Slashdot Mirror
As Drought Worsens, California Orders Record Water Cuts
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?
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?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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 ?
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.
Here in Ventura County we pay more for water than in Israel or Saudi Arabia, two countries with much more severe water problems than California - and who get a large (or even majority) portion of their water from desalination. We have the world's largest body of water right next to us - and we simply don't utilize it. Desalination.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Here's a novel idea, move out of the fucking desert and quit trying to grow produce by piping in water from several states away.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
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.
the problem is the farms. they need to go.
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.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
it's not a desert
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.
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.
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.
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 .
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
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're an asshole because you think just because some dumbfuck started a farm in a shitty plot we should subsidise his stupidity and supply water to him. Personal responsibility, learn about it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Maybe those farms never belonged there in the first place, or they should have not let the population grow to the point that it was unsustainable?
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
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.
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.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
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. Or if they do think of them they still do it because if they don't their neighbours will and they want the water before it's gone.
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. Just like our system of having to increase the loads of artificial fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides every year.
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.
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.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
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.
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.
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!??!?
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
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.
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.
California farmers have in the past, and continue to, wreak havoc on California. Read a bit about this asshole and his environmental catastophe: J.G. Boswell. His wikipedia page has been sanitized by his minions, but Amazon has a fairly good book on his rape and pillage of the state. http://www.amazon.com/The-King... Now the farmers are sucking the underground water table so dry the state is sinking at an unprecedented rate. http://www.motherjones.com/env... California wasn't such a desert until we "improved" the farming environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
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.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Yes, there is more profit in scarcity. There is no technical reason for there to be a drought. Jon Stewart has it right: "Learning curves are for pussies"
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Sounds like you'd rather punish people than help them (or even allow them) to live better lives. Why?
well if its that easy, the people of cali should pay for it, on their own. no federal dollars.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
human rights are ALWAYS trumped by commercial rights. You need to make the claim on the basis of INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, to FORCE whoever to abide by whatever Constitution prevails in the jurisdiction - constitutions are there to LIMIT the powers of Government and to GUARANTEE INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS OVER THOSE OF THE STATE OR COMMERCIAL INTERESTS. Human Rights per the UN Conventions are a waste of ink, they ONLY apply in commerce. Money rules all in commerce. Fuck "human rights".
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Because I don't want to get stuck with the bill for their stupid decisions.
They should find that they can live better lives by moving to where conditions are more suitable to human habitation.
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.
Agreed. CA can easily afford it.
Why do you think you will be harmed if Californians have enough water? What could lead someone to believe something like that?
Nobody mentions it but a severe water shortage could actually cause the evacuation of California. Much like Florida an economic disaster in California could collapse the economy of the US. One partial solution is to ban the shipping of any food products abroad. That would keep food affordable within the US and also use less water as the demand for crops would be far less. Under the belly of this monster is growth. Politicians and businesses always whine about growth. Growth destroys everything good. A ban on new construction for the state of California would limit growth. Imagine how short on water they would be if another 10 million people moved to California. And underneath that growth problem is the ever swelling population bomb that nobody wants to deal with. By law make less babies! The idea of growth rests upon the notion that locals are worthless and have no money to support businesses therefore we must "grow" to bring new money our way. Detroit is an example of what growth always does. The slums of Memphis are what growth does. Brooklyn and the Bronx are what growth does. Miami Florida is what growth does. And we now are about to pay the piper for all our growth.
because it grows bloody fast and all year round. It'll also thrive in soils most other plants would die in.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
almonds have mammary glands??
Who knew?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Why should property values be artificially inflated? It seems like it's a shitty place for anything if water is in short supply.
I skimmed an article about the pinch now hitting higher priority water rights holders while waiting at a doctor's office yesterday. Apparently people and corporations have water rights going back over a hundred years that control who does and does not get water. They still have to pay for it though. Seems like the legalized prioritizations might make a lot of the discussion about what water should and should not be used for moot. Or, as usual, that simplistic solutions aren't feasible.
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.
I am not American. I agree with neither/both of you and agree the same. However, some people do NOT choose to live somewhere, they're BORN there. Unless you're asking to 1) Abandon their family or 2) Force their family to move, some people live in inconvenient places for reasons not of their choosing...
But coastal areas of CA are very wealthy. They can afford to solve the problem for themselves. It's not exactly the third world out here. All we have to do is decide to solve it and build the needed infrastructure.
Because "the water table" matters? Except for the ability to use more water, why is one water table level good and another bad?
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.)
BTW, the percentage of water used for almonds is roughly 3%.
CA grows 99% of all US almonds. 99% of US walnuts. 95% of US broccoli, 92% of US strawberries, 91% of US grapes, 90% of US tomatoes. And 74% of all US lettuce.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
... according to California Assemblywoman Shannon Grove (R).
“Texas was in a long period of drought until Governor Perry signed the fetal pain bill,” she told the audience. “It rained that night. Now God has his hold on California.”
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Reminds me of the argument for why I'm supposed to pay for someone else's medical bills because of their stupid decisions.
The smokers, the obese, drug users and alcoholics all want to continue doing what they're doing without having to enable conditions which are more suitable to a healthy life.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Lowering the water table can cause land subsidence, so there is some reason to keep it up.
Actually the situation is that water is being sold below market value and wasted in inefficient agriculture practices to provide YOU with inexpensive food. So CA residents are subsidizing your food prices.
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.
your water bill should rise exponentially with use
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.
An interesting novel that touches on this subject.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There is enough water in CA for everyone there to drink.
Just not enough to support agriculture.
Especially dairy, both real (cows) and artificial (almonds)
That isn't what he is saying. He is saying he will be harmed if he is forced to pay for the infrastructure to assure that Californians have enough water. You know, it's simple economics. If you don't benefit from something but are forced to contribute substantial money to it, you're harmed because you can't use the money in ways beneficial to you.
Please don't twist the discussion.
The freedom to move to a new locality is one of our rights here in the United States. You can get up and move, and there's no government agency you need to ask for permission before doing so. There are places in the world, like China, where many people do not have that right.
It's really pitiful to see people who seem almost eager to abrogate their rights.
There's no reason for anyone outside CA to pay for CA water projects. Who is even proposing that? No one that I've heard of.
The US Government is paying a few billion dollars for that high speed train though.
The California central valley is not naturally a desert. The problem in California is one that many other parts of the US shares. The potential of the land far surpasses the available surface water. In California the solution was to transport water many hundreds of miles. In other parts of the country the solution was to drill down and access ancient aquifers that are not be refilled, to drill deeper and deeper into the aquifer each year.
Transporting water to fertile farmlands will become a national issue, its not specific to California. Its just being seen in California first.
Transport water from where? Seriously, where do you think SoCal can get the water? Please explain how this is simple.
Thing is, CA is one of the few places where we can grow all of that stuff year 'round.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I make soy milk in my 'soy milk maker' usually about twice a week. I've never used the almond milk recipe. It seems like sort of a luxury. I know the almond milk tastes better, but soy milk is inexpensive and healthy.
Nestle was pumping around 1m gallons a week out of the ground for sale. Are they still doing that, or has the state finally decided that maybe it's not a good idea to tell citizens they can't have water, but tell megacorps they can?
Of course people in China can move about! How else do you think people can move from the small provinces to the cities to find work? If you'd said N. Korea you may have a point, but China, no. And yes, I know people that live in China...
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.
Who is "they"?
Be specific.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
Maybe those farms never belonged there in the first place, or they should have not let the population grow to the point that it was unsustainable?
Given that the current drought is unprecedented, how would they have knows that? California has managed thus far to have enough water. The current situation is obviously scary, but nobody is able to predict the future.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
..and you propose that the solution to living in an inconvenient place is to continue living in an inconvenient place...
"His name was James Damore."
I can barely read your bizarre rants, but I never post AC. I stand by every post. I also don't mod, I disabled moderation for my account years ago to keep the interface clean.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
It is not news to anyone that southern California is a desert. It was a desert when the first settlers arrived, it is a desert now supported only by a massive water management structure, and when that structure goes away it will go back to being a desert. That's nature, dudes.
But California is in this fix because of Liberals and their policies. There is no argument here possible, they have owned and operated the state since the turn of the 19th Century. It's their little utopia that the rest of us should emulate. And they are in this fix because for the last 50 years they have jettisoned every single planned water-management project their original development framework called for. They have scuttled major portions of the system already built. They are, even now, pouring fresh water into the Pacific for the benefit of some miserable little fish, and all of it a concession to the greenies and their lunatic anti-human agenda. So the "Party of the Poor," the "Champions of the Middle Class" and so on and so forth, are now slowly strangling the people they claim to want to help to keep their campaign coffers full of green slush. In short, they lied about having a handle on California's environment. They weighed the middle class against a minority of activists and decided for the activists. And this is what Liberals do, every time. They aren't a political party, they are a formation of special interests currently tacking on the same course. And if that course should crush a few farmers or destroy a few more jobs, well fuck you, people. You exist to serve the State, not the other way around! And it's long past time people begin to realize what they are really dealing with. These are fascists, no more and no less. And they won't be happy until they are sending Jews and climate deniers to death camps in Canada.
The farmers's share of the water has not increased in all this time. Rather it is the demands from cities that has increased and drained down the water. The cities are the problem. I wonder what they intend to eat once they've gotten rid of the farms?
You can't. That's why they grow them in California.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
And desalinization is totally unrealistic to address anything but urban water use, which is a drop in the bucket.
Israel does it. Not saying we have to copy them, just that they proved it's practical. If you're going to be talking about water so angrily, you ought to know what you're talking about.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
"95% of all Slashdot
We haven't been transporting water from one place to another for thousands of years, at least not on the scale of what is happening in California (and China).
As for desalination, I don't know why people keep suggesting it as a solution. Yes it is possible to supply the water needs for what comes our of your tap. However it is much, much too expensive, environmentally damaging, and energy intensive to scale up to meeting the needs of agriculture. Farming is an order of magnitude greater in it's requirements for water. So if the population is unwilling to build a series of desalination plants to provide drinking water I somehow doubt that they are going to want to build at least ten times that number to provide water to a bunch of almond trees.
Plus it might be nice if you didn't have to keep paying hundred of thousands of dollars to drill deeper wells because everyone is sucking the water out of the aquifers.
How many of those fruits and vegetables are native to California and suited to the climate and habitat?
Nearly all are well suited to the climate, that's is why they have extra growing seasons for many of these crops in CA.
The habitat in CA is like much of the habitat in the rest of US agriculture in the central regions of the country, these traditional farming lands have potential productivity far in excess of available surface water. It is only by tapping additional water resources that the US can feed so many at home and around the globe. In the central US many regions are currently tapping aquifers that are not being replenished, aquifers that will run dry, and like California they will have to import water.
Importing water is not necessarily bad. Nature distributes it somewhat randomly, not wisely nor efficiently nor beneficially. What is bad is when we also fail to distribute it wisely or efficiently or beneficially, which is really the problem in CA.
Good day, sir. I said, GOOD DAY.
It is a good day when billions are fed well. And to do so we must produce beyond what the habitat allows. Else we fall into a Malthusian catastrophe and few will have a good day.
That is what I understand. Water used for fracking cannot be recycled, you cannot get the fracking chemicals out.
Trillions of gallons of fresh water are gone for good.
Nah, I am rooting for CA to go dry - I want to see Tank Girl live.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Or we could rename the fish from "mudfish" to "sparkly rainbow fish" and people like you won't feel so bad about giving enough water to survive.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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 grown in other states before paying for staple crops grown with desalinized water.
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.
Maybe you should figure out how they do it before advocating water policy. It would make you a lot more reasonable.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The people saying they don't want to pay for people to live in the desert have it wrong. It's more like you are paying for them to stay there and not have a bunch of new Californian neighbors. A price well worth it.
I think you'll find, if you re-read my comments, I proposed nothing at all. I only put forward a reason why such a circumstance could come about. Please don't straw-man me, nor put words in my mouth. Thank you
The good news is that water retails for $1500-$3000 per acre foot in my area, so desal is not a crazy solution for residential users. Sure, it doesn't solve the farming problem, but nothing will. Ag simply uses an unsustainable amount of water, and no amount low flow toilets in San Francisco will change that.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
In my country where the right to move to a new locality is a Constitutional right, there are also property rights so people who want to move can't just boot other people out of their homes and move in. Makes moving much harder if you don't have money to pay off the people who you want to displace though the option of being homeless is always there, though most people are not eager to take that route.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
California isn't the only place in the world where farming can happen. It's a nice place because of good soil, sun, and a lack of frost, but it's only good as long as you can ship water in or pump it out of aquifers to make up for the fact that not enough water falls in those non-frosty, sunny areas to sustain farms. Moving to places with less sun and more water may make sense if the problem is a lack of water.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
No, maybe you should show me your plan to produce rice that is profitable at $1.29 per pound retail using only desalinated water.
That's not totally true. There are other places where you can grow most of those crops. The advantage to CA is longer growing seasons, more consistent temperatures, and less stuff like frost and mold. These are nice things, but they come with a "not enough water" problem attached to them. But make no mistake, if we stopped growing those things, they'd grow elsewhere and be imported. I'd expect almond farms to be among the last to shut down because they get a lot of bang for their water buck in terms of actual crop value. Rice? Dump it. People grow rice all over the place and it's dead easy to ship. There's no reason for us to waste valuable CA water growing it.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
btw, I think your numbers are screwy. It's hard for me to believe almonds take that much water. Who gave you those numbers? Are you getting confused, thinking that people are still flood-irrigating? Because that does use more water.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
This. We can solve our residential water problem using technology and a little bit of infrastuructre. Wastewater recycling would take care of it. Desal can put a dent in it. We can't solve the farming problem that way, but we're farming at an unsustainable rate here, so you can apply the "won't fix the farming problem" complaint to any solution. Unless farms become massively more efficient, there's no solution for it. We might as well make our cities self-sufficient and let the farmers fight each other for the remaining water.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
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 aquifers that are not being replenished and they will have to import water too at some point.
That said, note that the over 50% of fruits and vegetables does not include almonds, cotton and other troublesome crops. Moving those out of CA is probably a good idea. And modernizing irrigation and other techniques would also be a good idea.
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 crops like almonds, cotton, etc which perhaps should be farmed elsewhere.
By the way, much of the farmland in the central portions of the US lack enough surface water for farming too. They have to mine ancient aquifers that are not being replenished. Each year they must mine deeper and deeper, they will have to import water like California one day.
Moving water to where people live is a simple engineering problem.
Moving water to where people live is indeed an engineering problem, but I'd hardly call it "simple". Especially given the quantities that would be involved.
Its not simple but it is something that was figured out thousands of years ago. Google Roman aqueducts.
How about move the people to where the water is instead?
Residential use accounts for only 10% of CA water usage, industry another 10%. Agriculture is the remaining 80%. The CA central valley is *not* a desert and it contains some of the most fertile land around and it has a climate that permits production all year. The CA central valley currently produces over half the fruits and vegetables consumed in the US.
Like much of the farm land in the central regions of the US the CA central valley lacks sufficient surface water. In CA the water gets imported. In the central regions of the US it tends to get mined from ancient aquifers that are not being refilled, these other farming areas will have to import water too someday.
why is it difficult to move water around when its easy to move oil around? The Keystone pipeline is an example. Move water from places of excess to places that need it.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Freedom to move doesn't mean that you can actually move. Among other things, it requires money to move, and to be meaningful, it requires a job and other arrangements at the destination.
It is not unusual at all in America to have situations with resources where the demand outstrips the supply at low prices. The way we handle this is by allowing price to adjust. California has just raised prices to $500 per 326,000 gallons. Consumers are not going to have a problem if the bulk price were to go to 10x that level. But it would shutdown most farming. It would also make all sorts of water savings devices profitable.
The way to handle the water crisis is to let the price of water move up to a level where supply and demand come into balance.
We found that out in the early 2000s with power when californians couldn't shut off their air conditioners and caused rolling blackouts.
...as we talk about WHERE I LIVE. It's a real problem not something for you insensitive dickwads to joke about. And to make it worse the government won't do anything about it. So I watch my state dry up and you laugh it off like its a Kardashian story. Can't wait til something happens to your home 'cause I'm gonna laugh too.
Hey Alexander Peter Kowalski, two questions for you:
- Why don't you sign your posts with your full name, don't you want future employers to find all your wonderful ideas when they google your name?
- Why does your page show that your application uses 37MB of RAM (not 6), which is actually more than uBlock? What was that about doing more with less?
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
AIDS riddled brain, really? Well, whatever else you are at least we know you're a bigot that sees being gay (which I am) as equivalent to having AIDS. Good to know, Alexander Peter Kowalski.
I haven't run from anything as you well know. You do seem to be running from some things:
- Your app uses 37MB of RAM
- A 2 million+ line hosts file uses much more RAM than that, but of course that memory isn't attributed to your app. At 100 bytes per line that would be 200MB. How big is that hosts file anyway? Is it loaded by each application separately or is the OS at least efficient enough to use shared memory?
I'll be sure to let Hilton Hotels know what kind of person they're hiring.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
From 2006:
"We hereby petition the government of the United States of America to review our proposal for putting Alexander Peter Kowalski (i.e. APK) to death by any means available. This individual is a menace to society and has proven himself to be a drain on the productivity for the millions of IT workers worldwide that spend so much time uncontrollably laughing at APK and his antics. We estimate that this phenomena is costing businesses in the US at least 100 million dollars on an annual basis. Given that APK only has APKTools to justify existence we have no problem recommending him for immediate execution. If at all possible, we would like the execution to be slow and painful."
One thing is true, this guy claims to have history going back decades. For any of you who thought he was some idiot kid, it seems he's actually a sad old man (well, physically anyway, mentally he obviously never made it past 13). It does explain the homophobic comments though.
Can you imagine, if what he's saying is true, he spends his retirement spamming Slashdot. I'd be on a beach somewhere drinking mai-tais.
The right to protest the State is more sacred than the State.
Dont forget the rice paddies
Troll. Besides.. Mud fish are people, too.
Only boring people are ever bored.
But then they would have to pick their own crops....
Only boring people are ever bored.
fine...keep your money in cali, and let me keep mine. I got no problem with that at all
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You can't. That's why they grow them in California.
The one does not suggest the other.
Just taking it at its face value, we know that what you've said is wrong, since the whole situation in California involves making farmland out of desert. Clearly, that is NOT the natural habitat to which almonds or many of these other crops belong. They may grow better there than in their natural habitat because we're able to artificially produce a habitat that is more suitable to them, but that doesn't mean that they can't grow elsewhere.
Moreover, they may even be able to grow elsewhere more economically. The costs for farmers are being pushed down artificially by the heavy subsidies on the price of water. Should the prices rise to be commensurate to use, it could quickly become the case that almond production moves to some other place where it's more cost effective. Even with a shorter growing season elsewhere (after all, it's hard to compete with the ideal conditions provided by deserts once you find a way around the pesky "no water" issue), farmers will at some point find it to be cheaper to move elsewhere, since we have no shortage of land suitable for almonds.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who feeds cows almonds and avocados? Cows eat grasses and corn. I don't think California grows that.
And growing rice, a textbook wetland type of crop, in a place without sufficient water doesn't make a whole lot of sense. California should stick to growing things that are suited to the land available.
It's called pooling costs. That's what insurance does.
Caucasians were uninvited.
But you are helped massively by the sheer amount of commerce which happens in California. It's weird you accept that money gladly and without question, yet the moment you are asked to possibly start thinking of contributing a little back so that commerce can continue, you develop short-sightedness and a bad case of Libertarianism...
a majority of California farms also still use flood irrigation.
still.
during the current record drought.
people like to complain that the state is controlled by enviro lefties...but if they simply visited more than just the coastal cities they'd learn they really have no clue what they're talking about. big business, particularly big ag, is what really controls the state.
the recent harsh water restrictions?
they don't apply to agriculture.
which is pathetically stupid.
like taking time to put a bandaid on a paper cut, while bleeding out from a severed leg.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
concerted opposition from Northern Californians, environmentalist groups
You have trouble reading ?
Or we could invest in cost-effective desalination...
Your ad here. Ask me how!
There's your problem.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Problem is that most of the oldest water rights are held by farms that produce water-intensive crops.
Stop growing water-intensive crops in a semi-desert.
No, seriously, just stop. ...
No, I meant it.
Meantime, Seattle continues to expand while using 1/4 the water per person that California uses. We use local plants instead of lawns, water deeply once a week, don't water when the sun is up (cuts salt impacts and water use in half), and recycle our grey water.
And our fusion reactor is ready to power the lasers if you try to steal our water. (no, not a joke)
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, but if you move to NY, you can do this: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/vid...
And I think it's obvious that's worth more than family.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
After "somehow wresting water rights" from Easterners? In case you haven't noticed, the reason the West tends to get little water these days is that all of their storms get pushed north by high pressure systems, and then land south once again smack-dab in the center of the US. Easterners tend to be desperate to get rid of their winter rains in the last few years, they don't like their flooded homes.
But if you're spoiling for a fight, which your tone through this thread suggests, then fine. You don't want to help pay for problems related to Western drought? Well then Westerners don't want to pay for any of the "omg, horrible winter" problems that people in the northeast, mid-west, and south have had for the last few years. They'll pull out of any disaster relief for the Atlantic area that gets hit by hurricanes. They'll pull out of help for people in the midwest when a tornado demolishes their towns. They'll pull out any help for people with torrential rain and the blizzards that never seemed to end this year. After all, easterners don't have to live in areas where the rains pour into their houses. They could just move west.
Or, we could decide that yes, we actually are a country that has socially evolved beyond being a few regional tribes fighting each other all the time.
But you are helped massively by the sheer amount of commerce which happens in California. It's weird you accept that money gladly and without question, yet the moment you are asked to possibly start thinking of contributing a little back so that commerce can continue, you develop short-sightedness and a bad case of Libertarianism...
"Selective Libertarianism?" Interesting idea.
More and more of the treated wastewater is being reused now though only a few places recycle it back into the main drinking water supply. Most ends up for agricultural use and for things like golf courses, parks, etc.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.