Hetch hetchy, Yosemite's lost valley

[Al_Pine]

catbirdseat said:

I could be made sacred again.

 

Like a virgin...touched for the very first time

[Dru]

 

Damn if you froze that lake and put a couple of polar bears in there it'd look like a pint-sized Baffin Island

[Off_White]

[Fairweather]

There is a good article in last months "Canoe and Kyak" magazine. The lake is at an all-time low right now and some of the narrow-walled canyons that were recently underwater are drawing paddlers in large numbers. The valley/lakebed is very silted up....over 20 feet thick in places... and would have to be flushed out somehow if it were to ever be restored.

[chelle]

I thought boats were prohibited on the lake unless it is the caretakers ski boat that is mored to the "can't use it" diving/sunbathing platform about 30 yards offshore.

[Dru]

Fairweather said:

There is a good article in last months "Canoe and Kyak" magazine. The lake is at an all-time low right now and some of the narrow-walled canyons that were recently underwater are drawing paddlers in large numbers. The valley/lakebed is very silted up....over 20 feet thick in places... and would have to be flushed out somehow if it were to ever be restored.

 

If you drain the lake and it rains on the silt for a few years your problem will solve itself although there will be some fierce turbidity problems downstream.

 

Or you could use the silt to fertilize the fields in the Central Valley.

[chelle]

In a few years there will not be much need to fertilize the central valley - at least within a reasonable shipping distance. The developers are paving it over and putting up tract home projects and shopping centers.

[gapertimmy]

ehmmic said:

I thought boats were prohibited on the lake unless it is the caretakers ski boat that is mored to the "can't use it" diving/sunbathing platform about 30 yards offshore.

 

i gotz mad connectionz

[Dan_Harris]

In a few years there will not be much need to fertilize the central valley - at least within a reasonable shipping distance. The developers are paving it over and putting up tract home projects and shopping centers.

I too wish it would stop, but playing devil's advocate, it's the farmers selling to the developers. At least Turlock turned Wal-Mart down.

[mattp]

In a few years there will not be much need to fertilize the central valley - at least within a reasonable shipping distance. The developers are paving it over and putting up tract home projects and shopping centers.

 

I believe it is a fact that, within not many more than a "few" years, the entire central California valley will be infertile. The plain fact, recognized since the times of Mesopotamia, is that irrigation causes salinization of the soil. As a direct result of current irrigation practices, pretty much the entire central California valley will be a desert. And we're growing crops there that we could grow elsewhere, like back (south) east (cotton, rice, oranges, etc.)

[Dru]

Is salinization where the whole valley turns into Salinas and starts selling Steinbeck memorabilia

[specialed]

I've driven through the Central Valley like five times and never seen it, because the smog was so bad. What a shit hole. We should sell it to Canada.

[chelle]

Smog was so bad last Sep that there were 14 spare the air days out of the 15 I was there.

[Dan_Harris]

Last couple of weeks have been great right after the storms. Rain washed all the junk I've breathing out of the sky and left some great visibilty. Could look east and see the peaks of Yosemite like they were right there. I even happened to be on the west side of the valley last week and could still see the snow capped Sierras clearly.