#overpumping

[makingcontact]

East Orosi's Long Struggle for Water Part 2: The Role of Community Utility Districts

A person holding a “Justicia para East Orosi” sign. Credit: Sandra Tsang In Part 1 of our series on water in the Central Valley of California we visited a town called East Orosi, which has been fighting for clean water for over 20 years. This week we turn our attention to their sewage system, which is also falling apart. Why has it been so difficult for East Orosi to get clean drinking water and…

[robotslenderman]

Car has been making weird noises and vibrations while driving ever since my parents bought a new set of tyres. Asked them to take it for a drive to see what they think. Their conclusion is that the old tyres didn't have as much air in them as they should so I can feel the road surface more in the current ones, and the corners where I'd felt the vibrations the most had worse road quality. Given I've been having to drive an hour to work lately I am VERY relieved to hear that.

[hymns-across-the-stars]

// I LIVE I AM HERE

// tfw when I miss killing the ultras bc I was card gaming

[haikyu-mp4]

Shared suffering – Sakusa x reader wc 785 – gn!reader requested by @kawaii-angelanne for A blast from the past, now hiring! edition<3

The only salvation from working in that horrible cafe was Sakusa and the paycheck. The boss always left you two to do way more work than you got paid for, and if there was ever a quarrel with a customer, said boss blamed the workers.

Therefore, you hesitated to argue with this customer, who insisted their drink had not been made as ordered. The woman’s nose was scrunched in displeasure, and your eyes zoned in on the wrinkles to avoid the anger in her eyes. “Please excuse me, but I don’t think I understand the issue.”

“My drink,” she started, one hand holding out the cup and the other pointing at it for unnecessary emphasis. “Tastes like five pumps of caramel, not three.”

You hummed in pretend sympathy, nodding despite the voice screaming in your head that this might be the stupidest complaint you've ever had. “That’s not good. Allow me to fetch the barista who made it. I’m sure this is just a misunderstanding.”

Not letting her answer, you turned around to rush and find Sakusa, who mostly stuck to the parts of the job that didn’t involve communicating with anyone other than you. Finding him on his way from the back room to fetch more napkins, you roughly pulled the napkins from him and placed them on the counter before grabbing his wrist to pull him with you.

He complained under his breath, very confused as to why you lined him up in front of an angry customer until he recognised the order written on her cup. “Hello,” he muttered grumpily.

“Sakusa,” you asked, making him turn his head to you. “How many pumps of caramel did you put in her drink?”

“Three.”

The woman scoffed. “I refuse to believe that. It tastes like five.”

“It’s three.”

You restrained your smile by pursing your lips, then patted Sakusa on the shoulder. “I’ll get the register if you handle this, thanks.”

Sakusa grumbled, knowing it was necessary to handle this dispute before it escalated to the boss. If she complained too much, it might serve him better to just make her a new drink on the house, which would probably be taken from his paycheck. However, this day had been long. When he woke up, Komori told him they had a family dinner next weekend. For breakfast, he had run out of avocados without realising. That morning, the sun made him sweat through his uniform before he even got to work. When he arrived at the cafe, the boss had left a note that he had to get something from the crusty, musty basement. And now, a customer was serving him the most ridiculous complaint ever.

So, forgive him if his patience was wearing a little thin. Never mind how this woman’s voice was forcibly scratching into his ears like a fork on a plate.

Sakusa and the customer argued back and forth about what five pumps of caramel might taste like until the customer finally had enough. Luckily for Sakusa, she didn’t think of asking for the boss. Not so luckily, she poured her drink onto the floor instead.

His hands furled at his sides, and his eye twitched. Sakusa drew a long breath, finally breaking. “I just finished cleaning the floor an hour ago!” he practically yelled at the woman, making her eyes widen in shock.

Watching it unfolding from the register, you held up both hands over your mouth to mute the surprised, and honestly elated, gasp. Sure, Sakusa might have been this annoyed before, but never this loud.

The woman finally gave up, saying she would like to buy a new drink and asking if she could watch it be made to make sure he didn’t overpump. With gritted teeth, he turned to you with a look that said you better take this one.

“I’ll get that going for you while he cleans up.”

Had your boss not been such an idiot, you would have told this woman never to return. Instead, you made her new drink while glancing at Sakusa every few minutes as he angrily cleaned the floor again. At least this had the woman leaving within the next five minutes, and you could both lower your shoulders. 

“Thank you?” you said as the two of you left the cafe after closing, your voice a bit unsure whether or not this was something to thank him for when it had gone so horribly. “For kind of handling her.”

Sakusa grumbled in acknowledgement, but nodded nonetheless. “I hate this job.”

“Me too.”

And like routine, the two of you felt at peace with hating your shared job as long as the other one was there to suffer with you.

masterlist

/thank you @cottonlemonade for brainstorming with me and suggesting the customer complains about a ridiculous order<3

[ultrakill-confessions]

i like going major assist with no damage and using overpump to just kamikaze some poor fucking maurice

-

[rosesvineyard]

me when the WHEN THE WHEN THE NOKARU WHEN NOKARU

me when nokaru... me when nokaru..... me when...... when.. when nokaru.. @nokaru

[aimuscle]

Overpumped?

[mariacallous]

A new UC Riverside study on California agriculture and climate proposes a plan for new water capture, storage, and distribution systems throughout California that will sustain agriculture and keep up with climate trajectories.

Available water for consumption is disappearing because of climate change and failing storage systems, leaving one of its top consumers—the agricultural industry—scrambling, the study concludes.

California’s agriculture sector uses about 40 percent of all the state’s water, or 80 percent of its consumed water. With less water available, agriculture must adjust. The study provides a pathway for the sector to do so.

The study, published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that groundwater aquifers have more storage potential than surface water reservoirs. So, instead of devoting decades to build more dams and reservoirs that are subject to evaporation and overflow, water should be diverted into these depleted aquifers below the Central Valley and the coastal plains.

Over the past 40 years, aquifers have been overpumped, meaning more water has been taken out than put back in. When aquifers become too depleted, the land can subside. “In some parts of the Central Valley, it’s been sinking a foot or two a year,” said Kurt Schwabe, a public policy professor at UC Riverside and coauthor of the study. Land subsidence can cause infrastructure like buildings and highways to crack and degrade. It also harms the aquifer’s capacity to hold water and the health of the surrounding ecosystems.

Not only can replenishing groundwater aquifers limit these negative environmental impacts, but it can also bolster a water “savings account” during times of drought. When California lacks surface water, water usage shifts to groundwater stores.

But the big problem isn’t simply a quantity issue: “When I moved to California over 20 years ago, someone told me, ‘Don’t let people tell you there isn’t a lot of water in California, because there is. The problem is that it’s just managed really poorly,” said Schwabe.

The drought-plagued state was just drenched by two wet seasons and atmospheric rivers, but its infrastructure failed to adequately store that excess water.

Think of it like a leaky roof. In the past, you could have stored rainwater seeping through your roof in a gallon bucket for five separate rain events. Now, you would need a 5-gallon bucket for just one rain event.

Although the amount of precipitation hasn’t changed much compared to historical rates, “climate change has typically reduced the number of rainfall events but has made them much more intense,” said Schwabe.

Additionally, the climate crisis has led to high temperatures that evaporate surface waters before they can replenish and prevent rainfall from accumulating as snowpack, which has traditionally refilled reservoirs throughout the spring.

Like the gallon bucket, California’s storage facilities are too small. That, together with slow landscape absorption, is leading to flash floods and potentially useful water flowing back to the ocean.

For example, two winters’ worth of snow followed by intense heat created a flood risk in 2023. State officials decided to release water from Lake Oroville and other reservoirs across Southern California and the Central Valley. Although this helped prevent flooding and sent water downstream, many Californians were upset that the fresh water was being wasted. In attempts to reduce overflow releases, water agencies and irrigation districts made recharge basins to capture precipitation. But it wasn’t enough. Constant overpumping and a changing climate leave aquifers depleted to this day.

Their natural recharge process—precipitation accumulating as surface water that percolates through the soil to recharge groundwater aquifers—can also be disrupted by urbanization or impervious covers like pavement, said Bruk Berhanu, a senior researcher in water efficiency and reuse at the Pacific Institute.

The study suggests more managed aquifer recharge (MAR) infrastructure is needed to adequately catch large amounts of water in short time periods and avoid similar water-loss situations.

MAR is an intentional method of recharging aquifers, especially those at low levels. Already commonly implemented in California, MAR infrastructure includes conveyance structures that redistribute water to dehydrated locations, and injection—spraying water on land or, the more costly option, directly infusing water in wells.

Yet, to ensure an effective recharge of the aquifers, more monitoring and measurement is required. “Through 2014, growers were not required to monitor or report any withdrawals or injections to aquifers,” said Schwabe.

Regardless, California has more monitoring practices than other states mainly because water availability is not as big a concern elsewhere, said Berhanu. Monitoring standards vary by state and region. Regulations for urban areas differ from agricultural or industrial areas. Based on Berhanu’s work assessing the country’s volumetric potential for water use efficiency at the municipal level, he found that “there is no federal regulatory framework for monitoring or reporting. In a lot of cases, water supplies aren’t even metered.”

Even in areas that did have regulations, the reports were often infrequent or incomplete; the UC Riverside researchers are working on expanding the few accurate monitoring systems put in place in Southern California by proactive growers.

Additionally, the study proposes voluntary water markets where farmers with a surplus of water can trade it to another farmer in need. It’s a win-win process: The selling farmer makes extra profit and the other gets much-needed water. “With prices based on scarcity plus delivery costs, such a marketplace would have incentives for storage and efficient use,” Schwabe said in a press release.

Berhanu added that water-trading markets can work in some areas but not in others. “It needs a very strong governance framework to make sure all of the players are playing according to the rules.” The process will need to have improved monitoring practices, transparent data, and clear external costs, he said. “The more decentralized you get with how these transactions are being made, it becomes very difficult to coordinate the overall watershed-scale system benefits.”

The study also mentions the value of reusing wastewater. Historically, wastewater has been treated to an environmental safety standard then released into the ocean or groundwater system. Over time, natural processes will clean it. Instead of waiting for the environment to purify it, water treatment facilities can repurpose the wastewater for irrigation, commercial use, or recharging purposes.

As of 2023, water treatment plants can purify wastewater so well that people can drink it. “At some point, the water that we use will become someone else’s water for drinking or irrigation,” said Berhanu. Whether wastewater is for drinking or recharging aquifers, California plants are expanding their operations to include recycling methods so they can produce a sufficient supply.

“The overall volume of water in the world doesn’t really change. We need to shift our thinking from looking at how much water is available at one point of time to trying to better integrate our practices with the entire water cycle,” said Berhanu.

The study goes on to mention numerous efficiency-based and management solutions, like sustainable farming practices, land repurposing, and desalination to help the agriculture industry adjust.

“Now is the time to think about possibilities and opportunities for collaboration across agriculture, municipalities, and the environment to invest in smart investments that capture more water and put it in the ground,” said Schwabe.

[lyss-butterscotch]

Silly thing i wanna see

[seventyeight-moose]

Getting all the Secrets and Challenges in ULTRAKILL is going well. Blew myself up with an overpumped red variant shotgun. Had to Lock In and hit this.

[scientia-rex]

I spent 15 hours traveling today to reach a 5 star resort where I spent a solid 25 minutes attempting to find a vending machine so I could get water that didn’t taste like overpumped aquifers including asking a security guard and a front desk clerk who looked very worried about me and when I did find it, the machine would not vend any of the water. I tried every version. The bottles were too big for the little grabby things. So I bought two cans of sparkling water, which I don’t like much, and made it back to my hotel room to find that the bathroom doesn’t have a fan and also I could have gotten water one floor down.

I laughed, I cried. I feel like I’ve lost my mind. I’ve had a migraine for the last 8 hours that none of my meds have fixed. I forgot my Toradol and my Tylenol.

Tomorrow we get up early for Fun Couple Activity my husband planned. I wish he had asked me. I would have said, maybe early morning isn’t great? The day after we fly 3,000 miles, give or take? After driving a hundred miles to the nearest airport? When we got up at 5:45 this morning and now my body is saying it’s 10pm?

But I know, once I sleep, I will feel calmer about this. I may be able to accept my fate. I spent HOW MUCH MONEY for a FIVE STAR RESORT WITH A TV THAT SAYS WE CAN STREAM BUT WON’T LET US AND HAS TWO GIANT ROWS OF DEAD PIXELS? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

[rjzimmerman]

Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation? (New York Times)

Coast to coast, our food producing regions, especially those stretching from the southern Great Plains across the sunny, dry Southwest, rely heavily and sometimes exclusively on groundwater for irrigation. And it’s disappearing — fast.

What happens to the nation’s food production if the groundwater runs out altogether? Unless we act now, we could soon reach a point where water must be piped from the wetter parts of the country, such as the Great Lakes, to drier, sunnier regions where the bulk of the nation’s food is produced. No one wants unsightly pipelines snaking across the country, draining Lake Michigan to feed the citrus groves of the Central Valley. But that future is drawing closer by the day, and at some point, we may look back on this moment and wish we’d acted differently.

For over a century, America’s farmers have overpumped groundwater, and now, as the world warms and the Southwest becomes drier, the situation is only growing more dire. Rivers are slowing to a trickle, water tables are falling, land is sinking, and wells are drying up. Each year, roughly 25,000 more farmers fallow their fields, putting both food and water security in the United States at risk.

States are aware there is a problem — many are trying to sustainably manage their groundwater. But it’s not clear how successful these efforts have been. My research team has found that groundwater depletion is accelerating in the Central Valley, in spite of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. In Arizona, groundwater is only managed in less than 20 percent of the state, leaving a free-for-all in the state’s unmanaged areas.

The United States has no plan for the disruptions that will befall our food systems as critical water supplies dwindle, causing the price of some foods to skyrocket and bringing us closer to the time when we may have to consider pipelines to replenish or replace depleted groundwater.

 Americans, particularly those living in places like the Great Lakes region, have already shown that they have little stomach for infrastructure projects that would move their local water to remote locations, even if it is to produce the food they eat every day.

It’s not just the political climate that makes tapping water resources in the East such an undesirable prospect. We’ve built systems of canals to move water around California and the Colorado River basin, but constructing a transcontinental pipeline or river diversion, at the scale required to sustain U.S. agriculture, would be staggeringly more complex, expensive and environmentally disruptive.

They would require significant landscape changes and human displacement. And because water is so heavy, it is extremely expensive to transport. Building the necessary conveyances would require decades of planning, have major environmental consequences and cost taxpayers astronomical sums — easily tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, and far more when you take the human and environmental costs into account.

[helpmegrowlong]

Since using the bath mate and pump have you had any issues with reaching erection without it? I’m literally just starting with my PE journey and want to do this right without having to rely on ED meds, Hims, or Blue Chew down the line.

Ive had no issues! Just be careful and don't overpump if it's something your worry about and then you should be fine!

[ultrakill-confessions]

tet anon again, i like the idea that there are special style bonuses that can only be achieved if you're fighting alongside someone. this is about Tundra and Agony specifically. my only idea for now +TRUST FALL, where one falls, the other Overpumps their Pump Charge and blows them both up. if the first is launched into an enemy and able to kill it in a certain window of time (or able to ground-slam into something, i think that'd be cool) you get the style. thing. i do Not think it'd be used ever for any other machine, but Tundra and Agony can repair each other unless both are dead, so it's ok.

i also think parrying the other's shotgun bullets into a different enemy would be interesting? projectile boost but two. don't have a name for that one.

vague idea for one called +AVENGED and it's just. killing the enemy that put one or the other in a state that would've killed them, had not for Tundra and Agony's gimmick... thing

idk, the Vs would be able to see these if they weren't too busy being the coke to the other's mentos (/aff)

-

[pitty-aegis-parlor]

Drops…a comical pile of rubber hammers on V1 since nothing says that can’t be done.

Bad robot. Bad. You are violating a lot of things right now and your thirst for blood is not an excuse for it. You’ve treaded waters you have no idea how dangerous they are. If Master Hand and Crazy Hand have to intervene, you’ll learn that even the worst of Hell’s offerings are nothing to the Hands.

……Sounds fun.

Is everything to you a way to get your fix in mindless bloodshed and violence?

Of course, it is what I was designed for, and I fulfill my existence that way. I tire of your speech.

*Before Palutena could object, V1 throws several coins in the air and starts charging their piercer revolver. Palutena similar fires a laser blast… but not at V1, but at their coins.*

*The two blasts of energy ricochet off the coins and Impact eachother, causing a large explosion. As the goddess is momentarily blinded, she could just barely see a large electric cannon about to fire, and deflects it with a barrier back at the machine, pulverizing their shooting arm.*

Very well-experienced, seems you’re heard well about me?

*Palutena says nothing as she casts down pillars of light at V1 who weaves, dashes, and jumps around them. Palutena knew full well that firing direct blasts from her staff at V1 would just have them feedback it back at her.*

*As V1 gets to melee range, they switch to their knuckleblaster, which Palutena teleports away from. As she prepares to shoot a barage of fireballs at them, they switch to the whiplash arm, firing a hook on her left arm that drags her towards them. She barely has enough time to soften the blow of V1’s Feedbacker, which causes her to cough up blood… blood that would splatter onto V1’s plating, being absorbed and healing it’s shooting arm.*

Not skilled enough.

*V1 switches to a shotgun, punching the globules of heat at Palutena, which explode on impact and melt down the floor, that or flying in the air like a firework of plasma. Switching to their rocket launcher, V1 rides on the rocket and then then switch to the shotgun again, firing the highly explosive core of it at the goddess.*

*Before V1 could switch to the Malicious railcannon and obliterate her and the top of the building with a core nuke, they get nearly hit by flashes of light from the sky… not from Palutena but to a different individual. Back onto the platform, V1 has little chance to regain their composure as Palutena rushes in, ready to beat down the machine with her bare hands if she has to.*

Unlike with you, I have actual allie’s to depend on! You are outnumbered machine!

*As Palutena says this, two Artifice Colossi fall by her side, clearly a form of assistance from Mythra. Although the two didn’t get along well, Palutena was no doubt very glad that the Aegis was supporting her.*

*Seeing these new machines, V1 jumps out of the way of their punches, stomps, and blasts of lasers, utilizing the Screwdriver to whittle one of the colossi down and then unloading a barrage of nails from their overheat Nailgun on the other. As the first colossi tries to punch V1 before they could be destroyed by the drill, V1 feedbacks them, causing their entire right side to explode. The small machine then finished the second colos sit with a boulder from the S.R.S. Cannon.*

Pitiful… barely worth a fight.

Maybe, but atleast they drew your attention long enough for me to do what I have to do.

*V1 realizes the gravity of their situation, as the trophies they had collected of the fighters have been taken by Palutena, removing any chance of a hostage situation for the machine to take advantage of. They were ENRAGED.*

GIVE THEM BACK.

*V1 charges at the goddess, switching to the pump charge shotgun as they prepare to blow her up. V1 fires as the shotgun overpumps, causing a large, deadly explosion that they dodge through a slide… and that Palutena protects herself from with a barrier.*

*V1 switcher to the marksman revolver one last time, throwing two coins behind Palutena and two in front of them. As V1 switches to the electric railcannon and proceeds to fire, Palutena just about managed to teleport the coins in front of the railcannon… and right behind V1.*

OH SHI-

*To say V1 was in a bad situation was an understatement, as the machine screeches in fear and pain from several powerful blasts of the railcannon ripping them apart. Once it was over, V1 had lost function of both of it’s legs, it’s main shooting arm, it’s lens that allowed it to see, and most of it’s plating was charred and melted. Blood was pooling around them.*

Never thought I’d say this… but I’m very glad Mythra was on my side.

*Palutena thought she could hear a faint “Your welcome!” From the Aegis far below on ground floor, as she carefully picked up the machine, which was still alive, albeit weak. She, along with them and the trophies of her two sons, Mario and Edgeworth, go back to the elevator.*