> Even though the canal is fenced in, “we have instances where we have cars go into the canal — we’ll have people go into the canal, and animals go into the canal,” Allen said, describing some of the challenges they faced as an urban water district.
>“What Turlock is doing with their projects is very impressive, but we have a different-looking canal system going through our service area,” Allen said. They are looking to put their canals into pipes to avoid evaporation, instead.
Umm, if you can completely enclose it in a pipe then why in the heck couldn't you put an 8-10' tall roof over it?
Typical local government (and I worked for one): "We didn't do it that way when I got here and it sounds like a lot of work and will be a change so let's rationalize doing nothing"
roofs aren't as good at preventing evaporation as pipes, so if that is the point why roof it?
Theres a very narrow balance where canals covered in solar panels make sense.
It needs to have enough evaporation that its a problem, but not enough where it justifies piping it.
That's a very narrow market, and so unlikely to be scalable or prevalent.
Personally i don't think this makes much sense, it's not like there is no room to place solar panels, and the added costs of putting it over water makes it not as efficient. I suppose the main benefit is easy access to water for cleaning (which can then be dumped back into the canal).
>“What Turlock is doing with their projects is very impressive, but we have a different-looking canal system going through our service area,” Allen said. They are looking to put their canals into pipes to avoid evaporation, instead.
Umm, if you can completely enclose it in a pipe then why in the heck couldn't you put an 8-10' tall roof over it?
Typical local government (and I worked for one): "We didn't do it that way when I got here and it sounds like a lot of work and will be a change so let's rationalize doing nothing"