If the sight of this winter's torrential rains left you pining for a way to capture the precious overflows, you are not alone.
UC Santa Cruz alum Daniel Mountjoy is working to do just that—on a scale that has the potential to ease the state's increasingly persistent cycles of deluge and drought.
The idea is to divert water from overflowing rivers onto fallow farmland, where it seeps into the soil and replenishes depleted aquifers. These "underground reservoirs" function like savings accounts, storing a valued resource for lean times.
"The goal is balance. We want to redirect surplus water, fill underground basins, and have that water available to farmers during drought years," says Mountjoy (BA, environmental studies, 1985), director of resource stewardship at Sustainable Conservation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit focused on solving resource management problems.
Mountjoy sees his role as facilitating a unique coalition—including farmers, environmentalists, academics, and water managers—that is developing and testing the strategy, called "on-farm recharge."
The strategy is in its infancy, but models show it has the capacity to capture enough river water between November and March to offset 20 percent of the annual "overdraft" pumped out of critical areas of the San Joaquin Valley.
Maybe they should follow the example of the ancient people on the Arabian Peninsula and build lots and lots of check dams.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @01:48AM (2 children)
waterproof 5m UV LED strip - about $10 on ebay.
Copper is bactericidal too. Both of them may or may not be stable over longish time, depending on the pH of the water (and copper is more toxic than silver)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 25 2017, @05:33PM (1 child)
Real O-zone generators are either high intensity UV bulbs/LEDs or are actually grid based circuit units which electrically convert O2 into O3.
Pretty sure the UV strip you describe is only useful for illuminating blacklight posters and maybe giving you eye cancer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday March 25 2017, @10:25PM
UV radiation is capable of destroying unicellular algae [wikipedia.org] by itself. How do you think is "giving you eye cancer"?
Granted, it seems that it requires UV-C wavelength, which will make the common/cheap UV-diodes unusable.
It doesn't mean you can't find the appropriate model - just that the price range will be different [aliexpress.com].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford