[seanmcdirmid]

California isn't one region, and the monsoon season does the same thing to Arizona as it does to Southern California. The opening of dams to support sports is usually a bipartisan decision (conservatives as well as liberals like their electorates to be happy).

[Alupis]

You're right about the sporting uses... it's just absurd given California's dry history.

However, the lack of sufficient reservoirs is indeed a real problem. The population and it's water needs have greatly eclipsed the state's storage capabilities, which creates a negative feedback cycle during dryer seasons/years.

[seanmcdirmid]

There are plenty of underground aquifers that need to be recharged, I assume the limiting factor is that when the rain comes all at once (during a monsoon) it can't be absorbed quickly enough before running into the ocean. Usually snowpacks build up and then release gradually (that's how the Colorado river works), but the drought and global warming have been reducing those (and the ability to build them back up) at a very quick rate.

I'm sure people who are more knowledgeable about the problem are trying to work out solutions, and there is probably a straightforward answer to why we don't have a working solution already?

[keneda7]

Here is an article from 2014 that talks about it. It was recently on HN.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/08/31/california-drought-wh...

Here is a more recent article talking about the proposed Sites Reservoir the other article mentions.

https://www.ktvu.com/news/a-new-mega-reservoir-in-final-plan...

[bobthepanda]

California has strong local governments captured by NIMBYs which makes intra-jurisdictional projects hard and inter-jurisdictional ones nigh impossible.

As an example, the LA River is a giant concrete channel that rushes water into the Pacific. There is some support for restoring it into a more absorbent wetland state but it will take decades and doesn’t cover the whole river.

As a more farcical example, the recent storms have downed a tree across the Caltrain commuter rail line. They are slow on removing it because the jurisdiction the tree fell in consider it a historic tree despite the fact that it is eucalyptus, a species invasive to California.

[Alupis]

In California, specifically, there is an impressively strong opposition to building new above-ground reservoirs (think dams, tanks, lakes, etc). The opposition usually cites environmental reasons, but in California we're effectively a One-Party state so there is no meaningful pushback.

That's not to say environmental reasons aren't good reasons (with a certain balance of course).

However, in California, this has become the "go-to" excuse for blocking most new public-works projects, often tying up projects in decades of litigation and studies... which typically means the project is dead before it even starts. Californian's have become skeptical of these weaponized "studies" as a result.

[keneda7]

Yup this is a huge problem in CA. We simply have not been able to get any new meaningful reservoir projects done. Take a look at the Sites Reservoir. It is probably the closest to actually doing something.

https://sitesproject.org/sites-news/