The bright lights guiding the city of Angels doesn't seem to realize that sunlight is hot:

LA 'black ball' reservoir rollout potential 'disaster' in the making, say experts

LA's scheme to cover a reservoir under 96 million "shade balls" may not be all it is touted to be, experts told FoxNews.com, with some critics going so far as to refer to the plan as a "potential disaster."

The city made national headlines last week when Mayor Eric Garcetti and Department of Water officials dumped $34.5 million worth of the tiny, black plastic balls into the city's 175-acre Van Norman Complex reservoir in the Sylmar section. Garcetti said the balls would create a surface layer that would block 300 million gallons from evaporating amid the state's crippling drought and save taxpayers $250 million.

Experts differed over the best color for the tiny plastic balls, with one telling FoxNews.com they should have been white and another saying a chrome color would be optimal. But all agreed that the worst color for the job is the one LA chose.

"Black spheres resting in the hot sun will form a thermal blanket speeding evaporation as well as providing a huge amount of new surface area for the hot water to breed bacteria," said Matt MacLeod, founder of the California biotech firm Modern Moon Farms. "Disaster. It’s going to be a bacterial nightmare.”

How much of a "bacterial nightmare"? Well, "Fear the Walking Dead", which depicts the start of a zombie outbreak in Los Angeles, premieres Sunday.

A coincidence? Stay tuned...

AND LEST YOU WONDER: Other science types explain the benefits and logic of the black balls, and vigorously dispute the warm water theory:

Black balls will heat up more than white balls would, and might even bump the temperature in the reservoir. They also might not. Sunlight heats an uncovered reservoir, not by directly heating individual water molecules, but by heating the bottom and that heat transferring to water through conduction. The warm, less-dense water on the bottom rises, and fresh, cooler, water sinks down to be heated in turn. In a covered reservoir, sunlight heats the top surface of floating balls instead. Water is still heated by conduction, but it stays at the top instead of circulating. That might slow down heat transfer. But either way, it isn’t very important.

Hmm. I have certainly been swimming on lakes with a warm layer of water extending several feet down and a noticeably cooler layer below that.

OK, DEPLORABLE YET PREDICTABLE.