The story of how two Beverly Hills farmers privatized water in California

From TODAY:

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A group of water oligarchs in California have engineered a disastrous deregulation and privatization scheme. And they've pulled in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars without any real public outrage. The amount of power and control they wield over California's most precious resource, water, should shock and frighten us and it would, if more people were aware of it. But here is the scary thing: They are plotting to gain an even larger share of California's increasingly-scarce, over-tapped water supply, which will surely lead to shortages, higher prices and untold destruction to California's environment.

The leader of these recent water privatization efforts in California is a Beverly Hills billionaire named Stewart Resnick. Stewart and his wife, Lynda Resnick, own Roll International Corporation, a private umbrella company that controls the flowers-by-wire company Teleflora, Fiji Water, Pom Wonderful, pesticide manufacturer Suterra and Paramount Agribusiness, the largest farming company in America and the largest pistachio and almond producer in the world. Roll Corp. was ranked #246 on Forbes' list of America's largest private companies in 2008 and had an estimated revenue of $1.98 billion in 2007.

But there is a gaping hole in most accounts of the jet-set Baby Boomer couple: their company, Roll International, is one of the largest, if not the largest, private water brokers in America. Through a series of subsidiary companies and organizations, Roll International is able to convert California's water from a public, shared resource into a private asset that can be sold on the market to the highest bidder.

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Now, with the current wildfires:
The pistachio tycoons who guzzle more water than all of fire-hit LA

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The wildfires engulfing Los Angeles have put an uncomfortable spotlight on two of its richest residents Stewart and Lynda Resnick agriculture tycoons whose farms guzzle a vital and scarce resource: water.

So far, the Resnicks' Beverly Hills mansion, and the Picasso artworks that adorn its walls, have been spared the nearby Palisades and Eaton fires, even as their celebrity neighbors' homes go up in smoke.
But they cannot so easily escape criticism for their agriculture empire, which sucks up more water than whole cities, even as LA firefighters cannot get a drop of the stuff out of the hydrants that line its streets.
Critics say these so-called 'Beverly Hills farmers,' and their ties to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and other politicians, may be among the reasons that California is battling such an environmental apocalypse.

'The Resnicks are powerful and their control of so much water is ridiculous,' filmmaker Yasha Levine, co-director of the forthcoming documentary Pistachio Wars, told DailyMail.com.
'How can one family own more water than the entire city of Los Angeles, almost 4 million people, uses in one year?'

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But, money has bought some political "fakt-chekkers"...
Claims about a billionaire couple hurting efforts to fight the L.A. fires via their 'control' of the water supply are false

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Almost as soon as the unprecedented scale of the Los Angeles wildfires hit the public's awareness, SJV Water started getting some pretty out there emails and texts alleging that Lynda and Stewart Resnick "own" 60% (75%, even 80%) of California's water and were somehow "hoarding it" so it couldn't be used to put out the flames.

No. This is absolutely false information.

The Resnicks and their $6 billion farming company, the Wonderful Company, do not own or control anywhere near that percentage of water in California. And what they do own or control, has nothing to do with the Los Angeles region's supplies.

In fact, it's fairly ironic that the very people often accused of selling the San Joaquin Valley's water to LA for profit, are now accused of keeping it from the same region.

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Forbes also has a piece negating the claims, but it is behind a paywall. LOL. I have no idea which part(s) of the story are correct, but if this family is truly restricting water usage for firefighting due to backdoor deals with demorat politicians, I hope this awakens more than a few of the multi-million dollar mansion owners who lost everything in this fire. Burn ALL of kalifornia to the ground (politically).

Kinda like how Garwood farmers get cheap LCRA water while other users get cut off?

What does/should "water rights" even mean?

This is the exact plot of an entire season of the tv show Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton…even the almond part.

I'd suggest you read the book Cadillac Desert if you have not done so already. Pre dates this particular situation, but explains the history of water usage/rights in California and the framework for water to be manipulated at such scale.

Enviroag02 said:

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This is the exact plot of an entire season of the tv show Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton…even the almond part.

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Yes

So, is the moral of the story that if you grease the palms of demorat politicians, anything can happen? How have the oil and gas companies overlooked this avenue? LOL

On second thought, maybe it HAS already happened with the understanding that kalifornia demorats will talk a big game but ultimately do nothing?

ShinerAggie said:

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On second thought, maybe it HAS already happened with the understanding that kalifornia demorats will talk a big game but ultimately do nothing?

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They do something alright. They regulate the **** out of it through environmental agencies.

It would be interesting to see what environmental regulations, bills, NGOs, and politicians they've supported over the years. The Delta Smelt fish controversy seems all too convenient.

For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

DallasAg 94 said:

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It is amazing what they are doing and nobody bats an eye because they pay off politicians.

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harvesting more than 65,000 acres of pistachio and almond orchards and delivering more than 450 million pounds of nuts globally each year.

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For those that don't know... it takes about 1.1gal of water per almond.

If you quit eating buying Fiji water, POM, and Wonderful pistachios/almonds... they'd no longer need to corner the water market.

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You can pry my honey roasted almonds out of my cold, dead jaws.

It probably doesn't help that as more structures burn, those with plastic piping are then left open and flowing until street and local system valves are shut off to stop that growing drain on the local supply.

Wrong, Hawgs husband had a pump to save the house from fire. California had no water because California is stupid; a stupid commie.

lead said:

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Kinda like how Garwood farmers get cheap LCRA water while other users get cut off?

What does/should "water rights" even mean?

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Outdoors Board can explain this. It is not all that complicated.

Enviroag02 said:

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This is the exact plot of an entire season of the tv show Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton…even the almond part.

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3rd season

Fantastic Series. Still on Netflix I think.

Even the secret deals being made in Monterey County

Binge watch worthy. BBT is fantastic.

This is the story on all water rights west of Kansas. The front range in Colorado is a good example (not that I don't smile when I think of all those liberals without water). True water rights reforms must be implemented. Farmers first (we need food) and Vineyards last!

Pistachios!

ABATTBQ11 said:

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For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

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but conspiracy theory's and blaming democrat politicians is more fun

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This is the exact plot of an entire season of the tv show Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton…even the almond part.

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Great show! And Dennis Quaid plays the part of Resnick from the article above.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

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That is one possibility. To say it is the only possibility and curse at someone who may have a different view is a bit much. I have'nt spent much time looking into causation because I assume the information available at this point is spin and more truths will be revealed as we move past smoldering structures and cadaver dogs.

That said, in the interviews I have seen with the people in charge of, or using, the hydrants, the issue isn't delayed water delivery. It is no water, the hydrants dry up. Remember, a pump needs supply too. If there was ample supply then the pumps would keep pumping and the water would be delayed or low pressure, not absent.
If a pump loses source it , well....

Im not stating anything with certainty, I do not know. I just don't get the aggression on the front side of your post. A link to a thread about how another poster in Austin planned to use their pool water to supplement their prevention plan is hardly relevant to LA, no?

lead said:

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Kinda like how Garwood farmers get cheap LCRA water while other users get cut off?

What does/should "water rights" even mean?

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No different than mineral rights really.

Water is a commodity, and a necessity. With river authorities, you have varying levels of water rights.

1st - State of Texas. The state owns all of the water in the river system and has first/primary water rights
2nd - River Authority (or in the case of the Brazos, a Water Master that governs the various river authorities that own water rights on the river as granted by the State)
3rd - Individual rights. Some individuals actually have 2nd tier ownership, but it's pretty rare and those rights go way back to when we had just beat Santa Anna at San Jacinto. I know of one on the Colorado that is an individual with 2nd tier rights, but that's the only one I know of.

River Authorities are wholesalers - they are state entities authorized by the state to manage and sell water to 3rd tier customers (farmers, industrial, municipal).

agracer said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

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but conspiracy theory's and blaming democrat politicians is more fun

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It is not conspiracy theory, it may well fall directly on leadership. There may well be some nefarious plan to enrich some elite private skull and bones club. We do not know yet. Hopefully we will get some transparency in the investigation. If leadership was asleep at the wheel, they should be held accountable. If something illegal has contributed to the event, there should be accountability. If none of that happened, what were the issues and can we/how do we fix them?

In the meantime, people are going to fill in the gaps with imagination. Some of those might end up being correct and some might end up being silly. That is what investigators will do too, you know... try to fill in gaps and plug holes. Some of those holes will be filled with facts born from gut feelings or "hunch's" if you will. The internet is doing the same thing. It is entertaining though, "fun" is not the right word for me.

Enviroag02 said:

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This is the exact plot of an entire season of the tv show Goliath with Billy Bob Thornton…even the almond part.

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It's Chinatown, Jake.

AgFan1974 said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

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That is one possibility. To say it is the only possibility and curse at someone who may have a different view is a bit much. I have'nt spent much time looking into causation because I assume the information available at this point is spin and more truths will be revealed as we move past smoldering structures and cadaver dogs.

That said, in the interviews I have seen with the people in charge of, or using, the hydrants, the issue isn't delayed water delivery. It is no water, the hydrants dry up. Remember, a pump needs supply too. If there was ample supply then the pumps would keep pumping and the water would be delayed or low pressure, not absent.
If a pump loses source it , well....

Im not stating anything with certainty, I do not know. I just don't get the aggression on the front side of your post. A link to a thread about how another poster in Austin planned to use their pool water to supplement their prevention plan is hardly relevant to LA, no?

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Read the post again. It's exactly what he said happened.

AgFan1974 said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

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That is one possibility. To say it is the only possibility and curse at someone who may have a different view is a bit much. I have'nt spent much time looking into causation because I assume the information available at this point is spin and more truths will be revealed as we move past smoldering structures and cadaver dogs.

That said, in the interviews I have seen with the people in charge of, or using, the hydrants, the issue isn't delayed water delivery. It is no water, the hydrants dry up. Remember, a pump needs supply too. If there was ample supply then the pumps would keep pumping and the water would be delayed or low pressure, not absent.
If a pump loses source it , well....

Im not stating anything with certainty, I do not know. I just don't get the aggression on the front side of your post. A link to a thread about how another poster in Austin planned to use their pool water to supplement their prevention plan is hardly relevant to LA, no?

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It's not a "possibility". That's exactly what happened. But, hey, you haven't spent much time looking into it...

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-08/lack-of-water-from-hydrants-in-palisades-fire-is-hampering-firefighters-caruso-says

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By 3 a.m. Wednesday, all water storage tanks in the Palisades area "went dry," diminishing the flow of water from hydrants in higher elevations, said Janisse Quiñones, chief executive and chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the city's utility.

"We had a tremendous demand on our system in the Palisades. We pushed the system to the extreme," Quiñones said Wednesday morning. "Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure."

...

Quiñones and other DWP officials said that the city was fighting a wildfire in hilly terrain with an urban water system, and that at lower elevations in Pacific Palisades, water pressure remained strong.

Before the fire, all 114 tanks that supply the city water infrastructure were completely filled.

Quiñones said that the hydrants in the Palisades rely on three large water tanks with about 1 million gallons each. The first ran dry at 4:45 p.m. Tuesday; the second at 8:30 p.m.; and the third was dry at 3 a.m. Wednesday.

"Those tanks help with the pressure on the fire hydrants in the hills in the Palisades, and because we were pushing so much water in our trunk line, and so much water was being used. ... we were not able to fill the tanks fast enough," she said. "So the consumption of water was faster than we can provide water in a trunk line."

In other words, the demand for water at lower elevations was hampering the ability to refill the tanks located at higher elevations. Because of the ongoing fire, DWP crews also faced difficulty accessing its pump stations, which are used to move water up to the tanks.

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ETA Those tanks are at successively higher elevations and water has to be pumped from one to the next. You can't just pump straight to the top because you will have too much head pressure. Essentially, the higher/farther up you try to push the water from where your pumping, the more it weighs and the more effort it takes. If you're pulling water out of the low and mid-level tanks faster than you're adding it, it's a no brainer that your top tank delivering the highest pressure is going to go dry and you'll lose every fixture above the mid-level tank. Then you're going to see successive failures that take out the remaining tanks until you either see a decrease in demand or you hit an elevation that has enough pumps pumping into it to maintain tank levels.

If you have to, think of it like tripping a branchline breaker because you pulled too much load. All the breakers upstream are fine and the house still has power. You didn't run out of electricity, you just can't move enough electricity to the outlet/light to meet demand because you're limited by the circuit size.

agracer said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

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but conspiracy theory's and blaming democrat politicians is more fun

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Who neglected to ensure enough pumping capacity?

schmellba99 said:

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lead said:

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Kinda like how Garwood farmers get cheap LCRA water while other users get cut off?

What does/should "water rights" even mean?

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No different than mineral rights really.

Water is a commodity, and a necessity. With river authorities, you have varying levels of water rights.

1st - State of Texas. The state owns all of the water in the river system and has first/primary water rights
2nd - River Authority (or in the case of the Brazos, a Water Master that governs the various river authorities that own water rights on the river as granted by the State)
3rd - Individual rights. Some individuals actually have 2nd tier ownership, but it's pretty rare and those rights go way back to when we had just beat Santa Anna at San Jacinto. I know of one on the Colorado that is an individual with 2nd tier rights, but that's the only one I know of.

River Authorities are wholesalers - they are state entities authorized by the state to manage and sell water to 3rd tier customers (farmers, industrial, municipal).

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Pierce Ranch, no?

Yup. And they have a significant amount of rights.

Just want to clarify something. The Hubs was very familiar with the equipment the nearest fire station had. And by near, I mean up the street and less than two minutes away. he knew they would have the capability to use our pool water, if needed.

BUT his concern was that the greenbelt was so large, that all of the closest stations (3 others were less than five to six minutes away after rolling) would be positioned elsewhere basically trying to laterally control the fire spread as opposed to getting in front of it. And we were very near the end of the greenbelt and where the ravine ended.

So unless the fire started on our end of it, we would not be the priority.

richardag said:

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Who neglected to ensure enough pumping capacity?

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It's not a matter of neglect, it's a matter of engineering. The system was designed and created to feed domestic water for residences and businesses and fight single house fires, not have every hydrant wide open trying to douse entire neighborhoods. To meet that kind of design assumption, you'd need more and bigger pumps, more electrical infrastructure, larger pump stations, larger pipe diameters, etc and you'd have multiples of flow capacity you'd probably never use. Building to that potential demand, on the off chance you need it, is prohibitively expensive when you also consider applying that standard everywhere as a preventative measure instead of just saying, "Oh, it would've only cost an extra $xxx million to build it bigger in the first place. What idiots!" in this one specific spot after the fact. You're talking really hundreds of millions and probably billions of dollars for infrastructure that would be unnecessary except for this exact case

The equivalent would be like running a space heater in every outlet in your house and burning it down in an electrical fire, then getting mad at your electrician for not insisting you spend an extra $20k to size up all the circuits to 50 amps and avoid the $400k fire when, the fact is, no one builds a house like that because it's kind of a waste.

That's a crazy conspiracy theory, OP, but nowadays you just don't know. They didn't mind burning down cities during the mostly peaceful protests. I don't put anything past them.

richardag said:

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agracer said:

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ABATTBQ11 said:

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For the last ****ing time, hydrants didn't go dry because LA didn't have enough water. LA has plenty of water. What they don't have is the capacity to move that water.

Aggiehawg posted this in another thread about how she used to have a house in Austin with a back deck and large pool next to a greenbelt. Her husband bought a submersible pump and hose to use the pool as a reservoir as a means to fight any fire that would come through the greenbelt and up the hill to their deck. Their 50k-60k gallons of pool water was useless in a fire without a means to move it, hence the pump. They could have had a million gallon pool, but without a way to move it, it would have been worthless.

LA has basically the same setup, but much, much larger. They have billions of gallons of water, but they have to pump it to where they need it. To maintain constant and consistent water pressure, cities like LA pump water to towers and elevated tanks and, thanks to gravity, use the weight of that elevated water to pressurize the system. Pumps constantly refill the towers and tanks at roughly the same rate they're depleted. Think pouring water into a funnel and keeping it topped off to maintain a constant flow rate through the end. If water is drawn from the system faster than the pumps can refill the towers and tanks, then the tanks will act as buffers until either they run dry or demand decreases below what been be pumped.

In LA's case, water was drawn by firefighters faster than the pumps could refill the tanks at higher elevations than the hydrants they were tapping. Without water in those specific tanks, there was no pressure. It's no different than aggiehawg trying to fight a fire with a 50k gallon pool. If you can't get the water out and where it needs to go, then having the water doesn't do much good.

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but conspiracy theory's and blaming democrat politicians is more fun

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Who neglected to ensure enough pumping capacity?

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sigh....Engineering large systems like this is all about value versus needed size/capacity.

You look at what you think is the worst possible case and say "we need this much" for the system.

Then the guy paying for it says, "can't afford that, it's 2x the budget"

So you have to make compromises and assumption and come up with a more reasonable system that fits the budget and you get what you get and make the best effort to keep the holes in the Swiss cheese from lining up. But in this case, all of them lined up. It happens.

I can promise you that the elected officials in CA had ZERO input on the size of the transfer pumps.

Now, I'm not saying everything was done perfect and no funds were diverted for DEI/kickback that could have made things better, but it's not as easy as 'make the pump bigger'.

aggiehawg said:

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Just want to clarify something. The Hubs was very familiar with the equipment the nearest fire station had. And by near, I mean up the street and less than two minutes away. he knew they would have the capability to use our pool water, if needed.

BUT his concern was that the greenbelt was so large, that all of the closest stations (3 others were less than five to six minutes away after rolling) would be positioned elsewhere basically trying to laterally control the fire spread as opposed to getting in front of it. And we were very near the end of the greenbelt and where the ravine ended.

So unless the fire started on our end of it, we would not be the priority.

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The real point was that even though you had 50k gallons of water right next to your house, it wouldn't have made any difference unless you (or the FD) could move as much of it as you needed to where you needed. Without a pump and without line pressure, all that water was staying in the pool.

LA was in much the same predicament. They had plenty of reserves in their pool, but they couldn't move enough of that water higher than many of the hydrants to maintain flow and pressure to them.

ABATTBQ11 said:

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richardag said:

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Who neglected to ensure enough pumping capacity?

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It's not a matter of neglect, it's a matter of engineering. The system was designed and created to feed domestic water for residences and businesses and fight single house fires, not have every hydrant wide open trying to douse entire neighborhoods. To meet that kind of design assumption, you'd need more and bigger pumps, more electrical infrastructure, larger pump stations, larger pipe diameters, etc and you'd have multiples of flow capacity you'd probably never use. Building to that potential demand, on the off chance you need it, is prohibitively expensive when you also consider applying that standard everywhere as a preventative measure instead of just saying, "Oh, it would've only cost an extra $xxx million to build it bigger in the first place. What idiots!" in this one specific spot after the fact. You're talking really hundreds of millions and probably billions of dollars for infrastructure that would be unnecessary except for this exact case

The equivalent would be like running a space heater in every outlet in your house and burning it down in an electrical fire, then getting mad at your electrician for not insisting you spend an extra $20k to size up all the circuits to 50 amps and avoid the $400k fire when, the fact is, no one builds a house like that because it's kind of a waste.

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You're pretending this is a black swan event. But these extreme winds and fire risks are known. It's only a matter of when and where. And it's a known behavior that in a fire people turning on their water to save their homes.

These *******s signed up to be responsible for these regions and they failed. Don't give them a pass.

Florida will be hit by hurricanes. Oklahoma by tornados. Arizona by deadly heat. Alaska by blizzards. And California will have fires.

If you sign up to lead one of these places: you're signing up to mitigate and manage these known events. Each state / city has a different risk profile; but that's the job. Don't have the stones? Don't sign up. And if you did sign up: don't cry when your failures are criticized!