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seltzered_ 2 hours ago

When you read lines like "California’s extensive network of canals and aqueducts is the lifeblood of the state, providing clean water to populous cities and expansive farms that wouldn’t otherwise have it." you have to ask how we ended up with these canal systems, what the tradeoffs are in a landscape setup this way rather than one where water infiltrates the ground and stays hydrated, and who owns water rights in California.

Build Soil has some interesting threads on this:

- https://bsky.app/profile/buildsoil.bsky.social/post/3lmeddjd...

- https://bsky.app/profile/buildsoil.bsky.social/post/3mkzybkk...

(note: I'm not trying to totally bash the solar panel project nor some of the key figures involved who've done great work like Dustin Mulvaney, but do think we should think about how we ended up here)

downrightmike an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Back when they thought they could pay their way out of problems. Looking at you florida everglades

whalesalad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I thought this was a pretty awesome video to provide the lore on how water got to Southern California. Growing up in Pasadena I heard the name Mulholland and Eaton (as in canyon) all the time but never realized they were so instrumental in the founding of the city and all the wild shenanigans that went into getting the water from up north to LA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-RGL15Skuo

shagie 2 hours ago | parent [-]

There's also a practical engineering video on it: The Los Angeles Aqueduct is Wild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhW2BjFQCZM ( https://practical.engineering/blog/2026/3/17/the-los-angeles... for blog post transcript)

In searching YouTube history for it, I see I also stumbled across this project too: Why Aqueduct Solar Solves 2 MASSIVE Problems https://youtu.be/EVBacmPfQ6E (about 9 minutes in it gets into the engineering challenges mentioned else comment about wind loads and such).

seltzered_ 10 minutes ago | parent [-]

What I'm trying to gesture at isnt engineering prowess though but better questions around how California changed over the past 100ish years and the issues around land-use change and relationship to water. See things like what Yasha Levine has done such as:

- Pistachio Wars film - https://pistachiowars.com which talks about the changes in water use and canal development

- the original article 'A Journey through Oligarch Valley' from 2013: https://web.archive.org/web/20151115054847/https://www.nsfwc...