Dig this.
NEW: Five water main breaks in just one week are raising new questions about the state of L.A.’s aging infrastructure.
— Matthew Seedorff (@MattSeedorff) July 20, 2026
The biggest: a 110-year-old, 36-inch pipe that ruptured in West Hollywood, sending 17 million gallons of water through the Sunset Strip, flooding businesses,… pic.twitter.com/S327U84c42
Now check out this sweet thing from my backyard.
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| An Octobubbler! |
You see, here in California, we've not built a new reservoir in decades. Some of our reservoirs can no longer be filled to capacity because they've not been maintained. Our population has increased substantially. Our water prices are insane. Central Valley farmers have gone out of business because they can't get enough water to grow things.
In the residential areas, you must choose between turf, xeriscape and drip systems. I don't know anyone who has a lawn. Lots of people had lawns back in the 1970s. Between then and now, water has become scarce.
The Democrats run the state from top to bottom. I believe they have a supermajority in the legislature. In the most recent LA mayoral primaries, the one Republican, Spencer Pratt, was up by about 12 when voting allegedly stopped. In the week following, they "found" enough ballots marked for the 3rd place chick, a lefty loon if ever there was one, and Spencer got shoved into 3rd by a razor-thin margin. He won't be on the ballot in the general election in November.
The Democrats pay no political price for any mismanagement they inflict on us.
It's not fraud if it's legal, right? As an Internet wag put it, they're not committing fraud because they've legalized just about everything any sane person would consider fraud.
Anywho, we have very little water and we use a drip system throughout our yard, trying to maintain a beautiful landscape despite the limitations.
I hate drip systems. Hate them. They are the most maintenance-intensive pieces of junk ever. The heads turn themselves off, get clogged, get eaten by idiot puppies, get kicked while gardening and on and on. Recently, the Octobubbler pictured above blew 5 of its 8 hoses off. I didn't notice until my wife told me our plants were dying. I did my tour of the system and found that several distribution nodes had blown their hoses off.
It's not too much pressure, it's the feed lines stretching from sun exposure and time. I'll have to replace every bloody line in the backyard because they're all in direct sun. That's not the worst of it.
I discovered the ruptures in my irrigation system just a few days after I saw the X post at the top.
Los Angeles has 110 year old water mains? Are you serious? Here I am, conserving every freaking drop of water and the imbeciles in LA are running a water system that is doomed to total collapse. I save a gallon here and a gallon there and they blow 36" diameter, high pressure pipes on the regular.
When we need hot water in the kitchen, which is in another zip code from the water heater, I take a 5-gallon bucket and collect the water in that while I'm running the tap to get the water hot. I use that to water plants. Conserve, conserve, conserve! Short showers, everyone! Conserve.
KABLOOIE! There goes another 100-year-old main in LA.
I am so glad we sold our rental here in San Diego and bought property in Alabama. This place is falling apart.
2 comments:
So, this made me curious: what is the position of the California Republican Party regarding the water supply? So I looked up their official platform:
https://cagop.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/F2019Platform.pdf
The last section is in fact concerned with the water supply. They say:
"While California’s population is expected to grow by more than 600,000 each year, reaching between 44 and 48 million by 2025, the state’s water infrastructure was built 3 ½ decades ago to serve roughly 1/3rd as many people. Amid an extensive drought, dwindling snowpack, shrinking reservoirs, deteriorating water quality, rising water rates, restricted water use, and devastating economic impact, the voters approved Proposition 1(2014), a $7.12 billion water bond to fund water supply infrastructure projects. The California Republican Party is committed to supporting the construction of new, above ground water storage facilities and desalinization plants as critical components
in the plan to meet California’s long-term water needs. We encourage the comprehensive and efficient management of California’s precious
water resources in order to accommodate growth in California; to ensure that California’s 11 communities have access to an adequate supply of safe drinking water; and to guarantee that our farms and businesses get the water they need even in dry years. We oppose additional bonded indebtedness. "
This sounded fine until that last "We oppose additional bonded indebtedness". That's OK if the already-approved water bond is sufficient to effectively increase the water supply enough to provide for 3x the population it was built for. But if it isn't, what's their Plan B? Raise taxes? Raise water rates? Cheap out on expanding the system? Or just complain about the cost and do no more than the bare minimum?
I couldn't find an estimate of the original cost of the California State Water System, but given how massive it is, I can't imagine that $7.12 billion will even come close to covering the cost of doubling or tripling its capacity. Especially since while poking around, I saw a couple of individual proposed projects that would take almost that much all by themselves. And that wouldn't leave anything for just fixing the waterworks that are already in place and are, as you say, over 100 years old.
I can't help thinking that the fundamental problem here is, why on Earth did all these people move into what is in effect a desert, and expect there to be water for a large population? Especially when, east of the Mississippi, more than enough water for everyone falls from the sky for free?
It also strikes me that, if you are looking for an argument for restricting immigration to California, this is it. Never mind concerns about culture, or employment, or crime, or public benefits. The big question is what will they do for water?
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