[ghshephard]

No argument from me on any of that, totally makes sense. And thanks for the correction of 70,000 m^3 -> 70,000 * 1000 m^3 for Crystal Spring Reservoir.

(I'll admit to having to have Soulver up just to have this conversation - Metric system would make it way, way easier.)

[hughdbrown]

So when you hear 70 000 cubic meters, try to visualize it: 1.4m deep by 50m long by 25m (1750 cubic meters) is about an Olympic swimming pool. So we would be talking about a reservoir made up of 40 Olympic swimming pools, and then we'd say, "Hey, that seems pretty small for a reservoir."

Maybe when wikipedia says that the reservoir is 57,910 acre-feet you have a sense of what that would look like, but I have absolutely no intuition on that, even though I know that an acre is 43 560 square feet and that there are 640 acres to a square mile.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Springs_Reservoir

[ghshephard]

I still prefer Metric, but, I have a very good sense of what an acre, 10 acres, and 640 acres are (I have family that farms, and a "section (640 acres)" is a pretty common unit of measurement.

57,910 acre feet would actually be more "intuitive" to me than 70,000 cubic meters (though much harder for me to do calculations and almost impossible to do unit shifting).

57,910 acre feet is roughly 100' deep of water on a section of land. I can "visualize" what that reservoir would would like.

Or, for more practical/relevant to irrigation purposes, it's 100 sections of land, 1' deep.

But yes, I'm still going to argue for the metric system. I promise.