This glass of water

On the table beside me sits a glass of water. I got it out of the tap. It has some air bubbles in it, not nearly as much as the faucet in our apartment in Boston, but tastes a good deal more mineral. The city of Santa Monica used to pump its water from the aquifer beneath the Los Angeles basin, but MBTE dumped in the 80s and 90s rose in such concentrations in the ground water as to make it unsafe to drink by 1996. Now Santa Monica's water comes from the Metropolitan Water District, which supplies most of the water to Southern California.

It's not exactly clear where this particular glass comes from. The two most likely sources each start off hundreds of miles away. The older of the two systems draws water out of the Colorado River at Lake Mead, the enormous artificial lake in Nevada produced by the Hoover Dam. From there, and using the hydroelectric power of that dam, it is pumped up and out of one aquifer, across Nevada and California, across deserts and farmland (the latter only a hundred years ago simply more of the former), and into a series of smaller reservoirs maintained by Los Angeles' various water agencies. More likely even than Colorado River water is water from the Feather River. Starting from the Oroville Dam, 70 miles north of Sacramento, my glass of water on the side table ran down one river and backwards up another river bed, reaching sea level around San Francisco Bay but kept separate from those brackish waters. It is pumped across hundreds of miles of deserts and farmland (see previously parenthetical note) and over entire mountain chains. Most of the water goes into agriculture, but about 20% remains in the system by the time it gets to the San Fernando Valley and enters the Metropolitan Water District for use by city dwellers, like me. This massive movement of water does not enjoy the same hydroelectric energy source and moving water around California consumes 10-15% of all energy used by the state, primarily in the form of burning coal.

Today's run destination: Virginia Ave. Park

Today's menu:
breakfast: donut and milk tea
lunch: sesame noodles
dinner: pork baked ziti and greens salad