In emergencies, dumping ocean water on fires may be the best option. But seawater can have long-term effects on equipment and ecosystems, as a novel coastal experiment shows.

Saltwater corrodes firefighting equipment and may harm ecosystems, especially those like the chaparral shrublands around Los Angeles that aren’t normally exposed to seawater. Gardeners know that small amounts of salt – added, say, as fertilizer – does not harm plants, but excessive salts can stress and kill plants.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    Did you read all of that?

    The cost of water from the plant will be $100 to $200 more per acre-foot than recycled water (approximately 0.045 cents per gallon), $1,000 to $1,100 more than reservoir water (approx. 0.32 cents per gallon), but $100 to $200 less than importing water from outside the county.[42] As of April 2015, San Diego County imported 90% of its water.[13] A conglomerate of California-based environmentalist groups, the Desal Response Group, claimed that the plant will cost San Diego County $108 million a year.[16]

    So yes, “we” can come up with all the fresh water “we” want, provided “we” can afford to pay for it. There are a hell of a lot more poor Angelinos (some of whom have just gotten even poorer) than there are poor people in SD and L.A. county does not import 90% of its water.

        • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
          20·
          1 year ago

          I thought you were taking the piss, but no, an acre really is one chain (66ft) by one furlong (660ft). TIL.

      • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
        16·
        1 year ago

        Most likely the amount of water that covers one acre to a depth of one foot.

      • skip0110@lemm.eeEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        I’m guessing it’s the volume of water that is the area of an acre times a foot deep.

        Freedom units. Equal to 3.2 million big gulps ;)

          • brandon@lemmy.worldEnglish
            9·
            1 year ago

            If I remember correctly, it comes from measuring volume coming to/from large bodies of water where surface area (acres) and depth changes (feet) are easier to measure and there is little reason to do unnecessary conversion to other, more common, units of volume for industry-specific purposes, especially if others outside the industry rarely see or care about such values.

            • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              10·
              1 year ago

              It’s also very common in agriculture, especially older areas that use flood irrigation, where A. Larger volumes are hard to use in any other unit, and B. you want to know water application rates per-acre on your crops, something that is very easy to find when you are applying acre feet of water over X acres.

              Yes it’s a “stupid” unit but it has it’s place.