmental clearance to build a new one would be a nightmare at this point.
I’ve seen this treatment plant on satellite maps for years but had no idea about the scale and the positive implications this project has. This is a great report!
I live in SoCal but originally from Chicago. When I moved here I found out that all the treated waste water was released into the ocean. As dumb as I am I found this idea stupid especially since we live in a desert, no matter the green lawns and trees. Only recently has the treated water been recycled for irrigation in parks as well as purple hydrants for fighting fires. Tho I'm sure there is still billions of gallons being released anyway.
I live in a water abundant area (Seattle) and all the waste water here is treated back up to drinking level standard then release back into the ocean as well. I appreciate that the water is cleaned for the wildlife, but I also wonder if its a bit silly to not recycle it. Better to release clean water than dirty water.
There is unfortunately a very good reason such a large amount of water is sent back to the delta: because the delta is literally holding back the ocean. If we diverted all that fresh water to other uses, the water level in the delta would get low, which would allow Pacific Ocean water to come up the straits and into the delta. Ocean water is salt; it would wreck that ecosystem. And even if you don't care about that, once the delta goes salty, it'll get into human water supplies. You can't water crops with salt water. A possible alternative would be a reverse-flood control system, basically damming the Pacific Ocean to keep the salt water from backing up. That would still devastate the delta ecosystem by drying it out, but it could potentially let humans use that water elsewhere. But I have to assume that would be a megaproject to end all megaprojects....
This wasn't supposed to be the case. There was a large project 20 or 30 years ago to clean and recycle this water. Fortunately for the NIMBYs, there was an even more massive activist political campaign to shut the project down and see that nobody ever tried again. It was 100% successful. Search for "toilet to tap" to find lots of info on this.
They release it into the ocean?! But they're basically draining the local water table that way! No wonder the droughts there are so severe and seem to get worse every passing year...
So the farmer spray pesticides and fertilizer on the crops, they take water from the ground sinking the land and meaning they don't have to pay water bills and then they have the average person who gets water has to pay over $1bn to remove the fertilizer and pesticides from the drinking water! Surely the farmers should be paying for this?
Or farmers could stop trying to grow almonds and other water heavy crops in a F#CKING DESERT! Or California could just stop letting all it's rain water run into the ocean down concrete rivers like they're currently doing! Plot twist: Water doesn't get "used up". Most cities reuse the same water again and again! They also have more ground water AND more rain because other cities are allowed to water their lawns! Those other cities also have fewer "gender reveal" related brush fires BTW. But you're forgetting one thing: Californian's ENJOY paying more for things! They BRAG about how much they pay in taxes for some reason. They're proud of it! They over pay for housing, for gas, for everything basically! They'll happily pay a million dollars for a crack house that needs to be torn down and rebuilt! But that's not surprising given their tap water has more lead in it than Flint, Michigan and no one's even talking about it!
The vast majority of farms are downstream of Sacramento in the Central Valley, where the water is pumped through a massive series of canals. The ammonia being filtered out is just a result from sewage. Those farmers do, in fact, pay for their water, but whether they pay enough for such a scarce resource is another question, idk I'm not a farmer. It's cheap enough to the point where nearly the entire world's supply of almonds (a very thirsty crop) is still grown in California, being its most valuable crop export.
Actually, if you think about it; the San Joaquin Valley wouldn't have any water problems if the natural flow of water was allowed. The Sierra's flood down into the San Joaquin Rivers and that would be plenty-- if 90 percent of that annual rainfall wasn't diverted so people in Palm Springs (aka THE DESERT) can have green lawns, polo fields and full swimming pools. Well over 2/3rds of the Northern California water catchment is used to feed the voracious water usage of the desert dweller of Southern California, who for the most part, didn't even have water meters until the 1990s. The real answer to most of the Northern California water problems would be fixed by simply destroying the canals that ship the water South.
I applaud this for being an USA project that is finished under budget alone. Also great news for better groundwater in the future, I'm currently traveling to Jakarta and afaik thet really really need this.
I live in British Columbia, Canada, the City I live in was one of the first in North America to do this. They started back in the 80's by building a huge reservoir up on a hillside where the treated wastewater is pumped up to, and then it's gravity fed all over the place. It's used for irrigation of Farmers fields, sports fields, and many other things. We are close to living in a Desert climate here, so it helps immensely.
I know it's easy for anonymous internet users to blindly hate anything associated with California for purely political/ideological reasons, but any new water project that gets built is a step in the right direction.
You should do a video on the Groundwater Replenishment System (GWRS), Orange County, California. Orange County is taking up to 100 Million Gallons of waste water a day that is treated back to drinking water standards and injecting it back into the ground to replenish the aquifer under Orange County.
Growing up at Lake Tahoe from 1959 on, I discovered that Lake Tahoe in particular South shore before it was a city had one of the world's most advanced water reclamation plants! It literally took sewage and converted it to freshwater. When I took a tour of the plant in grade school, we were able to sample the water which was every bit as good as the water coming right out of the lake itself
This is the first time where I could understand that digital twin software could really make a significant difference in the “real world “ to project management & operations. I hope this gets used more in future
I worked on a ground water pump crew which serviced new and existing installs. This was in Phoenix Az. in the 1970's. What is alarming and everyone sits around and watches and that is the ground water table and how it's dropping. We would work in a farmers field and some had started their farms in the 1950's and used a shovel to go down about 8 ft. to hit the water table and at the time in the 70's the same table was down a few hundred feet!!! I cannot image how deep these wells are today!!!
We need to create a massive lake in the valley to help restore aquifers and it would also help cool the valley slightly and act as a reservoir dedicated to agriculture irrigation. It would flood some farm land, but also improve production on everything else. The past 2 years of massive rainfall in CA shows it can get a ton of water sometimes. We need to store that better for farming and pump more of it into aquifers in preparation for long dry periods.
It does seem irresponsible not to mention this. If anyone is interested, Dr. Sarah Taber's podcast Farm to Taber has a few episodes that talk about this issue through the lens of resource mismanagement. Highly recommend further study of the topic--not every issue is an engineering problem.
They've been working on that for years. In fact, California's pushed forward for years on water conservation, which is why millions of people are still there.
No it can't. Recycling water doesn't create water. It removes water that would otherwise flow down river to other communities leaving them less water. It's actually the most stupid thing humans can do when they don't need to. It's a huge expense that doesn't CREATE new water. Water flows into a community. Water is pulled for consumption, but consumption creates waste water. Community treats water puts it back into that flow. So, flow out of a community typically = flow into the community - Water consumed + water recovered from waste and treated Recycling cause the flow out of the community to be flow into the community - Water consumed You are no longer putting water back into the flow. And this is why you really NEED to do this AND there's a very thorough analysis of what happens to communities down river of the one that's recycling water. For the problem that was brought up other than the lack of water, which is land subsidence, this does absolutely nothing to resolve that problem. California has ONE good solution and a handful of others. The ONE good solution is monitor aquifers and don't allow pulling from ground water faster than the rate it can be recharged. That's the ONLY solution that will stop ground subsidence. That would end up killing a lot of agriculture in the state but that's OK. There are plenty of places in the US for agriculture. You can't raise the food for 300 million people in a desert. Science can't overcome that one. LIES can be told to people about what can be done to "fix" the problem, and right now California is more interested in the lies, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
This was so interesting. It's the first wastewater treatment video I've seen from y'all, and I hope to see more of this critical topic. It was my favorite of all your videos. Thanks for the great docs.
This is water recycling...they are using it on farm fields and wetland restoration but its recycled water once we treat it and don't bump it back in the ecosystem...
This project in the video would be hard-pressed to stop subsidence. It's concentrated water to a small area, an has little effect in recharging stores of in-ground water. In India whereever they have installed dense, onsite rainwater harvesting structures, it has increased the number of successive crops they can grow to 2-3 times previous numbers; lengthened flows of rivers to year round; improved personal wealth and resiliency; raised aquifers, watertables, brought back year-round rivers, etc. It also reduces downstream flooding; reverses ground subsidence and building damage, among other things. California needs to reduce water lost to evaporation to better supply its needs. Brad Lancaster wrote Rainwater Harvesting in Drylands and Beyond and lays out the many ways people can improve water resiliency cheaply. He has done some of these at his at his home simply and cheaply as a way to show people the most basic ways of accomplishing this, but one can go quite sophisticated regarding appearance in set ups (though I love his work). He also shows simpler, more valuable ways to recharge rural and urban landscapes through bioswales and raingardens, as well as bunds, checkdams, and the rest.
Agree. I saw a RU-vid video with an idea of placing solar panels above the CA Aquaduct. It would not only generate clean energy, it would help reduce a lot of water evaporation as it travels down to So Cal. Don’t know the cost of that, but a cool idea that addresses dual needs.
During the summer I lived in Davis, a little west of Sacramento, I heard moaning and groaning time and again by people who were complaining that their water service would be metered. O.O That was 1990. I was shocked that ANY place in California had unmetered water service, which meant it was pretty much free, when so many of us in other parts of the state lived on permanent rationing rates.
Southern California -- Los Angeles specifically, didn't have water meters well into the 1990s for major parts of their service area. Davis didn't have meters, but they had a pretty high 'base service fee' from what I remember. There are parts of Fresno and Bakersfield that still don't have meters.
We were in a drought for years.. but Nestlé can pump millions of gallons of water a month, and sell it in one time use plastic.. But my back yard garden is the problem..
The reason the farmlands went fallow that you mentioned at :45 is because they decided to save the Delta Smelt instead of using the water to irrigate farms.
They should let water seep back into the groundwater from the plant. I also wish more focus would be placed on water capture on the land to prevent flooding and runoff. It would be so much better for everything involved
I know this video is about NorCal, but a lot of water from the north is redirected in canals to the south to provide for agriculture there. The socal cities need to implement water conservation methods like Vegas has, in order to preserve our food supply and agriculture output
Although I haven't studied it, I'm almost completely certain that no Sacramento River water is being redirected to SoCal. Doesn't make much sense to me, the need is immediate in the Sacramento area and it's near the end of the water flow nearly at sea level. Makes more sense to me if you're going to pump water uphill that you do it from a reservoir at a higher elevation.
@@tonysu8860i haven’t studied it either but if you drive on the 5 you’ll see the California aqueduct for parts of the road. Then there’s a huge part before the hill that separates the valley from la where they have massive pipes running up along the highway. Hope this gives you something to go off of for research
I thought this was going to be about a desalination plant. I'm not a huge fan of AI but I think it would be perfect for organizing a project like that.
There is no water crisis. 70% of the world is filled with water. If there is any problem its that there is merely an energy conundrum to solve to turn the water potable which with our current tech is no biggie at all. Its just a matter of will.
Desalinated water is the most expensive water you can get...it is far cheaper to reduce waste and consumption to make the water we have go further...also, to satisfy demand for even 10% of CA's water demand would require 100s of not 1000s of plants across the entire coast...most of which is not really ideal locations...so we would actually be doing it in the same places that most of the people are...ie where most of the most expensive land is thus increasing the cost of said water even more...
@@triaxe-mmbyou can do both / all. Desalination could be powered by nuclear (clean energy) facilities. The big challenge is the brine produced, which can harm the ecosystem if it is all released into the local water. They would need to run a long pipe far into the ocean, releasing that brine along the way, so it is properly dispersed.
Building a pipeline from the Pacific Ocean to Death Valley, with oxygenation of the water in the resulting lake and a desalination plant (and ancilliary salt industry) would substantially change rainfall patterns in California.
As someone who lives in California, I believe people have a misconception about us: we are a by-water desert. We have always been in a drought because deserts are literally always in a drought. This problem is exacerbated by the new people migrating but we’ve always had these problems and always will
You should have made this in 2021. The snows and rains that fell between Fall 2022, to December 2023 has been so good it's restored lakes, reservoirs, and even restored a lake that dried up in 1990, the lake is so big, it is able to supply hundred percent of California’s water needs for crops over the next two years. Not to mention the increase in Lake Mead by 24%.
Sacramento isn't just 2hrs from San Francisco, it's 2hrs from the whole S.F. Bay Area which includes Vallejo, Berkeley, Oakland, San Jose, the Silicone Valley and about 3hrs from The Monterey Bay/Santa Cruz area, but also places like Reno, NV, Lake Tahoe, CA and S.Lake Tahoe, NV, Susanvile, CA, Redding, Eureka, Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lassen, Mammoth Mt., Mammoth ski resort, Bridgeport, Fresno, Tracy, Concord, Solvang, Modesto, Marysville, Fort Bragg and many many more places even So.Cal is only 6-8hrs away depending on the choice if route and speed used to get there, Sacramento actually sits In a perfect spot for things like commuting places for work, transportation, rail, tourism of the Bay Area, Northern Cali Pacific Coast, the Shasta & Lassen mt. Areas including Lake Shasta and the Lassen Volcanic Fields National Park and the whole California Gold Rush areas from Sonoma to Susanvile, places like Nevada City, Virgina City, Folsom, Coloma(the gold discovery site), Truckee, Carson City, NV and more are less then 2hrs away and great mt. Type, small town, historic main street shopping tourist spots, plus countless ski resorts like Sugar Bowl, Squa Valley, Kirkwood and Boreal are about 2hrs away, there are countless lakes to visit from snow melt and glacier feed lakes like Ice House, Tahoe, Union Valley and many more little lakes to foothill lakes like Folsom, Don Pedro, Clear Lake, etc... to the ones in the Sacramento Valley basin, ones like Berryessa, Comanche and more, it's perfectly situated at all the crossroads of California, from agriculture to the states finances, its hard to believe that way back when Sacramento wasn't barely a town that when the state legislation decided to make it the state capitol, claiming "we think it's centrally located at the right spot in California", that it actually was and has remained as well, I was born in Sacramento, then at almost 7 I moved and was raised in L.A. untill I was 17, when i moved back to the Sacramento area at the end of 1993 the City mostly was the same, some farms and big empty lots had been developed into housing communities and shopping centers but many things I remembed as a young kid still remained, the city population was around 350,000 and the Sac metro area had about 1.15 million people now in 2020 the city itself had about 800,000 and the Sac metro area was just pushing 3.1 million however the region is being overwhelmed by Bay Area and So.Cal residents fleeing from their places to Sacramento for the beauty, location but mostly for the lower rents, so I bet we're more around 3.3-3.5 million now, growing up here there was a lot of open space and undeveloped landed surrounding the city and it's many many suburbs that are in every direction, some being in other counties like Yolo(Cities of West Sac & Woodland), El Dorado(Cities of Cameron Park & El Dorado Hill), Placer(Cities like Roseville, Granite Bay, Rocklin & Loomis) and several more, but around the outskirts of those cities and between them selves like between West Sac and Woodland, Roseville, Rocklin and Loomis there was a wide expanse of empty land, even in Sacramento county had areas just north northwest of the main city was stilled undeveloped, not anymore driving the former Arco arena you passed huge empty land masses on your way, not anymore much of it is developed and even though there is undeveloped land south of South Sac the Elk Grove/Laguna area is getting very big and growing northwards towards South Sac while South Sac is growing towards them as well, I bet by 2030 all the rest of the empty land in and around Sac will be developed, places like Folsom, Roseville, Antelope, Eleverta and Citrus Heights have tripled in size since I moved back here, places where you drove to you would drive through oak tree low foothills and empty farmland now its housing communities shopping areas parks and more in it's place
Cadillac Desert, written in the 1980s, explains why the Western US will inevitably run out of water. A pretty good science fiction novel called the The Water Knife was based on the Cadillac Desert predictions (BTW, nothing to do with climate change).
Dire predictions always leave out sustainability plans, like Arizona's massive reservoir system. These systems can always be expanded to meet new water demands.
Lol, my buddy works at this plant. They’re also building (might be done by now) a cogeneration plant that will use the combustible gas byproducts from the treatment as fuel in large diesel engines to produce power and heat.
Meanwhile in California, the state releases 17 million acre feet of water a year into the Pacific so they can keep their allocation from the Colorado basin.
As regenerative farmer I am all for Hu-manure but not from cities as you don't know what medications and chemicals have been passed along in the process. Too many risks!!!
We've always had cycles of drought here. The problem is that our population has quadrupled since 1950, but a major dam hasn't been built in over 40 years. So much water is just released in to the ocean also. Many times the officials expecting a big rain storm releases huge amount of water to lower the water levers, but then the storm doesn't come. And since at least the 70s, every time we try to build a dam, these wacko activists will do anything to get it stopped. Back in the 90s people were asking how were we going to keep up with the growth. New reservoirs would bring more water and increase the power supply.
Some people have made the argument htat California should stop doing agriculture because water isn't unlimited, but this simply is not an option because California is the single largest agricultural producer on the planet. Our soil and climate is nearly without rival on the planet. The solution is not to stop farming, but to make more efficient use of our water and develop new ways of procuring water. We have an abundance of solar power, there is no reason we can't start industrial desalination projects.
No, people argue that California shouldn't be giving cheap water to farmers that exclusively grow water intensive crops that largely get shipped off to foreign countries. Tree nuts, alfalfa etc. The also argue on the scale of the livestock industry here and how water intensive that is as well.
I think the argument is that we shouldn't be growing things that are as water intensive as we have been doing... Desalinated water is some of the most expensive water you can get... We won't be able to afford the nuts and produce grown with it...
@@triaxe-mmb Desalinated water is only expensive because it isn't subsidized or externalized the way groundwater is. Groundwater is "free" to whoever has inherited the rights to pump it.
@@specialagentdustyponcho1065 that may be true but it is the situation we have to deal with...also reservoir water, surface water rights, etc... End of the day desal is not the savior - it's reducing our waste (covered canals, in ground storage to reduce/eliminate evap loss, consumption wastes like growing nuts and alpha alpha in a desert type climate, lawns and such, and dumping the expensive recycled water we generate back into the ocean rather than into aquifers or basins...among many others...desalination is the sexy solution but it is not the best IMO
Wow you actually announced the sponsorship when you first talked about it... Not quite perfect but leagues ahead of what you normally do. I'm impressed.
Yeah, if only it worked like that... Instead of looking at water rights, water usage, absurd agricultural usage and waste of it... lets try to pipe water from elsewhere, because that will resolve the issue...
As a retired commercial construction foreman. I wish they had this system when i was working. I work and was born and raised inbthe cali bay area. Ive seen almond orchards being ripped out because theres not enough water. Sad hope this projects takes some stress off the system
I live about 5 miles from this facility and it is impressive. And I would contend that “Sacramento” has plenty of water. It is where the Sacramento River meets the American River (which you didn’t mention). The real challenge you’re talking about is sending all this water into the valley for farming and down to Southern California, and when water is allowed to feed into the Delta and eventually into the SF Bay / Pacific Ocean for environmental / ecosystem (fish) purposes.
Or build a desalination plant like we have in south Australia, to make sure a city like Adelaide with population of 1.4 million people has water during long droughts like we get in Australia...
as a person living an a country still makes its first time water treatment infrastructure (not every part is covered yet), of course with the older technology, i don't see them upgrading in the next 3 decades
Anytime California is mentioned in anything, it turns into a pile on fest. It's like a trigger word to those who hate it and the politics there. Even people who don't even live there or even in the US pile on. Yet they enjoy and use the wonderful technology that comes out of it, RU-vid itself is from that California.
The triggered probably come from the poorly educated, deluded, underfunded, over religious, low income Republican abused states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia etc. They are all currently all in a bad way and will never be improved. They do not understand that they need California to help fund their welfare allowances.
Junkies shitting on the streets are also from california. What a great technology 😍😍. And btw, most of the high tech came from many years ago, when Reoublicans dominated California.
as a Californian a very Simple solution would be to cover the water canals that run down the state with solar panels. 30% of water is lost due to evaporation, and by covering and adding solar panels to an already in use area, it becomes a double win.
8:10 I'd love to see unbiased interviews with people on the project, not the people selling the product. They didn't really explain anything, they just regurgitated what's on the sales pamphlets.
These people worked directly on the project, they don’t work for Bentley, the models were done in Revit pushed to synchro and threaded together with assemble. Both Synchro and Assemble were independent companies at the time.
I had no idea this was happening, thank you. Glad to see California working 💪 on its massive and worsening water problems in a sustainable way, hopefully I won't have to leave to escape a dustbowl.
Really because California has been charging farmers with so much fines that farmers in the Central Valley are starting to pull their crops and selling their land and now Almonds are being grown in China. All while California has had so much rain fall in the last couple years and we’ve let most of that water dump back into the ocean because the governor has refused in the past decades to build more reservoirs even though we’ve funded that idea through the water project for the last 30 years. They just don’t build them. Sad 😢
Where are you going to build more reservoirs? I live in California and work in water and I genuinely curious what rivers you think we haven’t damned yet.
I don’t understand why California doesn’t create water storage and distribution systems in the north of the state and then bring that water to the south to avoid northern flooding.
California already pumps billions of gallons of water from the north to Los Angeles in the south. The flooding that you are referring to is local in nature and not a huge deal to the economy.
Hi, I have a question to ask The B1M I sure they can used the ocean/seas but the cost of doing that opt is costly but at lease you have water as well as others side of the country too you think?
Commiefornia (as my American friends call it) should invest in solar desalination. It has lots of sun and with the price of solar panels going down, it could use excess peak power for reverse osmosis, or directly evaporating and condensating seawater.
Thing is where the sun is shining and where the water is over a whole mountain range (coastal May Gray and June Gloom are famous here). Plus there's limited options to affordably dispose of the hypersaline brine that results, there'd need to develop industrial applications for super-salty seawater so that not all of the RO waste has to be rediluted for dumping.
I am curious why the water output from the plant is not pumped directly to farmers for irrigating their crops, but goes instead to the Sacramento River, which I suspect is dirtier than the plant water output? I know that in the Phoenix area, wastewater treatment plants' output is pumped to shopping malls and probably also to golf courses for irrigation. Signs posted in shopping malls (Chandler AZ) state that the water from sprinklers is not potable (in English and Spanish).
