Fred's Water Idea

I see the Times- Standard followed up this morning on my look at our water supply. Ruth Lake is at 55% capacity right now.

I've been thinking lately how much water ends up each morning on lawns and grass around here. Sometimes it's just sopping wet. If you could soak all that up I wonder if it might amount to a fair amount of water. But how would you collect it? It would be impossible to try an mop it up.

It struck me this morning there might be a way around that: take the water out of the air first using a huge dehumidifier. 

Back in the late 70s I bought a dehumidifier from Sears because the little shack I had in Cutten was so cold and damp. Not only did it warm up the house, it really sucked a lot of water out of the air. 

I was amazed when I first turned it on how quickly the water reservoir filled up. It held maybe three gallons and I emptied it every couple of hours it seemed, at first. As the air dried out I emptied it less and less until it would take days to fill, but that was in a relatively finite source of water- the inside of my small house.

When the Matteoli's house flooded years ago they had a carpet guy come in to help clean up. He brought three or four commercial dehumidifiers in to dry things out. The reservoirs on those held at least five gallons of water if not more. Took days, but it dried everything out. 

What if you had even bigger dehumidifiers? Something you set outside that would suck the water out of our cold, damp air around here non- stop? I wonder how much water that would amount to?

Ok. Maybe not enough to water crops or even the home garden but I bet it would be a fair amount here in northern Humboldt. Maybe even enough for the average home's use per day? I don't know, but it would be interesting to try. Problem is, it probably wouldn't work at all in the drier places like Sacramento or Sonoma County that really need the water.