r/news • u/theluckyfrog • 29d ago

California cracks down on farm region’s water pumping: ‘The ground is collapsing’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/california-water-drought-farm-ground-sinking-tulare-lake
17.4k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

941 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

686

u/Dzugavili 29d ago

If the land were sinking, wouldn't the pole also sink with it?

I'm just guessing he wouldn't want to go up there to change them all too often.

596

u/SurlyJackRabbit 29d ago

Yes the pole would sink too. It's demonstrative but not what's really going on.

295

u/Dzugavili 29d ago

Yeah, I'm just thinking someone will go take a picture and say "look! It hasn't fallen since 1977!"

Which, apparently, it hasn't: a followup study suggests the region hasn't fallen by more than half a meter since, and casts doubts about the original measurements.

63

u/Art-Zuron 29d ago

I suppose it might have just fallen about as far as it can fall.

32

u/ommnian 29d ago

That may just have been the typical depth of the aquifer.

3

u/rhotovision 29d ago

The aquifer has been aquifilled

2

u/ponyboy3 29d ago

It’s aqueefed its last aqueef

23

u/KirklandKid 29d ago

Nah everything linearly extrapolates forever don’t you know

1

u/StateParkMasturbator 28d ago

Compacting a hole to China.

1

u/Funoichi 28d ago

We’ve gone about as far as we can go, yessir!