Possible California Aquifer Problems

[BillTre]

From Science:

In 2020, a historic drought struck California’s Central Valley, where one-quarter of the food produced in the United States is grown, causing farmers to pump vast amounts of water from wells to keep their crops alive. All that pumping reduced the water pressure within the porous sediments storing that water deep underground. As a result, those sediments compacted over the next 2 years—causing land surfaces in the northern part of the Central Valley, known as the Sacramento Valley, to sink by more than half a meter.


This kind of subsidence is typically reversible, or “elastic.” Rainfall seeps into the ground and refills the empty sediment pores, causing the surface to rebound. But in 2021, the aquifer compacted so quickly and extensively that it likely permanently lost its capacity to store water, researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

[Chestermiller]

Is there a question here?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Would also affect ability to fight wild fires or do they draw from sea water and lakes?

 

[berkeman]

Would also affect ability to fight wild fires or do they draw from sea water and lakes?

Wildland firefighters and tankers do draw from lakes and similar fresh water sources (even backyard pools), but rarely would draw from a saltwater source like the ocean. The saltwater is bad for the pumps on the fire apparatus, and is also bad for the environment.

An exception would be fire boats, whose pumps are designed to use the saltwater that the boat is floating on.