As Drought Worsens, California Orders Record Water Cuts 599
New submitter GordonShure.com writes: The State of California has made an unprecedented move by uniformly restricting water supplies across the entire state as demand outstrips supply. Farms are most affected, though food prices aren't anticipated to rise in any hurry: imports from out of state continue apace. Notably, this is a problem Silicon Valley hasn't much helped to solve.
Will this move induce meaningful modernization upon the infrastructure supporting the state's thirty-eight million residents? Or will things continue to be corn, corn, corn for the time being?
Will this move induce meaningful modernization upon the infrastructure supporting the state's thirty-eight million residents? Or will things continue to be corn, corn, corn for the time being?
$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of spending $68 Billion on a single high speed rail line between 2 cities that are already linked by several adequate transportation options, maybe we should use a fraction of that money for water projects? Moving water to where people live is a simple engineering problem. Why not solve it instead of being a victim of the weather?
Re:Or hey, maybe we need (Score:3)
to discuss sensible zoning restrictions. Constant population growth in under-resourced areas make a handful of very wealth people even more wealthy, but it's madness to allow it to continue at the expense of the local environment. Just say no to the developers. We have exceeded the carrying capacity of local water supplies. Also...stop farming in the desert.
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It's not "madness". It's progress. It's relatively simple to transport water to people. We just have to decide to do it instead of second guessing every choice everyone ever made about where they live and work.
Re:Or hey, maybe we need (Score:4, Interesting)
Sure. But only as long as you make those people who chose to live in water-deprived areas pay every god damned cent of the cost of your infrastructure boondoggles, including compensation for external costs such as environmental damage to areas other people live.
If we were to actually do that, I bet many of those people would choose to move out of CA real quick.
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Sounds like you'd rather punish people than help them (or even allow them) to live better lives. Why?
Re:Or hey, maybe we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not?
Because in the real world, it's NOT simple to move water around at all. Moving water around has involved some of the most expensive undertakings this country has ever attempted, and has been responsible for massive environmental damage and the disruption of the livelihoods of countless people.
Moreover, the water has to come from somewhere. If you hadn't noticed, the entire western US has almost no extra water. Precipitation is simply not refilling the original sources of Western water supplies. Maybe you think it's cheap and easy to pipe it over the continental divide, after somehow wresting water rights from people in the East. If so, you're an ignoramus.
And desalinization is totally unrealistic to address anything but urban water use, which is a drop in the bucket.
I don't know why you're surprised by "weird nastiness" over water rights. Civilizations all over the world have been highly protective of their water rights for millennia, and many wars have been fought over water. Fresh water is probably the single most important resource on the planet, and nobody is going to give up their water without a fight, even if they're not using all of it at this exact moment. There is simply not going to be any Kumbaya solution to these issues.
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CA subsidizes your food ... (Score:4, Insightful)
CA should pay for its own water projects. There's no need for anyone else to pay for them.
OK. Then CA can stop selling water below market value to agriculture. Agriculture that consumes 80% of CA's water. Agriculture that supplies over half of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US. In short, your groceries are subsidized by CA.
With 80% of water going to the agriculture that feeds you supplying some of the water is not exactly unjust.
That said, CA agriculture could use a lot of reform and modernization.
Re:Or hey, maybe we need (Score:5, Interesting)
It really is relatively simple to transport water from place to place. There's no reason for people to get upset about it. Why not just solve the problem? Really, why not?
I will assume you are in earnest and bite. You are correct that moving water from point A to point B is, while expensive, not generally a difficult issue from an engineering perspective. The problem is that this is not an engineering problem.
Fresh water is a finite resource (and getting even more finite in many areas of the US as El Nino ramps up). Pumping water from the Columbia River - hell, from the Yukon River - to California is expensive but not hard from an engineer's viewpoint. However, every gallon you drain from the Columbia is a gallon that potentially a farmer in the Columbia Basin in Washington (which leads the US in production of apples, sweet cherries, grapes, pears and hops) does not have access to anymore.
Leaving aside the farmers, many rivers in the Northwest connected to the Columbia watershed have significant salmon populations which depend on navigable waterways - as do the Native American and commercial fishermen who support themselves by fishing for salmon, steelhead and other fish that migrate upriver to spawn. Oh, and reduced flow from the Columbia would reduce the region's hydroelectric power generation and require more fossil fuel-burning electrical sources (plus making those Google, Facebook and Apple data centers in Oregon money-losers). And pretty much every other river system in the US has people, animals and industries that depend on their water flow as well. No amount of money from California or anywhere else is going to make all these issues go away.
So, yes, while we Seattleites complain about all the rain, it doesn't mean that yanking water away from us to ship to California doesn't have consequences. And in any situation where the solution requires one broad group of interested parties (e.g. California farmers, Californians who like to take showers) to benefit at the expense of another (Native American salmon fishermen, people who like apples), politics and negotiation are the only ways to resolve the question... not technology.
The use of technologies to try to solve the problem in a way that doesn't mean taking fresh water away from someone else are similarly political because they are so frickin' expensive. Desalinization uses ludicrous amounts of power (usually generated in ways that produce carbon pollution) to generate comparatively small amounts of fresh water. And someone needs to pick up the check, which isn't any less contentious a question here than it is at a post-work happy hour with a bunch of cheapskate co-workers.
So anyway, I applaud your earnestness (if that's what it is) in asking the question why we can't solve this issue. The answer just happens to be that someone has to give for someone else to get, and sorting that out is a problem technology can't solve.
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An interesting novel [amazon.com] that touches on this subject.
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Desalinization costs around $2000 per acre-foot. Beef production uses around 1800 gallons per pound. Feeding cows from California-grown crops would therefore tack more than $11 per pound onto the price of beef. Almonds use a similar amount of water per pound as beef, so would face a similar markup.
Rice needs 300 gal/pound, which would add $1.84 per pound to its price. Maybe Israelis pay these kinds of prices for their food. However, that's simply not realistic for this country. We'd shift to imports or food
Re:$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:5, Interesting)
Any water we brought in would effectively be for farm irrigation, I doubt the farmers are willing to pay the cost for such a project.
Re:$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:4, Informative)
veganstart.org
Oh yeah, that looks like a nice unbiased source. For example, it omits to mention that 2/3rds of the water that goes into animal feed is "green water", i.e. rain and other renewable sources. In other words, animal-based foods require large amounts of water, but it's mostly renewable water. In order to say that getting rid of lifestock would actually help the problem, you'd need to look at how much water would be required for foods to replace meat and dairy entirely, and where that water would need to come from (it doesn't help the problem if you replace lifestock with plants if those plants end up requiring more water from aquifers than the lifestock does).
BTW here's the full report [pacinst.org] (PDF warning) on water usage in California if anyone is interested in more numbers.
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In order to say that getting rid of lifestock would actually help the problem, you'd need to look at how much water would be required for foods to replace meat and dairy entirely, and where that water would need to come from (it doesn't help the problem if you replace lifestock with plants if those plants end up requiring more water from aquifers than the lifestock does).
In what world is meat begin fed a vegan free diet? On Earth, cows drink water, but they also eat plants. There is no way in which it is more efficient to feed a corn to a cow to grow meat that people can eat later. It is better to feed the corn to the people directly. Most animal feed in the US is corn based, so don't bring up red herrings about free range grass eating cow. Also, you do not need to COMPLETELY replace meat 100%, so skip that red herring too.
Please insert next red herring to continue...
Re:$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:5, Insightful)
There are already many charts showing how inefficiently livestock convert resources...per calorie, per calorie of protein, or nearly any other metric, we're much more efficient eating plants ourselves. (And the fact is: we can live without meat, but can't live without plants.)
Finally, just because it's a vegan website doesn't invalidate the resources it links to. The resources are all there, just go through it yourself. (And try not to cherry-pick items that make a thin defence for your case.)
CA produces over half of US fruits and vegetables (Score:3)
There's no need to move water save for a few exceptional cases in rural areas where local farming has completely depleted the water table. The answer is much simpler: stop farming. It's 2% of CA's economy or around $40 billion. If we cut out the thirstiest plants first we can save tons of water without sacrificing much of the economic benefits.
Stop farming? That is an absolutely clueless position for two reasons:
(1) CA produces over half of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US.
(2) The CA central valley has the exact same problem as the areas where you thinking water should be moved into. The central valley is *not* a desert. Like those rural areas you mention it is incredibly fertile land with insufficient surface water. Plus the CA central valley has a climate that allows for year round production. Other parts of the US mine aquifer
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Because there isn't any water to move - California long ago outstripped it's natural supplies and has also already taken all the water they can from adjacent areas.
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Yes, there's water to move.
Re:$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is the problem. People want a solution that will not raise the cost of water so they can continue to waste it. We cannot continue to treat water as an infinite resource that can be sold at cost assuming a near zero cost of production(actual cost is a few dollars per thousand gallons). Yes, we should have low cost for the first maybe 1000 gallons a household uses per month, but after that costs should be set by the market.
It is amazing how quickly even the most ardent conservatives becomes a socialist when they asked to pay for water. How the though of losing green lawns and swimming pools makes then forsake their Ayn Rand philosophy. The thing is that tier prices would provide the funds to exactly what so many conservatives want. it would provide funds to acquire additional water rights and build additional infrastructure. As a bonus these things would be paid for directly by those who benefit from them, not the general taxpayer many of whom probably are responsible water users.
Here is another thing that would make conservatives happy. There is water available but it is often being wasted on two profit crops, like Alfalfa hay. As mentioned, tared prices would free up funds to buy water rights. Paying farmer a dollar per thousand gallons of water would mean they would probably make more money than growing and selling the alfalfa.
Instead the socialists are winning because low water rates is forcing states like California to take that water away from farmers, thus threatening their livelihoods. I don't know why applying the solution that Cuba used to solve it's problem is preferable to good old capitalism.
Water for people (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, whatever you want to call it. Sure. Bringing water to thirsty people is only good if you value people. If you don't value people, then it's understandable why you'd oppose helping them by making sure they have enough water.
Re:Water for people (Score:4, Insightful)
And if you value thirsty fracking operations.
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
But what if we value the next generation and the one after that?
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If we value the next generation, let's get water to where people use it so the next generation has water.
Re:Water for people (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Water for people (Score:5, Informative)
Because of its climate, warmth, and near-year-round sunlight, CA grows 99% of all US almonds. It also grows 99% of US walnuts. 95% of US broccoli, 92% of US strawberries, 91% of US grapes, 90% of US tomatoes. 74% of all US lettuce. And it's one of the major reasons we have such things year round.
So. Given the above, it's sorta, kinda, maybe in the best interests of everyone involved (not just Californians) to figure out how to get water to one of the places best suited to using it.
Re:Water for people (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe we start to realize that we are paying below market for said almonds, walnuts, broccoli, etc. Maybe we realize that we need to price these things (and other stuff like petroleum products but that's another rant) at replacement value.
So our kids can have almonds, walnuts, broccoli, etc.
Re:Water for people (Score:4, Insightful)
there is little reason to ship all that produce all over the country and world when many many smaller plots would be more ecologically safe.
Except for the small, inconvenient fact that much of the country doesn't have the climate to support growing stuff year-round, leaving vast swaths of the country without produce for much of the year.
Re:Water for people (Score:5, Insightful)
there is little reason to ship all that produce all over the country and world when many many smaller plots would be more ecologically safe.
Except for the small, inconvenient fact that much of the country doesn't have the climate to support growing stuff year-round, leaving vast swaths of the country without produce for much of the year.
So, ya know, you actually grow "winter crops," i.e., things that either store well or which can be left in the soil and dug up later.
A few years back, when I was living somewhere in the northeast U.S., I bought a share in a local farm. ALL of the produce was grown exclusively on that farm. Every week, I'd go pick up my fresh produce from that farm. In the summer, there were fun things like berries. In the fall, there was more than I knew what to do with, so I canned and fermented and froze things. And when it was winter, I got plenty of potatoes and squash and such to roast on cold winter nights, because those stored well.
Believe it or not, people managed to survive in colder climates before they could truck in fresh fruit year-round from California. And actually, if they planned well, they could eat rather well with a variety of food. The stuff that didn't store well? Well, that's why they invented fermentation. And canning. And freezing.
Personally, I like that lifestyle. You learn more about cooking when you have to cook what's available, rather than just going to the grocery store in January and getting fresh blueberries shipped in from South America that taste like sawdust. I'd prefer having my fresh blueberries picked off the bushes down the road for the month or so they actually grow -- when they actually taste fresh and sweet.
Frankly, I think food is more meaningful that way -- tied into natural cycles, which make you appreciate certain foods more when they are plentiful and available.
I understand that not everyone wants that. But it's actually very possible to have food available to eat year-round from local sources in most parts of the U.S.... well, except in deserts like California, where you have to ship in water for anyone to grow enough to survive.
Re:Water for people (Score:5, Insightful)
I got no problem if people want to live there.
I DONT WANT TO PAY FOR THEM TO
If I make a smart decision to live somewhere where the weather is nice and i have plenty of water, I dont want you people in california coming over and taking it from me. If you thought ahead you wouldnt be begging me for water now would you
so TL;DR - right back at ya
CA water is feeding you ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Residential use of water in CA accounts for 10%, industry another 10%, agriculture the remaining 80%.
Over half of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US come from CA.
Re:CA water is feeding you ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Central Valley and other broad expanses in Ca. used to be bottoms of seafloors. This means it is *outstanding* land for farming, and a valuable national resource. One of the reasons that Ca. is the 8th largest economy in the world.
Cheap water is indeed subsidizing low food prices for the world. That will be changing, of course. I don't expect that we will be "coming over and taking it from" you, we will be paying market prices. At some point people with excess water will be happy to sell it to Ca.
Hopefully it won't happen so quickly as to cripple the 8th largest economy in the world. That might not be good for anybody.
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Having read a little bit of history, it appears that for most of human's existence on Earth, a ready supply of fresh water is generally very high on the list of variables that drive peoples' decision on where to live.
For various definitions of "supply", yes. I hold it as self-evident that Los Angeles (as a particularly egregious example) had a ready supply of fresh water available, or it would never have grown to the size that it is today. You may not like the means by which that supply was secured or delivered, but there's no question that the city had water.
It doesn't require a government to tell people in parts of California that the game is up for those locations.
Unlikely at best. Prima facie bullshit at worst. Los Angeles isn't going to suddenly disappear back into nothingness. There's far too much at stake to let somethin
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People live where they live, not where "it makes sense" to you that they should live.
Re:Water for people (Score:4, Insightful)
There's plenty of water that belongs to no one. Ocean water can be desalinated if there are no better options -- though I'm sure there are better options.
Rather than fighting over a severely limited amount of water, we can choose to build the infrastructure to get more water to people. But you'd actually have to value people having plentiful water rather than valuing the opportunity to gain power by leading divided factions of people to fight each other over limited water.
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This was raised before on Slashdot, and the response was that desalination would not come close to meeting the water demands of California. Do the math and come back to us - I'm curious but the devil's in the details.
Here is the thing though, desalination could at least alleviate the need for massive restrictions on what goes into municipal water supply pipes.
It isn't enough to allow for fewer restrictions on the agricultural side of course, however rejecting all fixes because they don't fix everything at once is stupid.
There are plenty of power technologies that could be deployed on the coast that could produce the energy for desalination, you know, the same ones every anonymous whanker on Slashdot trashes because
Re:Water for people (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that the other people like having water.
Are you going to steal their water if they won't give it willingly?
California is on the coast. There is more than enough water in the ocean to go around. The article about silicon valley nailed it.
Even with the huge drought in California, water has no perceived value. This is one place where the government needs to
probably step in. It needs to build a bunch of desalination plants. Desalination plants are relatively cheap, the only problem is
that they are a huge risk to investors because if it does rain then they become worthless. Instead of waiting until it becomes
more desperate, they need to stop hoping it will rain and just build the stupid things. Build them on barges if you want, that
way you can sell them if it does rain but even if it does rain, you are so backlogged that you can still probably use the desalination
plants.
Re:Water for people (Score:5, Interesting)
This is one place where the government needs to probably step in. It needs to build a bunch of desalination plants.
That is insane. Desalination produces water for hundreds of times the cost that farmers are charged for the water they squander. The we would need to use far more electricity to pump the water uphill and a hundred miles inland, to where the demand is (Central Valley farms). All we need to do is end the subsidies, and let the market set the price for water to incentivize conservation. The biggest single use of water in California is irrigation of alfalfa, used as fodder for beef cattle. We can buy beef from elsewhere, which will be way cheaper than a big government program to build desalination plants.
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So don't use water produced by desalination for farming?
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Do you think there's a limit to the idea that you can "solve" problems by taking resources away from people who aren't like you and using them for yourself?
Why isn't building more infrastructure so everyone can have more of what they need a better and more enlightened course of action?
Re:Water for people (Score:5, Insightful)
Why isn't building more infrastructure so everyone can have more of what they need a better and more enlightened course of action?
Look, the cost of the electricity to desalinate water is worth FAR more than the cost of the crops that a farmer could grow with it. So instead spending X dollars burning coal to generate electricity to desalinate water, when not just give far LESS than X dollars to the farmer to pay him not to farm? That would make far more sense. But we don't even need to do that. We just need to end the subsidies the incentivize the farmer to squander water. If water is subsidized, the farmer will take the easy route and use flood irrigation, rather than far more efficient, but slightly more expensive, drip irrigation.
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Ok, sure. But I'm still not getting why building water infrastructure isn't also part of the answer. Farmers need water. Just like cities and everyone else. And farming isn't the problem in areas like San Diego.
The "never build any water infrastructure" people seem to be motivated by enmity toward others who aren't like them and/or dogmatic environmentalism of some sort. And neither of those motivations lead to policies that are likely to be in the public interest.
Slashdot readers should be able to endo
Re:Water for people (Score:4, Insightful)
I can see where both of you are coming from; The people in California are running out of drinking water, and people are a higher priority than walnuts, almonds and alfalfa. At the same time, paying farmers to use more water is obviously making things way worse, when farming is already using a disproportionately large amount of hydrating fluid in the first place.
But this is sorta like the whole "renewable vs. nuclear" argument to me. Sure, both are important steps toward securing a vital resource, but they both play different roles on different time scales. Renewable power can help a lot in the medium and long term for cutting back on fossil fuels, but nuclear is more viable right now at supplying the vast majority of power regardless of the weather. And in the event humans go to other cosmic bodies, wind and solar are no guarantees, so nuclear is a better bet again.
In this case, making farmers pay a fair price for water (thus hopefully ending their reliance on water-thirsty crops and irrigation methods) is a good start, fer sher. But California is going to be an arid slab of land for the foreseeable future, and the current water supplies will not last forever if humans can't create more rain for that area of the country. Also, that drought isn't expected to let up anytime soon, which makes things even worse. Even if the amount of water used for farming drops tremendously, the state will still run out without either spending bunches of money on importing more water from wetter places, OR producing it themselves using the ocean. Will it be expensive either way? Probably. Will the population eventually be forced to move out of the desert? Maybe so. But something's gotta give eventually, if more rain doesn't find a reason to fall onto them.
Re:Water for people (Score:4, Informative)
Look, the cost of the electricity to desalinate water is worth FAR more than the cost of the crops that a farmer could grow with it.
It seems this is an economic problem and not a humanitarian concern.
Let the price of water reflect the economic reality, and if it DOES cost more for water than the value of the crops, then either the farmer will increase the price they require before selling their crops Or the farmer will produce more valuable crops, or the farmers will produce less crops, until the supply of crops falls, and a new price equilibrium is found on the price of crops.
If water desalination is done, then don't differentiate pricing between desalinated and water from other sources...... when pricing water, just average out the cost of water from all sources, And make sure that all consumers of water pay the same price per gallon.
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Then the first step is to increase the cost of water during a drought to be at least equal to what it would cost from a desalination plant.
No, the first step is to increase the cost of water so supply equals demand. Raising it to the cost of desalination would shut down every farm in California, put thousands of companies out of business, destroy millions of jobs, and devastate the California economy.
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Even with the huge drought in California, water has no perceived value. This is one place where the government needs to probably step in.
Why do you think water has no perceived value in the first place? It's because government has "stepped in" for over a century.
Re:Water for people (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you think water has no perceived value in the first place? It's because government has "stepped in" for over a century.
There are probably plenty of ways that the government has "stepped in" and made it worse but the government is good at a few things
related to this area. One, is the government is best positioned for protecting the "tragedy of the commons". Secondly, the government
is good at building large infrastructure and funding "insurance policies" which is what a desalination plant is when it's raining. And
lastly, the government has the ability to tax water and raise the price of existing water to be on par with what it would cost coming from
a desalination plant before the plant has even been built reducing the demand. Charging more for water makes more sense than
rationing it. Most people's home water bill is an insignificant portion of their budget. The big abusers like golf courses and farmers
though would quickly come up with better ways of doing business (even if that includes leaving the area or only planting crops when it
rains)
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Even with the huge drought in California, water has no perceived value.
Correct.
This is one place where the government needs to probably step in.
Well, it's their fault in the first place, so yeah they should fix it.
It needs to build a bunch of desalination plants.
Wrong answer. (I'm not opposed to desalination, just that they shouldn't jump to that conclusion) Instead, they need to allow water to be priced at market value, then the issue will fix itself. Either new suppliers will come around by building water supplies like desalination plants, the users will improve efficiency or just use less. Ding, problem solved.
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They won't. And no, we shouldn't just surrender to being a victim of whatever the weather is. We should make things better. It's called progress.
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"You mean continue the rape and pillage of waterways?"
Yes, that's exactly what Californians need to do. Either/oring water projects with HSR is not hugely relevant, because what's holding up both projects is not lack of money, but angry Druids and their lawyers. I would love to see the next group of anti-infrastructure protesters get the crap beaten out of them by California's Grapes of Wrath thirsty, unemployed union Democrats.
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While we do need the water due to the drought, I doubt that California wants to export what they have.
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Why can't we just solve the problem instead of the pointless partisan bullshit?
Re:$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:5, Informative)
The reason we can't (easily) solve this is really simple. There isn't enough water. If southern California wants to look afar for water they have to look at the Columbia River, which is the nearest river that seems to have abundant water. Believe me, Oregon will put up a big fight if SoCal tries to ram through the kind of infrastructure to move water through Oregon.
All the other water in most of the west is already spoken for. SoCal really has two choices. One, desalinate. Two, get along with the limited water that is available. There aren't any decent other choices.
It isn't partisan bullshit. It is a really big problem with no good choices. SoCal can't just steal water from other users. In the western US water gets used by somebody, and somebody owns just about all the water rights.
Re:$68 Billion for high speed trains (Score:5, Informative)
It was before my time but I have family in both California and Oregon and the way I understand it from them, California proposed this decades ago (1960s?) and one of the reasons Oregon turned it down was that they concluded that the California politicians and by extension the federal government could not be trusted to stay within the bounds of any agreement so it is better to prevent any such project starting than to fight it later when they altered the deal.
Fertile land is where farms should go ... (Score:3)
Move people to where the water is instead. Or at least the farming.
Absolutely wrong. Farms should be where the fertile land is. Water is easily moved. For 5,000 years farmers have relocated to good land and then figured out how to get additional water there if necessary.
The California central valley is *not* a desert. It is incredibly fertile land, farming should take place there. Plus the climate allows many foods to be grown year round. California produces over half of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US. That is *not* including some particular troublesome cr
Solution was started in the 1960s stoped by greens (Score:3, Insightful)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Of course in a state that knew it had 7 year droughts and a history of 100 YEAR + long droughts the greens managed to get their way and prevent the needed infrastructure from being built.
I really need to know what the science was behind these decisions ?
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Because no one needs to eat ?
People that live in all those communities don't need work ?
I'm no green but seeing farms that have been worked for generations shut down because assholes have gained control of the politics is heart rending.
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People who move to the desert and then demand someone else supply them with water (which comes from out of state btw) so they can grow crops that would NEVER grow there on their own ...
Yea, fuck those people and their ignorance, they did it to themselves and its bullshit they are dragging down others with them.
They KNEW this was an issue, how did they know? BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO PIPE WATER IN FROM HUNDREDS OF MILES AWAY AND THEIR CROPS DON'T STAND A SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN HELL WITHOUT SOMEONE ELSES WATER.
You'r
Re:Solution was started in the 1960s stoped by gre (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'd say that those farms haven't worked for generations. It's just the true costs of farming in a water poor region haven't been felt as badly before and the poor decisions on the past are being felt. You have some farmers see water being transported by their fields when they aren't being allocated any to other farms with unlimited allocations just because of when the allocations where given out. And people are draining the aquifers as fast as they can drill the wells without thinking of the consequences
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No, farming in an area when you absolutely need to have water transported in so that you can harvest a crop doesn't work in the long run.
Sure, it does. We've been doing it for thousands of years. In this case the only problem is that they are taking it from a place that still needs it.
That obviously doesn't work. On the other hand, taking it from the ocean there would be an infinite supply. That is the correct solution. While
they're at it, they should build up capacity past what is needed and use some of the excess desalinated water to replenish the water table that
they so recklessly deplinished.
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Of course in a state that knew it had 7 year droughts and a history of 100 YEAR + long droughts the greens managed to get their way and prevent the needed infrastructure from being built.
your unsustainable farming is catching up to you, nothing more. what was the science behind the decision to starting farms in a desert? shortsightedness is a problem... which is why you started farming crops that require the more water of any other crop IN A DESERT .
Privatize all water, immediately. (Score:3, Funny)
I don't understand why we continue to allow incompetent government management of a critical resource. How many times do we have to prove that PRIVATE management of natural resources is better than useless wasteful goverment before people believe it?
If we privatize the water, then competition will simultaneously allow greater resource utilization at a lower cost and with greater access for everyone. Guaranteed.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Because private management of resources isn't better. That's just you're invocation of your magic sky faerie god; the Invisible Hand. Some of the worst environmental disasters in history have been the product of private corporations.
At least we can throw governments out. Corporations are bequeathed a nearly impenetrable shield by way of the legal system and the brain dead religiosity of the Libertarian church of the Free Market.
Re: (Score:2)
If we privatize the water, then competition will simultaneously allow greater resource utilization at a lower cost and with greater access for everyone. Guaranteed.
What could possibly go wrong? [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:3)
better: Nestlé.
"Water is not a human right, and should be privatised"
- Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, former CEO and chairman, Nestlé, April 2013.
The entire UK freshwater supply and treatment industry is shareholder-owned and purely profit driven. [Potable*] tap water is more expensive than bottled.
*For various measures of "potable". In my opinion, water that tastes like bleach isn't potable. Yet, that's what you get unless and until you boil the shit (literally!) out of it. You'll get most of th
Desalination (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Here's sort of the problem with that...
Israel and Saudi Arabia have no water. They haven't had water for the past couple thousand years. Therefore, they need desalination plants.
Is this drought going to be the new norm for California? Or are we in a cycle?
So we build desalination plants. And then it rains. Then what? Do you pay to keep those plants running--remember that those plants cost money to run. They also cost money to be maintained so that they can be used when a drought comes. Are you willi
Re:Desalination (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you do! You live in the middle of a fucking desert! This drought will eventually end, but you will have another one. More importantly, even without the drought, you already had your neighbors to the North ready to tar and feather you due to rainwater collection restrictions and river passthrough quotas.
You choose to live in a place with no water. You have the fifth largest economy in the world. You bail yourselves out of your current self-inflicted disaster - And then yes, you maintain that solution for next time.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Are you willing to pay money for the land, pay money to build them, and pay money for the maintenance for when we don't need them? Or will you begin whining about all this useless infrastructure at that point?
Governments have been doing this for thousands of years. There are even stories in the bible about "saving for a rainy day" or in this case, saving
for a drought. The US Government has caves all over this country full of honey, cheese, corn, and military equipment not to mention nukes that
will never be used "just in case". Current estimate is that the drought cost California over 1.5 billion last year. If they build a desalination plant and
then it rained it would be worth it to spend a few million a yea
Re:Desalination (Score:4, Interesting)
OK, I looked it up....
Ventura Calif.
Water for single family housing 15,000 gals 75.65
Waste water 62.45
total 138.10 bi monthly
West Texas near Lubbock
My water bill 3000 gals PER MONTH
Water 65.86
Sewer 34.00
Total 99.86
Bi Monthly 199.72
I've said it before suck it up Calif. Until you pay at least what I pay for water you get no sympathy from me.
too little too late (Score:5, Insightful)
He said that the difference is that the state has grown in population to 38 million and has vast acres of farmland to irrigate, a problem with which the state cannot be blamed.
the actual populous takes a surprisingly low amount of water. the problem was and always has been the absurd crops they are trying to raise there. the state can't be blamed? who is HEAVILY subsidising water for farmers? THE STATE. who has refused to restrict water to farmlands until now? THE STATE. who has refused to change until it's half a decade too late? THE STATE.
i dont feel bad for California because this is their payment for their tireless efforts, day in and day out to use all the water they possibly can. this isn't a punishment, they earned this.
Problem ignored. (Score:3)
A scenario like this has been warned about or some time. The policymakers have ignored these warnings. Instead, they spent money on wasteful projects such as long distance high speed rail, projects which are not really feasible in a state like California. Basically, California is run by foolish idiots who ignored their states real problems and instead wasted money on expensive and wasteful long distance rail projects, which are more about optics than about value. Before you misunderstand, understand that rail inside cities is a good idea, but the market dynamics for that is very different from rail lines between cities. Building long distance high speed rail is far too expensive and will not really be a good value at all, partly due to planes likely being preferable to many, with all of the costs and funding being accounted for. The amount of track that has to be installed is far greater, than in cities where you can serve commuters with far less trackage. For ground based transport an upgrade to bus lines would be a much more cost effective solution.
Instead of spending money on that it should have spent it on more water projects, including desalination, reservoirs and storage. Things like water storage and transport are just not as hip and cool sounding as massively wasteful white elephants like the long distance rail.
Re: (Score:2)
...planes likely being preferable to many...
Sure, I'll put up with a four hour check-in and being prodded and poked and felt up by a fucking Rent-A-Cop.
On second thought, when's the next train?
(in England, we don't have x-ray machines at railway stations).
Sami Kinison (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
1:33 to 1:43 sums it up.
TL;DR version You live in a fukin' desert! You get your water by stealing it from others!
Need water? Move to a place that has water. Just not the states you already stole it from.
obvious answer: STOP FRACKING (Score:3)
Hydraulic fracturing requires freshwater. This is apparently because the salt content of sea water corrodes the plumbing that's designed to withstand as yet unnamed chemical cocktails but which are known to contain hydrochloric acid. And if you believe that, I have a bridge you might be interested in. Now, we're not talking a few thousand gallons of freshwater here, we're talking SEVERAL HUNDRED TONS - PER TREATMENT. What spoil is "recovered" does not come near the spoil that went in, so it has to go somewhere, right? Where does it go? Nobody's telling us (it's a fucking trade secret!), so we can only make the assumption that it eventually seeps back into the water table to contaminate it - which is why it'd be nice to know what's going on down there.
Fracking consumes more fresh water per surface area than any suburb, even the 20mm-high-lawn lot.
Re:obvious answer: STOP FRACKING (Score:5, Informative)
**sighs**
CA uses 38 billion gallons of water per day. Well, as of 2010 they did. It may be more now. Or less. But not a lot more or less. So in the vicinity of 13.9 TRILLION gallons of water per year
The EPA says that fracking accounts for somewhere between 70 and 140 BILLION gallons of water per year for the whole USA. Of that, maybe 5% is used in places where the water could be sent to CA instead. Of course, that would mean that Utah (which is a desert) would have to ship some of its water to California. Likewise Nevada (which is also a desert)....
So, if we were to stop fracking anywhere that the water could be sent to CA instead, and send the fracking water to CA, CA would get enough extra water to operate for FOUR HOURS of CA's normal use.
In summary, no, CA's problem isn't fracking, and won't be fixed by stopping fracking....
Not a technical problem (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason tech startups aren't solving water problems in california is because for the most part it is not in need of a technical solution. California has more than enough water for residential, commercial, and industrial use. Even if it didn't, waste water reclamation was tried, and defeated by a bunch of idiots branding it as toilet to tap. Even if that wasn't enough, desalination can be done at costs that are practical for residential use when compared with the infrastructure and maintenance for distributing the water.
The real issue is agriculture. Agriculture uses 80% of the developed water in california, and agricultural use is covered by a set of insane historical policies relating to water rights based on seniority which gives certain people the right to divert essentially unlimited amounts of water from rivers or pump out of aquifers, and requires others to fight over whatever is left.Those left behind in the seniority lottery are in fact practicing water conservation, but the senior holders have no incentive to spend on dime on water conservation, and haven't even taken the simplest efforts to reduce waste. Instead they fight legally any attempt to even get them to report how much water they are taking, and generally make crazy idiotic statements about how their rights are being infringed. The problem can't be solved without their involvement, and any tech company would be insane to bet their business and their capital on political reform of water rights.
Are companies still pumping it out of the ground? (Score:4, Interesting)
it's not a desert (Score:3)
it's not a desert
Re: (Score:2)
... Look up the definition of a desert ... look at where the water is flowing in the state ... look at what that area was like say 200 years ago ... then get back to me on how hey aren't watering a desert.
This has been common knowledge for 50 years. They have been warned about this problem for god knows how long and have been complaining about running out of water for at least 30 years.
Re: (Score:2)
OK, I looked it up... it's like a dry barren area. if CA were a barren area, how could it be the breadbasket of the world and be feeding the entire nation????????
Re:it's not a desert (Score:4, Interesting)
Because they pump in water from non-desert areas. Not all of CA is a desert, but much of it is. Nor is "dry barren area" the definition of a desert- a desert is defined by the amount of rainfall a year. Most of southern CA qualifies.
Re: (Score:3)
PBS has a great documentary on this as part of "Building the Hoover Dam". They have the full documentary posted on their website at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americ... [pbs.org]
Here's a couple of really good excerpts:
Narrator: The Colorado was a river unlike any otherâ" dark and red with mud and silt from carving out the planetâ(TM)s most magnificent canyons. It ran wild until 1901, when Western farmers set out to tame it. Their plan was to water the desert. Developers dug a canal system that brought the Rive
Re: (Score:2)
"We live in an arid and semi-arid state and we need to start acting that way." - Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist with Nasa.
"arid" is one step away from "desert". "Arid" basically means "deserts are the only dryer places on the planet". And unfortunately, a majority of the developed parts of california are in the arid portions of the state.
Though at the rate they're emptying their groundwater, it's going to start looking like a desert. Drilling is just borrowing water from tomorrow. Eventually
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
no it doesn't, because not much corn is grown in CA. The two greatest water consumers are parsley and rice. I don't know why the summary mentions it.
Re:Doesn't corn, corn, corn (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm responding to this, because this Poster doesn't seem to have an Agenda, and they asked an honest question.
The rough current breakdowns are as follows:
Residential and Municipal Usage: ~15%
Industrial Usage: ~5%
Agricultural Usage: 80%
The surprising thing, looking back decades, is that the Population has nearly doubled, yet Residential Usage has remained stable, and Industrial Usage has actually gone down!
Yet water demand has gone up, almost entirely due to Agriculture. We are not talking about Tomatoes and Watermelons here, we are talking about Alfalfa, Cotton, Rice, and Almonds, all of which require a lot of water, and have no place growing in an Arid Ecosystem.
Now why are these crops grown? Because due to a Century of Corruption, Graft, Blackmail, and the occasional Homicide, a tightly-knit group of "Farmers" have a guaranteed flow of as much water as they want, at practically no cost, and by Federal Law, these "Rights" can't be contested.
If Alfalfa, Cotton, Rice, and Almond growers had to pay "Market Price" for their water, they would move their operations elsewhere. (BTW, Almonds are new- they barely registered in the Water Surveys of the early eighties.) And we would have a Water Surplus, even with the current Drought.
Now as to where the Water comes from, well it mostly comes from rain. A lot of early California farming depended on Winter storms; California was once an Exporter of Winter Wheat and other grains. Harvesting took place during early Summer, and then Ranching filled out the rest of the arid year.
With certain exceptions, such as along the Sacramento Delta tributaries, the Central Valley was barren, unproductive, and unprofitable.
Rain was stored in the Sierra Nevada Snowpack, which fed streams throughout the Summer, and could store enough to last through short periods of drought.
Rain was also stored underground in various Aquifers, which had a peculiar property- over centuries, the ground above rose as the aquifer accumulated.
Water storage was always a problem in California; over the years a mix of Irrigation and Flood Control projects in Northern California created a series of Dams that not only regulated the flow, but had the side benefit of Hydropower Generation as well.
Meanwhile, Southern California got Thirsty.
If it was just Angelenos wanting Swimming Pools, and Green Lawns, well, that could be dealt with.
The problems lay with the Assholes who bought up a lot of worthless inland arid property, and insisted that the Rest Of Us not only build an Infrastructure to deliver Water to them so that they can grow low-value crops, but to do it essentially free of charge. Their sense of Entitlement is an awesome thing to see in the various recent public debates.
These Assholes were, and are, powerful and untouchable. As in Republican.
The cure for the California Drought Crisis is extremely simple- make everybody pay Market Rate for Water. Since not all Water is equal, Market Rates would vary, Potable Water would cost most, whereas Raw Sewage would cost least. (Note: I'm sure that Raw Sewage would work just dandy for growing Cotton.)
Re: (Score:2)
So your solution, is to shut off water to the people who were using the water first and paid for most of the infrastructure.
Glad we still nominally function under the rule of law.
Re:Simple Fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop listening to news soundbites. Of the many crops grown in CA, almonds don't really grow anywhere else in the US and they're a high-value crop, which really makes them the most bang for your buck (and water). And almonds are also the state’s most lucrative exported agricultural product, with California producing 80 percent of the world’s supply.
As opposed to, say, hay. Alfalfa hay requires even more water, about 15 percent of the state’s supply. About 70 percent of alfalfa grown in California is used in dairies, and a good portion of the rest is exported to land-poor Asian countries like Japan.
And more than 30 percent of California’s agricultural water use either directly or indirectly supports growing animals for food.
What CA needs to do is grow what they grow best and leave hay and cows to the states better equipped to grow them.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop growing almonds.
Stop wasting water. Recycle your waste into your water treatment plant and back to you.
Stop being so gay. Number 1 job! Frivolity breeds waste.
But what will the vegans do without their almond milk!??!?
Re: (Score:2)
Stop using half the states water to raise crops for cattle and there will be plenty of water for people. Every time you eat a pound of beef you waste 1800 gallons of water.
I think its actually the nuts that are using the most water, not the meat. So in actuality its the vegans who are responsible for wasting most of the water with their demand for things like almond milk and nut patties.
Re: (Score:2)
There are a lot of republicans too who are interested in preserving the flow of the water into the delta and it's not because of the smelt.
It won't just affect nature, it will affect companies and property values too.
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