How California Is Winning the Drought

An anonymous reader writes: California is in its fifth year of drought; the past four years have been the driest four-year period in recorded history, and the hottest as well. There have been consistent worries about how it will affect California's residents and its economy — but somehow, the state still seems to be doing fine. "In 2014, the state's economy grew 27 percent faster than the country's economy as a whole — the state has grown faster than the nation every year of the drought. ... The drought has inspired no Dust Bowl-style exodus. California's population has grown faster even as the drought has deepened."

The article makes the case that California is pioneering the water preservation and governance techniques that will be helpful elsewhere in the country if the global climate continues to warm. "The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California now supplies roughly 19 million people in six counties, and it uses slightly less water than it did 25 years ago, when it supplied 15 million people. That savings — more than one billion gallons each day — is enough to supply all of New York City." The article notes, however, that this resilience won't last forever — if the drought continues for several more years, California will be in trouble despite their water-saving tactics.

Comments

There is no reason for any drought to continue

[fustakrakich]

Desalination is cheaper than not having water at all. Whether it is cheaper than litigation over rights and usage, or outright war, I don't know.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

The response to the drought by people and local governments has been great. If you go outside in a residential area of the bay area, you'll see plenty of brown lawns. Farmers have adapted by using more efficient irrigation techniques. Overall, California is capable of surviving the drought, or even a longer one.

The biggest problem is the state government. The state government manages water like it manages money: when a good year comes, they find some project to use it on, ignoring that there will not always be so much water/money. When the bad year inevitably comes, the resources have been allocated too many places, and there is a deficit. Unfortunately you can't borrow water the way you can borrow money.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[ottawanker]

Desalination requires equipment and sometimes energy, neither of which falls out of the sky.

I'm pretty sure energy does fall out of the sky. Some of these desalination plants use solar power.

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Solar-desalination-plant-5326024.php

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[ChrisMaple]

Typically of the anti-rich, your hatred obliterates any semblance of reason. Why would you waste good fertilizer and pollute a river by throwing a dead body in it?

Burlap isn't free. Why ruin a perfectly good burlap bag?

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[thinkwaitfast]

sometimes energy, neither of which falls out of the sky.

The overwhelming amount of energy on the planet (well over 99.99999%) does in fact fall out of the sky.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[blue trane]

Needless death by dehydration is against the General Welfare. Government is mandated to provide for the general Welfare. Government should create money (because government has the constitutional mandate to coin money and regulate the value thereof) to fund water transfers or environmentally-friendly desalination plants in California.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[CanadianMacFan]

Farmers have responded by pumping water from the aquifers at an unsustainable rate. The farmers with more money have been able to drill deeper wells to get more water leaving poorer farms behind. Yes, they have invested in water saving technologies but they are still using too much.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

The farmers with more money have been able to drill deeper wells to get more water leaving poorer farms behind.

It's not about 'richer' farms or 'poorer' farms, anyone can afford to dig a deeper well. The main problem is finding someone to do it......some drillers have waiting lists 8 months long. If you can't wait that long, you're in trouble.

Yes, they have invested in water saving technologies but they are still using too much.

There is plenty of water for farmers and city folk........once again, you ignored my point that it's a management problem, not a "greedy city slicker" or "greedy farmer" problem. Both farmers and city dwellers are responding fairly well.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[blue trane]

Borrow money to create more clean water. The water is not being used up. The earth's water is constant. The only real scarcity in California is of the knowledge needed to recycle water.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[andymadigan]

Desalination is not, however, cheaper than not having almonds. Before we shell out billions (and generate more pollution) legal reforms will be needed to eliminate this "senior water rights" nonsense. Then the costs of any new infrastructure can be spread amongst all water users, according to usage.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

That's a good idea, it would certainly be a better use of funds than building a high-speed rail from Bakersfield to Madera.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[khallow]

What would be the point? You can't drink money.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[blue trane]

I repeat: the real shortage in California is knowledge. Create money to facilitate the increase of knowledge, and everything is abundant. The more you know, the less you need.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's not the only two issues, unfortunately. If you take the size of the population, the length of the coastline, and the existing sea currents into consideration, there could be issues with brine rejection. You need to reject about 35 kg of salt per cubic meter of desalinated water. California is 40M people along a ~1400km coast line. That's about 29 people per meter of coast. So there's quite a lot of brine you'd have to get rid of somehow, preferably in the deeper parts of the continental shelf rather than right next to the coast.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Anonymous Coward]

Use the salt byproduct to store energy from solar plants.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[khallow]

I repeat: the real shortage in California is knowledge.

You can't learn money either. Money creation just devalues money that is already in use in exchange for concentrating wealth in the hands of some of the most notably incompetent and corrupt organizations of our day. I'm not just not feeling it.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

Wow, someone sounds angry. Calm down, man.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[PopeRatzo]

The biggest problem is the state government.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, to whom the summary gives credit, was actually created by "state government".

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[dgatwood]

Angry? No. Cynical? Yes.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

"You are welcome on my lawn."

I hope your lawn is green.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

You show your cynicism through rage.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[driblio]

That's a really good point. Life would be so much easier IF ONLY energy fell out of the sky...

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Doppler00]

It's amazing how much the politicians push the common people to "do their part", which amounts to saving a minuscule fraction of the water when the real problem is agriculture/environmental usages of the water. So you have a large percentage of the population wasting their time killing their lawn, spending $10k on drought resistant landscaping, etc. People feel good they have a dead front lawn but in the end, they are not really contributing anything meaningful to the solution, but the politicians did a good job making them feel like they did their part. Meanwhile, actual solutions to the problems are left unexplored.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[driblio]

Nope, money creation takes it out of the hands (or devalues the hands) of the rich - those that need, and use money effectively, the least.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[K. S. Kyosuke]

With the amount of salt getting produced, you soon wouldn't have any place to put it into.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[blue trane]

Shoot it into the sun.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[driblio]

Angry? Yes. Idiot? Hell yeah. Looking forward to the fifth part in your trilogy. Hope it as good as the famous one.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[blue trane]

Private sector money creation is occurring at the rate of $30 trillion per year, according to a Bain report. Total world capital is approaching $1 quadrillion, exceeding world GDP by at least an order of magnitude. Where's the devaluation? The dollar is getting stronger.

Your quantity theory of money has very serious empirical problems. Sometimes you quantity theorists like to cite "velocity of money" as the reason we haven't seen the predicted rise in inflation. However, you are not measuring velocity of money; you are calculating it after the fact to make your predictions come out right, in hindsight. Velocity of money is a fudge variable.

Private sector money turns over a lot. Banks are constantly lending and borrowing in the Fed Funds and Repo markets, putting off final settlement for another day. Money created by the private sector does not simply sit in bank accounts; it is turning over, daily. So you can't use Velocity of money as an excuse why your Quantity Theory of Money fails to predict.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Dahamma]

Income certainly doesn't reflect a person's worth.

ObVIOUSLY, depending on the definition of "worth", it does. Especially the financial definition when discussing paying for a desalinization plant.

Then again, one person worth several billion dollars could pay for a plant, provide permanent water for 100,000 people, and then still have several billion minus one dollars left. (In fact, that's pretty much how Saudi Arabia gets its water. And all those people had to sacrifice was most of their basic freedoms...)

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[dgatwood]

There's no rage there. I'm not quite sure how you read it that way.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[towermac]

Heh.

You may have won the internet today.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Dahamma]

In most parts of the California coast the Ocean depth drops off to 300-500m+ after a few km. Running a few km of pipeline to the ocean floor would be one of the most trivial expenses of the project. Doesn't even have to be done well or monitored that closely. Unlike oil or gas pipelines, a few leaks makes no difference.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[blue trane]

You remind me of a character in a Rockford Files episode who was watering her lawn in the middle of a drought (in the 1970s) and phoning her local radio host to proclaim that the drought was the result of the liberals in Washington selling all our water to the A-rabs.

The more things change...

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

Mainly because you sounded angry, that's about it. Don't worry, getting tone right is one of the hardest things for a writer to do. Sometimes the tone sounds angry even when you don't intend it.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[PopeRatzo]

I hope your lawn is green.

It is, because I live in a place where there's plenty of fresh water that falls, unbidden, from the sky.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[ShanghaiBill]

it would certainly be a better use of funds than building a high-speed rail from Bakersfield to Madera.

It is a logical fallacy to justify doing something stupid merely by pointing out that we are already doing something else that is even stupider. Each proposal should be justified, or not, on its own merits.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[ShanghaiBill]

One major reason that people have lawns in California is to serve as a buffer zone from fires.

Gravel or sand would work better.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

It is a logical fallacy to assume that merely because the proposal wasn't justified in the original post, it is therefore a fallacy. The fallacy you have committed has a name: it is the fallacy fallacy.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[mrchaotica]

Just let the water evaporate out of it and bulldoze it into a big pile. Then package it and sell it as fancy sea salt.

If the pile gets too big, start re-filling the salt mines.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Osgeld]

not protecting a invasive parasitic animal to artificially cause a drought is cheaper as well

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[dryeo]

Sounds like here in the temperate rainforest, at least until this year when the California drought spread north.
Things change.

Re: There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Anonymous Coward]

Desalination requires equipment and sometimes energy, neither of which falls out of the sky.

You're sure about that? I was just outside and a lot of energy was falling from the sky.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[dgatwood]

The idiots are the ones who actually believe that the drought is the root cause of our water shortage. It isn't. It just made the real problem harder to ignore. The real problem is that California's population has grown by about 30% in the past 20 years, and the water system hasn't kept up. That's a staggering rate of growth. Keeping people out isn't realistic, which means the water system absolutely must be expanded in every respect—more water storage (whether dams or otherwise), more desalination plants, etc. to meet the growing needs of that growing population. We haven't been doing that adequately; we've been cutting corners to save money, allowing the safety margins to get smaller and smaller, and now we're paying the piper. We need to not make that mistake again going forward.

The problem with conservation is that people mistakenly try to treat it as the final solution to problems. It isn't; it can't be. When it comes to a limited resource, conservation can only be effective as a stop-gap workaround until either an alternate source for a scarce resource can be found or an alternative to that resource can be found. Otherwise, population growth alone will eventually exceed the limits of conservation, at which point you are totally and completely screwed. And when you're in your fourth consecutive year of drought and some people are still saying, "We don't need to build desalination plants because the drought has to end eventually, and the next one might be far away", you have to start wondering about their sanity, because yes, the next one might be in thirty years, or it might be in three.

The mind-boggling thing is that the people who support anthropogenic global warming tend to be the very same folks who are saying that we don't need desalination plants because we're going to get back to normal levels of wetness soon. We might, but there's at least as good a chance that this is the new normal. If we aren't prepared for that, we're signing our own death sentences.

So yes, conservation might get us through the drought. Then again, if the folks predicting the weather are right, the drought might end this winter anyway, making any further reductions in usage largely moot. And if the AGW folks are right, we might go right back into a drought in a couple of years. No matter which of those possible scenarios pans out, the true underlying problem—a water system whose capacity has not kept up with the population growth—will still be there.

My biggest concern when it comes to our water system is that a year from now, people will say, "The drought is over. There's no need to build this expensive infrastructure. That money can better be spent on [insert more short-term need here]." And then just as before, nothing will get done, and we'll end up in the same boat a decade or two down the line, only at that point, everybody will be conserving as much as they can without causing serious problems, so the conservation efforts will become more and more draconian.

Folks need to take a serious look at the projected population growth, assume that we're rapidly approaching peak conservancy already, and do the math. Then, the infrastructure needs to get out ahead of the curve instead of being behind it. Anything less than that is just asking for a disaster down the road. After all, you don't build a computer system to handle your capacity needs right now, because you'll be screwed in a year. You build a computer system to handle your projected capacity needs over the next several years. Our water system is fundamentally no different.

And just to be clear, I was being facetious about wasting as much water as you can. Doing it for a week might be an interesting way to protest and cause the water board folks to wet their pants, panic, and get more insistent about building the additional infrastructure we need, but doing it long-term would obviously be catastrophic, because we'd run out of water before the winter. The point of that bit of satire

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[GLMDesigns]

You need to read up on your constitutional history. You don't understand the phrase "general welfare" as it applies to the US Constitution.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

The overwhelming amount of energy on the planet (well over 99.99999%) does in fact fall out of the sky.

Water, in fact, falls out of the sky as well. Think about that for a minute.

Re: There is no reason for any drought to continue

[davell logan]

This comment makes pefect since.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[dbIII]

The idiots are the ones who actually believe that the drought is the root cause of our water shortage. It isn't. It just made the real problem harder to ignore.

That's a very good point - droughts are going to happen and have to be planned for instead of the idiotic short-term views of many in politics. Many of the people that work for them are not stuck in the short term. For instance, Californian firefighters have been organised to the point where some of the equipment and some staff spend the off season in Australia - thus sharing costs and resulting in staff with twice the experience, including experience of how to deal with fires in truly severe droughts which I'm sure is pretty handy right now. Hopefully there are others looking offshore to see how other places have dealt with more severe droughts.
While population is definitely an issue the amount of water consumed per person is still at an astonishingly high level.

but at the same time, stop looking for more and more aggressive ways to conserve water.

They have barely started in comparison to other places that are drought prone. There is a lot that can be done with "grey" industrial water.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[toadlife]

Population growth has next to nothing to do with California's water crisis. Agriculture uses 80% of California's developed water. California's water problem lies in the vast expanse of perennial cash crops between the Grapevine and Stockton.

The smart approach is for agricultural production to be curtailed during these droughts so that water can be allocated to much more economically productive urban and industrial use.

Desalinization would make sense if there were no better option, but there is.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That would require about 140 kWh per kg of salt, under the best conditions (some kind of 100% non-rocket propulsion system, such as an ideal electromagnetic accelerator or similar). About 5 MWh per cubic meter, or about 870 MWh per capita per year. That would increase Californian electricity use by two orders of magnitude.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There's still a dimensional problem in that you are still spreading the brine flux across a one-dimensional boundary, since the brine most likely won't spread vertically for a considerable time period. The influence of point sources such as individual desal plants at least decreases with 1/r, but covering the coast of California with desal plants to cover for a substantial portion of Californian water use would make it almost constant for at least tens of kilometers, if not hundreds (until you hit some strong ocean current, and *assuming* that the stratification won't prevent the current from actually diluting it, and even then, the effect might be limited). That's why ocean-wide evaporation is so important - it increases concentration of the salt in the ocean across two extra dimensions; first, it happens over the whole surface, not along coasts, and second, its gradual nature should prevent the creation of haloclines, limiting localized salinity increase across the third dimension.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Memnos]

Umm.. you do realize that by far the greatest amount of energy available to us on the planet at our current level of technology does, quite literally, fall out of the sky in the form of EMR. The cost of using it, which I think is what you were getting at, is another matter.

Re: There is no reason for any drought to continue

[O('_')O_Bush]

That sounds complicated. We should just annex Mexico like Russia did with Crimea and turn Mexicans into Americans.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[khallow]

Nope, money creation takes it out of the hands (or devalues the hands) of the rich - those that need, and use money effectively, the least.

"Need" doesn't mean "use money effectively". The two tend to be inverse correlations IMHO with people who need money the most being ones who use it remarkably ineffectively.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Barsteward]

"Desalination requires equipment and sometimes energy, neither of which falls out of the sky." - have you not seen that great orange ball in the sky?

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[khallow]

Private sector money creation is occurring at the rate of $30 trillion per year

No, the report in question refers to capital not money. The huge distinction is that most capital is not liquid (meaning among other things, low velocity of money for trade in that capital) nor easy to transport and hence, can't be used in the sense of money.

Total world capital is approaching $1 quadrillion, exceeding world GDP by at least an order of magnitude. Where's the devaluation? The dollar is getting stronger.

And next year, it might be worth a tenth that. Valuation of capital is very treacherous both because it depend in huge degree on what other people will pay for it and second, because most such capital would not retain its nominal value where someone to try to sell the entire asset as a whole. A classic example is a high tech company which has a high valuation, but only a small fraction of the company's stock is actually for sale. Hence, an artificially high valuable can be maintained merely because there isn't much to pump up.

Your quantity theory of money has very serious empirical problems.

My argument had nothing to do with that. Instead, it's strictly about using the right tool for the right job. A desalination plant, which incidentally would be considered capital (and hence, "money" by your ludicrously broad meaning even though no one will ever trade anything, including desalination plants, in units of desalination plants), is an appropriate tool for delivering water to a population. True money is not. Same goes for your assertion that "knowledge" is somehow lacking here. More money won't help any more than more cheerleaders or more paperclips will help.

Sometimes you quantity theorists like to cite "velocity of money" as the reason we haven't seen the predicted rise in inflation.

Which is a true observation and not just something that "quantity theorists" like to "cite". It's also worth noting that money creation is not as large as you cite.

Private sector money turns over a lot. Banks are constantly lending and borrowing in the Fed Funds and Repo markets, putting off final settlement for another day. Money created by the private sector does not simply sit in bank accounts; it is turning over, daily. So you can't use Velocity of money as an excuse why your Quantity Theory of Money fails to predict.

Just because I wake up every morning doesn't mean that I'm equally active the rest of the day. And not all turnover is equal. For example, constant lending and borrowing in Fed markets doesn't matter much, if you're not in those markets.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[currently_awake]

1-change water rights laws so you can take the water from the farmers. 2-tripple the water supply overnight by taking all the farmers water. 3-profit!

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[currently_awake]

More water falls from the sky than is required for all the current water uses in California. And most of that water is dumped into the ocean. Maybe they should capture it and use it for drinking water?

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[currently_awake]

Farmers deliberately use as much water as they can, in order to protect their water rights. Use it or lose it is the law of the land. Maybe they should fix that.

Re: There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

Why stop there. The Darian gap is the obvious defense-able line. Columbia makes a nice 'friendly' buffer state.

Make an honest woman out of Canada at the same time.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

Desal plants don't put out saturated brine. What they do put out is further thinned by mixing with sea water and it is about at temp due to long underwater pipe runs. As you say put the outlet down current of some turbulence producing landscapes and you are done. Pig the pipe twice a year and be grateful salt water mixes pretty easily unless there is a salinity _and_ temperature difference. Specifically colder saltier water below hotter fresher water. Exceptions right at freezing where water has weird physics.

I'd be amazed if the state of CA _ever_ put more salt into the ocean, vs. the flow of rivers required to maintain fisheries.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

The Owens valley accepted change. If you think anybody is giving S Cal any more water you are crazy. Thank dog they obstructed LA until all the dry season water rights are gone anyhow.

When Palm Springs/LA/San Diego 'accepts change' and plows under their lawns, they won't need more water.

When farmers get cash offers for their water, they will change crops by themselves. Farmers have limited political pull, it's the big Cities that have politicians on their knees and 'working'.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

Not how water rights work. You could back in the day, establish rights by using more, but it's all spoken for today. You don't have to use your maximum, they had wet and dry years when the law was established and the law reflects this reality. If you don't use your maximum, the next most senior right holder gets some that year, just as if there had been a little more rain that year.

Only open rights remaining are storage during rainy season. For which nobody has any new lakes/dams.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

So you favor farmers being allowed to sell their water rights to urban water districts? Despite the right being explicitly for agriculture? Growing people?

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[fustakrakich]

No, that is what leads to war. No 'taking' is necessary. And the rights of those downstream need to be considered, and we shouldn't let people claim natural resources as property and displace others anyway. What they produce is their property.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

Nonsense. The cities pay far more taxes. Talk about cash cows, even with the dirtbags sucking tit, the middle class pays and pays.

Farmers have lawyers and centuries old law that isn't going away. It's a mess. The market approach should allow farmers to sell their water rights. But the rights are for agriculture and there is another farmer with a slightly less senior right that is going to sue if the most senior right holder sells ag water for urban or industrial use. Fucking lawyers get richer.

Re: There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

He gets his world view from old TV shows. Only people he speaks to are his mom and pizza delivery guy.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Khyber]

"there could be issues with brine rejection"

Not even. That brine can be turned into so many things it's stupid to even bother putting it back into the ocean. Molten salt power storage. Sea salt micro-nutrient fertilizer (look up SEA-90.) Seasoning. Sodium bases and Chlorine bases for medicine. Baking powder and baking soda. Sea Salt crystals and figurines for the hippies. Sodium Silicate for hydroponics. The uses are many and varied.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Khyber]

"Farmers have limited political pull"

Given 80% of the food grown here in CA is exported, bullshit. Those farmers quit growing, CA's economy goes straight down the tubes as the agricultural sector takes everything else with it. Tech is a SMALL part of CAs overall economy. Agriculture/horticulture is much, MUCH larger.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[surd1618]

I came to say this as well, and add some personal experience. I grew up in Lancaster, and area called the Antelope Valley in the Mojave Desert, the high desert area halfway between LA and Bakersfield. When my grandpa was a boy, in the 1930's, the water table was between 3 and 30 feet underground. The area was excellent for alfalfa production, and farmers sucked up all of the groundwater, while simultaneously LA redirected streams in the mountains, that fed the aquifer, into their water supply. There are photographs from the 30's showing the region as arid, but black locust trees grew everywhere. Now the water table is below 2000 feet underground, and the region hardly supports desert scrub. There's one small hole in the ground, that if you drop a rock down, it rings thunderously for 10-20 seconds. And there's no more farming in the Antelope Valley, of course.

A huge el niño is forming, and there's going to be some relief, but the next time this happens, the rest of the state is going to be just like the Antelope Valley, because the legislature is doing nothing to fix the problem. Using up the groundwater changes the ecology, and it is really disheartening, because California is being ruined by these practices.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

Do you ever get tired of being so wrong?

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[PopeRatzo]

What does "harvest rainwater" mean? If rain falls on my lawn and amaryllis, is that harvesting rainwater?

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[PopeRatzo]

There are several states, california included that have made it illegal to 'harvest' rainwater. The stupid continues.

Just for the record, that is a bunch of Alex Jones right-wing survivalist nonsense.

Note Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/politics...

There are some local laws (none at the state level) that make certain types of reservoirs illegal when you don't have water rights. Those kind of laws go back to 1925, and none are in California.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[sfcat]

Tech is a SMALL part of CAs overall economy. Agriculture/horticulture is much, MUCH larger.

Ag and Mining is about 2% and Tech is about 15% but do continue...

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[ewibble]

No the money you create goes directly to the rich, then "trickles down" to the poor so in the end the poor have less as a proportion of the total money.

Even if you give the money directly to the poor that money will quickly be sucked up the rich by charging more for goods and services.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Uberbah]

The real problem is that California's population has grown by about 30% in the past 20 years, and the water system hasn't kept up.

Er, no. Residential use is barely over 10% of the state's water consumption, and much of that goes into swimming pools and golf courses for the 1%. 80% of the water is used by agriculture, which makes up 2% of the state's GDP.

You could move out half the population tomorrow, and the other half could stop bathing entirely, and you wouldn't notice the difference.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Uberbah]

So the taxpayers, who aren't the source of the water shortage, should spend hundreds of billions to subsidize the profits of ranches and almond farmers, who are the source of the water shortage. Makes perfect fascist sense.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[ewibble]

To me worth (to the economy) is how much your net to contribution to the economy will be in the future. Not how much money you have now, earned in the past, or where given. If you are simply collecting rent, on old ideas, or property, you are worthless to society no matter how much net worth you have.

Money builds nothing, it is the people who build, design the plant, mine the material, provide logistics, ... that provide benefit to the economy, the guy that goes and says: right transfer that money does very little but gets the most reward. If they died tomorrow someone else would get that money and could do exactly the same thing.

But you can make up any arbitrary meaning of worth you like, I suppose. The currently most accepted one "surprisingly" favors the wealthy, even though it does not seem to be the most logical one.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

I am sure there are a great many things that don't make sense to you, because you don't understand the situation.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Dahamma]

To me worth (to the economy) is how much your net to contribution to the economy will be in the future. Not how much money you have now

That's one (reasonable, but personal) definition. Another is "net worth", which is purely a financial definition of assets - liabilities.

I don't really disagree with your sentiment, except that "net worth" is in no way arbitrary, in fact it's the least arbitrary of any definition since it involves no judgement of future "value" or moral imperative.

The currently most accepted one "surprisingly" favors the wealthy

Words can have more than one meaning, you know. There is no "accepted" meaning of "worth" or many thousands of other words, there is just context.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Dahamma]

Drano, maybe not. CLR (or similar) why not? Most of the ingredients are non-toxic, and it wouldn't take that much effort to formulate something completely non-toxic.

You do understand that water mains FROM this desal plant are not the size of your toilet pipe, right? o why should the brine exhaust pipes be any different? I remember seeing the mains they buried to run water from Lake Michigan to the Chicago suburbs in the late 80's. You could stand in one any barely touch the top. That's a LOT of buildup before they need maintenance...

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Dahamma]

Yeah, I get the idea that the OP is arguing from zero topical knowledge. All of this is SUCH a smaller problem than actually separating the salt from the water as cost effectively as possible.

Money (and by extension R&D and other resources) WILL solve this problem if necessary. And clearly waste salt is one of the simplest ones to solve.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[dgatwood]

Er, no. Residential use is barely over 10% of the state's water consumption, and much of that goes into swimming pools and golf courses for the 1%. 80% of the water is used by agriculture, which makes up 2% of the state's GDP.

That's technically true, but at the same time, it isn't a very accurate picture. 80% of the water that is actually consumed (which ends up being only about 39% of the total water supply) is used by agriculture, but even in the worst-case watering scheme, at least half of that water ends up soaking into the ground, where much of it eventually goes back into aquifers, where it later gets pulled back out by pumps and used to water other crops or provide drinking water.

By contrast, the water that we use in our households (ignoring the small percentage of houses with septic tanks) typically ends up getting dumped into rivers, where nearly all of it ends up either evaporating or flowing out into the ocean. In effect, most of that water is basically lost until the next time it rains. So the real impact of agriculture is likely considerably less than that 80% number suggests.

Also, remember that agriculture is, at least to some degree, proportional to the population. So population growth increases agricultural water consumption, assuming all other factors remain the same.

You're certainly correct that reducing agricultural water consumption can help as a short-term means of reducing our state's water needs. However, as I understand it, the general consensus is that we are already past the point where the added cost of reducing that consumption through changes in farming techniques and technology exceeds the cost of simply bringing in more water through other means (e.g. massive desalination). So the only really practical way to reduce agricultural consumption is not through improved technology, but rather by growing crops that require less water.

Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. The reason California grows many of those water-hungry crops is that it has fertile enough soil and high enough rainfall to make it practical, which isn't true for most of the planet's surface. That's why 80% of the world's almonds are grown here, for example. And, of course, by some measures, meat and dairy make up about half of California's water use by themselves.

So basically, we have a choice: Give up a lot of foods that people like (no more meat, no more dairy, no more almonds) or we find ways to ensure that we can produce enough water to continue producing those water-hungry foods. Want to keep eating meat and drinking milk? Then those animals are going to still need water.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Khyber]

No, because if the Agricultural economy collapses, everything else will go with it. Do you not understand the domino effect?

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[fustakrakich]

:-) You know, rain barrels and dams. Anyway the argument goes that people downstream have a right to the runoff. I don't know how to resolve an issue like that.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Khyber]

Your 2% figure came from fucking 2008 *IN WIKIPEDIA* known for being out of date and wrong. Ag is MUCH larger now with new hydroponics and LED technology, and if things go to shit with Ag/Hort everything else is going with it.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phorm]

"It's not about 'richer' farms or 'poorer' farms, anyone can afford to dig a deeper well. The main problem is finding someone to do it......some drillers have waiting lists 8 months long. If you can't wait that long, you're in trouble."

Which comes down to richer and poorer.

I.E. If most people can only afford "Bob's well service" who charges $200/h, Bob is going to be booked solid.

Meanwhile, "ACE well service" charges $1200/h. They're less booked up as fewer people can afford their rates, so the richer farmers can get faster service.

It's pretty much the same thing with any type of contracting work, in most places.
Here, if I wanted to redo my driveway in the middle of summer. When looking for a concrete guy, I found that I could pay more and get a contractor fairly quickly (for the ones that would even deem to do my little project). Alternately, I can get in line for the cheaper guy and wait longer.

To be fair, the more expensive guy was usually a company with many employees and various pieces of equipment, which allows them to get the jobs done faster than the smaller guys as well.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[ksheff]

someone's nice green lawn has little or no contribution to the economy. Like the original poster said, it's an expense that doesn't produce any revenue.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[toadlife]

No. I favor their rights being forcefully taken away by the government.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

I thought as much. Fuck you.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

Politicians steel their money mostly from middle class suburbanites. They care not a bit about underlying economics, they just want the money.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[toadlife]

I'll take that as a compliment.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

That's a nice hypothetical situation there. If you have data to back it up, that would be very interesting.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[HornWumpus]

Have you ever spent any time in CA? Because the central valley is at the mercy of the big cities for government services. It gets nothing. The vast majority of the money is spent in and for the benefit of LA and SF. Nowhere else has the votes.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[shutdown -p now]

It's not nonsense, and the Snopes link that you gave only pertains to this specific case in Oregon. There are, in fact, laws on state level that make it illegal to specifically collect rainwater on your property. I have no idea if any are in California, but they certainly exist in Colorado, for example: "unless you own a specific type of exempt well permit, you cannot collect rainwater in any other manner, such as storage in a cistern or tank, for later use".

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[PopeRatzo]

I have no idea if any are in California, but they certainly exist in Colorado [state.co.us], for example: "unless you own a specific type of exempt well permit, you cannot collect rainwater in any other manner, such as storage in a cistern or tank, for later use

I don't doubt you, but my guess is that law goes back a long time. It's not a case of big brother stopping you from collecting rainwater for your lawn because of global warming.

Also, do you happen to know the last time the law was enforced? It sounds efforts have been made to repeal it, too, and one bill has been passed to make it so that new residential development allows for rainfall collection. You can already set up rooftop water collection, by permit, according to your link.

We also don't know why this law was originally put into effect. It might have been to prevent Ned and Uncle Jimbo from disconnecting from the municipal water supply and trying to use only rainfall and grey water for drinking on their compound, or to prevent mosquito outbreaks.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[shutdown -p now]

My understanding is that these laws started to appear pretty much as soon as there was significant number of settlers and some organized government on those territories, same as other water rights laws - so second half of 19th century.

They actually make sense when there's not much water to go around, so something that you take for yourself in that manner also happens to be something that your neighbors don't get. Obviously a single barrel won't make a difference, but this is something that scales easily and can make an observable effect. It was easier to just ban it outright than to try to draw the line. They're experimenting with some limits now, but it's more akin to welfare - all water is still owned, but a (relatively small) part of it is allocated for redistribution.

My general answer to people who complain about this is to not live in states like Colorado if that's a problem for them. Any environment where natural resources are scarce is going to have a tragedy of the commons issue about those scarce resources unless some central management and allocation system is in place; water is not an exception. And it's not like there is shortage of places in US where water is abundant and not strictly rationed, for those who prefer it that way.

California is kinda sorta special in a sense that it had abundant water until recently. But then the problem was known for a long time, it's just that people were in denial or simply ignoring it as "not for our day". Those who were paying attention knew that this would be the endgame all along, and had ample time to move or otherwise prepare for rationing. As for the rest, their troubles shall serve as an abject lesson on the long-term effects of environmental denialism.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[RespekMyAthorati]

There is plenty of water for farmers and city folk..

There won't be enough for either in a few years if they keep draining the aquifer.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Uberbah]

LOL, phantom. Okay, so explain why those using 12% of the water should make heavy investments to benefit those who are using 80% of the water, yet only contribute 2% to the state's GDP? Remember to bring your stash of 'shrooms and acid, as such an explanation isn't going to be possible without them.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

yet only contribute 2% to the state's GDP?

GDP contribution is a retarded way to allocate a resource such as water, and you should feel stupid for attempting that argument.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[Uberbah]

I'm seeing lots of butthurt, but not a quantitative or qualitative argument. Got one? Why should 12% of the water users fork out to subsidize those using 80%? Do you also insist that Central Valley Farmers fork over billions in taxes to pay for mass transit in the coastal cities?

Makes as much sense.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

Do you also insist that Central Valley Farmers fork over billions in taxes to pay for mass transit in the coastal cities?

They do. There's a reason some people want to divide the state up, so all these accounts and needs can be separated. That way farmers take their water, and city people take their transit.
Why does it bother you that city people pay for water, but not that farmers also pay for mass transit? Maybe you're biased.

I'm seeing lots of butthurt, but not a quantitative or qualitative argument.

I suppose you're reading your own comments, then.

Re:There is no reason for any drought to continue

[phantomfive]

If you want to engage in serious conversation on the topic, I am more than happy to do so. But let's do it seriously, not joking around.

It depends on how long it lasts.

[Todd Palin]

California often has drought, but this one is different. California has numerous large reservoirs that are nearly drained after three plus years of drought. Groundwater is being rapidly depleted. The state started out with lots of water, but the persistent drought has nearly exhausted the reserves. If the situation doesn't change this winter, the problems we see now will seem trivial. Resilience works up to a point, and then it snaps when certain limits are exceeded. California's water supplies are stretched to the limit right now.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[fustakrakich]

California's water supplies are stretched to the limit right now.

[Standing on the beach]: Funny, the tide doesn't look that low..

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[Gavagai80]

The far north of California (where it rains 60 inches a year) has more than enough fresh water to supply the rest of the state if you build the infrastructure to move it and get the courts to agree to the environmental impact somehow.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[phantomfive]

Is it? Why is lake Shasta at 42% capacity then ( looks like this)?

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[Anonymous Coward]

California's water supplies are stretched to the limit right now.

[Standing on the beach]: Funny, the tide doesn't look that low..

Good to know you can drink salt water with fish pee and poo and God knows what else in it.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[Anonymous Coward]

Turning sea water into drinkable water is an easily solved problem, but doing that costs way more than insisting that other states give up their water so that California doesn't have to bother with water conservation.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[Todd Palin]

You are mis-informed. Redding has an annual rainfall of 35 inches. Some coastal areas have more rain, and some areas have less, but 60 inches of rain isn't even close as an average for Northern California.

Second, if you assume this water is just surplus, you would be wrong again. The water is already allocated, and the courts that you refer to are there to protect those water rights, not to help Southern California steal them.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[Z00L00K]

California survives currently by draining the ground water table - something that has dropped for the last century. And draining ground water means that salt water intrusion may occur, which happens in some places. Ground water loss have been the norm since at least 1964. http://voices.nationalgeograph...

So right now California is draining every available resource just to stay afloat, but in the trend is bad since when even the ground water is depleted there's no reserves.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[PopeRatzo]

You do know fresh waster contains fish pee and poo right?

Does vodka have fish pee and poo in it?

Asking for a friend.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[TeknoHog]

Good to know you can drink salt water with fish pee and poo and God knows what else in it.

I can't drink salt water even without those things. To make matters worse, our local drinking water comes from a lake with fish in it.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[rmdingler]

Let your friend know, at 80+ proof, pee and poo are but an afterthought, taste and palate wise...

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[jez9999]

So right now California is draining every available resource just to stay afloat

Actually I'd say they're more likely to be running aground.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[SuricouRaven]

It's not just expensive per-unit, it has a really horrific capital cost to build the plant - and no politician wants to be responsible for increasing government spending.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[Z00L00K]

I see what you did there! :)

Re: It depends on how long it lasts.

[tsqr]

no politician wants to be responsible for increasing government spending.

I see you're not familiar with the California state legislature.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[currently_awake]

I believe that drinking water should be given priority over all other uses. And that this overrides legal water rights.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[Reziac]

How much water would those reservoirs have today if they hadn't dumped out so much of it in the name of saving a fish? From what I've heard, there went about 2/3rds of CA's stored water.

(fish that arguably aren't native in the first place, but that's a different topic)

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[fustakrakich]

Not quite fish, but close enough?

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[fustakrakich]

We drink seawater all the time. Sometimes nature desalinates it and delivers it to our doorstep. We just have to fill in the gaps.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[rmdingler]

There has to be a limit where, at some point, even bacon is not a beneficial addition.

You know how I know?

Over the course of a large enough trial, even long pig doesn't go with everything...and nothing ever does.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[fustakrakich]

There has to be a limit where, at some point, even bacon is not a beneficial addition.

Eh, could be worse...

Re: It depends on how long it lasts.

[HornWumpus]

Until a significant number of CA legislators have stakes in desalination companies no money will be spent on it. I am familiar with CA legislators.

Re:It depends on how long it lasts.

[shutdown -p now]

35% alcohol? It's not vodka, sorry. Vodka starts at 40%.

Desalination plants.

[ITRambo]

They are expensive, but desalination plants should become a measurable and important source of California water usage. The upcoming Carlsbad plant is a nice start. But, it will only produce 50 million gallons per day. Conservation and grey water usage only goes so far.

Re:Desalination plants.

[TeknoHog]

The upcoming Carlsberg plant is a nice start. But, it will only produce 50 million gallons per day.

FTFY.

Re:Desalination plants.

[TeknoHog]

It's a joke, referring to something else you may want to drink besides water (though being a bulk lager, there isn't a huge difference).

People isn't the issue, farming is

[ebrandsberg]

California cities and towns only get 10% of the water. Farmland gets 80% (or somewhat less depending on how you account for it), yet only produces 2% of the state's GDP. The problem is that they are STILL growing the size of the agriculture sector, planting more almond trees for example, even while the existing almond trees are dying from salt poisoning. The reason the overall GDP hasn't been hurt yet is due to the fact that so much of the water is used for so little of the state's income. When the groundwater is all gone due to lack of planning, things may actually change.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

Farmland gets 80%

I don't know where you're getting that number, it's no more than 60% in a good year. In bad years, it's less.....farmers only got ~20% of their normal allocation this year, and have been restricted for the past several years.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[Doppler00]

So according to that article you posted almost 50% goes to "environmental" uses. Some of that could be recovered better engineering projects to capture the water before it's just dumped into the ocean.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

Yes, there are plenty of ways to improve California's water situation. It's more a failure of management than a lack of water.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[caseih]

People are always the issue. But I take your meaning.

Indeed in the 1930s the dust bowl exodus was by people who were farmers, or from towns and cities who's existence was 100% dependent on agriculture, for food and employment. At most this exodus was numbered in the thousands, not millions or anything. The 1930s dust bowl crisis (including the weather and horrible storms) was caused in large part by soil erosion, not from the drought itself per se. There was no irrigation. The drought triggered it no doubt, but it was the farming practices of the time that brought it on. Once this was realized and tillage techniques were altered, things settled down and droughts, though bringing crop failures, no longer bring the dusty conditions that were common in Oklahoma in the 1930s. If you've ever seen pictures of the dust storms back then, it really was truly apocalyptic-looking, and very frightening.

Things are very different in CA today. For one, the issue is not about soil erosion causing weather patterns and dust storms. For two, if and when CA does run out of water for agriculture, there really will be an exodus, but only from farms and agricultural areas, probably numbered in thousands, not unlike the dust bowl exodus in the 30s. Modern western living brings in foods from all over the world, so people living in a city in CA are, except for state-imposed water rationing, completely oblivious to the devastating effects of drought.

So all's good, right? After the final crisis, farmers will all leave and all that water will become available. And at only a 2% loss of the state's GDP. Win win. Very sad, but when it comes down to the bottom line, this is probably what will happen. Only the total loss to the GDP will be somewhat higher than 2% because there's an entire sector of the economy around agriculture that also generates its own part of the economy, including laborers.

The problem is that across the world, vast amounts of water are required for growing food, and this is not going to change anytime soon. Human survival depends on this. As a farmer myself, I get very discouraged at how out of touch people are with the food they eat. They have not idea where food comes from. Grocery stores stay stocked regardless of local, regional, or even national conditions. Rich people can continue to buy organic, as one person put it, "because [they] care," though they aren't sure what it is they are caring about. Food prices are lower than they've been in decades compared to incomes, but that's contributing to things like growing almonds when more traditional food staples could be grown.

California used to grow grains and other commodities before irrigation was developed. Probably farmers will return this way, but the amount of acres required to make a go of this is quite a bit higher than with vegetables or almonds, so we'll probably see far fewer farms survive, and they will have to be much larger.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Next time a recruiter contacts you, tell him you're looking for $200k (push up all our salaries).

What if I land the job? I don't want a pay cut.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

Next time a recruiter contacts you, tell him you're looking for $200k (push up all our salaries).

What if I land the job? I don't want a pay cut.

Ask for $500k at the outset.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[ChrisMaple]

It's a failure of a specific ideology.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

It's a failure of a specific ideology.

Which ideology?

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[khallow]

At most this exodus was numbered in the thousands, not millions or anything.

According to Wikipedia, it was over a million people moving to California alone from the US Midwest. Overall emigration from Oklahoma and neighboring states to regions outside the area, mostly to the western US, was around four million people.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[konohitowa]

Time to end corporate farming!!!! I'm kidding. I'm from a farm and know that the bulk of "corporate farms" are family farms. Last I checked USDA numbers it was ~96%. Just thought I'd drop in with that before someone that's serious does it.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phizi0n]

The article you linked opens by saying that farms do get 80% of human water usage so you answered yourself. It then goes on to explain that everybody wants to account for water usage in different ways to make them look good or someone else look bad.

As that article explains, it's not feasible to tap into every water source, especially all the little streams and rivers in nor-cal, but I haven't seen anyone clearly explain what water can actually be moved around and what use it is going towards when it is moved. In the bay area we're paying a lot for the hookups but almost nothing for actual water usage and we're way below our pricing tier cap which makes me wonder if any of it could be diverted and why do we have to pay so much to barely use any water?

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

California used to grow grains and other commodities before irrigation was developed.

California grew winter crops before irrigation, because that's when the rains come. You can still see winter oats across the central valley when the canals are empty. When irrigation came, it allowed people to start growing melons.

The reason farmers have switched so much to almonds is because other crops (like peaches) are high-labor, and with recent improvements in shipping technology along with free-trade agreements, means American farmers are competing against the labor costs of peach farmers in Chile. You can harvest 20 acres of almonds with two people, but 20 acres of peaches can require dozens.

That said, California is still extremely important to the US as an agricultural region.

California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list goes on and on). Some of this is due to climate and soil

I don't know why Chile can compete on peaches but not on plums.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

Phantom, you consistently post the dumbest stuff on /.

Thanks man, I appreciate you showing you care.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[Bruce Perens]

The fact that rivers run to the sea isn't really a management problem. There is actually only one river in California without a dam at present, all of the others have controlled levels, hydroelectric generation, and take-outs of much of their water volume for various purposes.

We've already destroyed much of the fisheries and are having trouble recovering them. We might have about 5% of the birds the state once had. The Central Valley, which was swampland only a century ago, has been made a desert. Giant lakes have disappeared.

No surprise if this has changed the weather. A huge heat sink was removed from the environment and there is a perpetual windstorm as cool air is sucked into that valley.

Proper management is not to suck down the remaining 5%, interrupting the flow of rivers to the sea permanently. Proper management is to attach the real economic cost to water delivered to agriculture, rather than to vastly subsidize it.

Yes, this means that farming, and farming jobs, would change. Sorry, you asked more of the land than it could provide forever, your resources have run out, game over.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

The problem is that they are STILL growing the size of the agriculture sector, planting more almond trees for example, even while the existing almond trees are dying from salt poisoning.

They're using Brawndo to water the trees?

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

Proper management is not to suck down the remaining 5%, interrupting the flow of rivers to the sea permanently. Proper management is to attach the real economic cost to water delivered to agriculture, rather than to vastly subsidize it.

What you are complaining about here is a failure of management.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

I've often wondered where the corporate farms are. As I drive through California countryside, most farms I see are smaller than 100 acres. Maybe in the midwest?

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[Bruce Perens]

What you are complaining about here is a failure of management.

But not the one I see signs about whenever I drive on I-5. The latest rash of billboards is "Why are we spending on high-speed rail when that money should be used to build additional water storage right now!".

Farmers, build your own water storage if you want it, I'm finished subsidizing your every expense and I'm taking the train.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[SuricouRaven]

I read politically skewed news sites for entertainment, and there are quite a few influential people on the political right who are calling for those rivers to be cut off entirely. They accuse the liberals of being filthy hippies who will sacrifice humans to save a few fish.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[fustakrakich]

All shortages, water, food, energy, all of it, are caused by politics, which of course bad management is part and parcel. But there is no technical reason to suffer any of it. And the pricing schemes are pure Hollywood accounting.

Lack of water in California, excess in Texas.. The solution is obvious. Build a big giant fat "Keystone" pipeline

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

These political ideas sound mighty libertarian. Maybe you should give ESR an apology.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

I think it might be better to build a high-speed rail, and ship the water in by rail.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[khallow]

approximately 3.5 million people moved out of the Plains states

There you go.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[currently_awake]

Why is America exporting high paying manufacturing jobs when they could export low paying agriculture jobs? Let Mexico grow the food.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[Uberbah]

California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list goes on and on). Some of this is due to climate and soil

The problem with this oft-repeated chestnut is that you can grow most of those crops just as well in Michigan as you can in California, as long as it's not during the winter. Spinach in particular is extremely tolerant of low temperatures.

A sane ag policy would have the midwest growing less corn for livestock and ethanol, and more produce. California would grow produce when the northern part of the country could not, and otherwise plant fruit that cannot grow outside of sunny climates.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[Uberbah]

If the shoe fits. One of my favorites is when you claimed an article said Iran was making bomb parts when it didn't come within a light year of a ten foot pool of suggesting that.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[konohitowa]

Very true. IIRC (I last looked at the USDA info a couple of years ago) it was ~75% family farms.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[khallow]

I misread the following:

In the 1930s in California, the term (often used in contempt) came to refer to very poor migrants from Oklahoma (and nearby states). The Dust Bowl, and the "Okie" migration of the 1930s brought in over a million newly displaced people; many headed to the farm labor jobs advertised in California's Central Valley.

This section is unreferenced as well. Moving on, I since found a rival article which states the following while discussing "Steinbeck's myth":

It should be emphasized, however, that the received story of the great Okie Exodus was not entirely an invention. Instead of Steinbeckâ(TM)s 300,000, there were actually about 90,000 agricultural workers fitting the Okie category who migrated to and settled in Californian farming valleys in the 1930s.

There would have been other immigrants, working outside of the agricultural sector, but it does indicate the level was substantially less than a million people over this time span.

Further, most of the US Midwest wasn't actually affected directly by the dust storms. I gather the Dust Bowl was on the western side of the US Midwest while most of the immigrants to California would have been from outside that region.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[ksheff]

Let Mexico grow the food.

They already do grow a lot of food. Don't you ever check the labels on the produce in the supermarket?

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[khallow]

Sounds like you need a break from the internet. I'm not going to do major research for a light weight discussion on Slashdot. I made an assertion which turned out to be wrong. I agreed with you in the end, because you were right. I don't see the point to this.

This is the internet, numbnuts. Seek out information from credible sources directly pertaining to the subject you're commenting on.

I don't even know who you are, so how can I determine what sources you will have a vague feeling are credible?

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[Uberbah]

Labor is labor, and Michigan is in the United States just as much as California. Detroit's economy has been driven into the shitter by corporate trade laws - so bus people from Detroit to pick garlic and tomatoes grown on surrounding farms. Or are you suggesting that farms in California abuse undocumented immigrants?

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[caseih]

Good correction.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[caseih]

Yes your average grain farm has to be in the thousands of acres to make money. Labor costs are much lower, though. For example, we farm 3000 acres of grains with only 4 people total.

Re:People isn't the issue, farming is

[phantomfive]

we farm 3000 acres of grains with only 4 people total.

That's pretty amazing.

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how you complain about Republicans, but say nothing about the millions that came here illegally.

Re:moo

[rossdee]

That is part of the problem
too many cows in CA

Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

You hear most of the cutting edge health nuts coming from Cali and lately they've been talking about the toxicity levels of plastic in bottled drinking water if left out to age or in the sun. Yet they managed to pour plastic balls in their drinking water reservoir. Didn't anyone go,"Hey, maybe this sounds like a bad idea to California residents concerned with their health?"

Re:Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[Doppler00]

That plastic is poylethelene http://www.latimes.com/local/l.... Same thing used in drinking bottles and the PEX lines in newer homes.

Re:Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[jklovanc]

They are different plastic. The balls are probably made from ABS. The issue with water bottles is the BPA which softens the plastic. There is no BPA in the shade balls. There are some plastic water bottles that are accepted because they are BPA free.

Re:Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[Greyfox]

Nah it's fine. All the plastic is filtered out when they run the water through the asbestos filters!

Re:Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[idji]

Those balls are polyethelene with carbon to make them black. What toxins are you expecting?

Re:Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[Bing Tsher E]

Asbestos would only be a problem if powdered and airborne.

Which, of course, the filters would be eventually, but not while filtering water.

Re:Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The balls are probably made from ABS.

High Density Polyethylene, with carbon black to absorb UV and make them last longer.

HDP is about as safe for drinking water contact as plastic gets, if you don't put plasticizers in it to make it flexible. (While the article didn't say anything about plasticizers, these balls are better off if they're NOT flexible and were built on special-order for the purpose, so I doubt they have anything they didn't need.)

Re:Still surprised Cali put plastic in their water

[Khyber]

The ones anerobic bacteria start producing in the water as those plastic balls help to create an anoxic environment for them to breed in.

The same ones we have to deal with in hydroponics systems.

Winning!

[CptChipJew]

And yet, there's still no drip-irrigation in the central valley...

Re:Winning!

[jklovanc]

Not quite.

One example is Joe Muller & Sons farm in Yolo County, which grows tomatoes, peppers and sunflowers. The farm runs a buried drip irrigation system on 650 acres in the Woodland area. Tom Muller, a partner in the business, said the farm has documented water savings as great as 40 percent. This cuts costs because it means the farm has to buy less water or pump less groundwater from its own wells.

Woodland is in the Central Valley.

Re:Winning!

[phantomfive]

There's plenty of drip-irrigation in the central valley. During the current drought, even more farmers have switched to it.

btw, drip irrigation is only a good thing during droughts. During times when there is enough water, flood irrigation is better for the environment, because it helps replenish the ground supply (and in the case of rice fields, it provides important wetlands for wildlife).

Re:Winning!

[Ungrounded Lightning]

btw, drip irrigation is only a good thing during droughts. During times when there is enough water, flood irrigation is better for the environment, because it helps replenish the ground supply (and in the case of rice fields, it provides important wetlands for wildlife).

It also helps wash out the salt that accumulates at the boundary where the drip-supplied water finishes spreading out and dries up.

Trucking around reclaimed water

[Doppler00]

Is one way we are NOT winning the drought. I tried doing the math on this and it doesn't make sense to me, yet I see big F250 pickup trucks with 275 gallon tanks everywhere around here. How is driving 20 miles round trip to pick up 275 gallons of reclaimed water worth your time, wear/tear on vehicle, tank and pump, and fuel? According to my water bill that 275 gallons costs maybe $1.28. Even at higher tiers I don't see how it would add up. You'd have to make a trip to the water plant almost every day to even get enough water for even a very small lawn.

Re:Trucking around reclaimed water

[jklovanc]

How do you know those trucks are hauling water and not fuel for farm equipment? Maybe it is liquid fertilizer. My father had a tank in the back of his truck to re-fuel his D-7 Caterpillar.

Re:Trucking around reclaimed water

[Doppler00]

Because I live in the sub-burbs and see them everywhere around town. No farmers here. The tanks clearly say "reclaimed water". I see people pumping the water onto their lawns. They were not common last year.

Re:Trucking around reclaimed water

[jklovanc]

I see people pumping the water onto their lawns.

Using 250 gallons of reclaimed water instead of 250 gallons of potable water is definitely worth it. You are seeing it because there is probably a ban on watering lawns with city water. Lets keep potable water for it's intended use and use reclaimed water where we can.

They were not common last year.

Last year they used potable city water.

Re:Trucking around reclaimed water

[HornWumpus]

What are the chumps, er, your neighbors paying for 250 gallons of water for their lawns? That's your answer.

Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[Forever Wondering]

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

From this [see "uses of water" section]:
- Agriculture uses 39% of the water vs. 11% for residential use
- A typical household uses 170 gallons/day
- It takes 4.9 gallons to grow one walnut, almost as much as a head of broccoli at 5.4 [but with much less food value]
- It takes 1.1 gallons to make an almond, so a small jar of them uses more water than a household does per day.

Most of the regulations [and hoopla] so far are about getting residents to use less water, but their usage is a drop in the proverbial ocean. Where are the regulations to get farms to plant water efficient crops that have high food value instead of water thirsty crops that, effectively, waste water?

Producing crops that have good nutrition, use less water, and provide lower prices to consumers would seem to be the responsible thing to do during a prolonged drought. If farmers can't see the logic of this, then, if regulation comes, they would only have themselves to blame.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[Doppler00]

The best solution is to let the farmers sell the water to the residents instead of growing the crops. It's just a comparison of the profit from growing an almond vs. selling to residents at retail rates. Win-win right?

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[Forever Wondering]

As the actor Ricardo Montalban once said in an interview: "If you're [currently] not acting [in some play/movie], you're not an actor".

So, if a farmer isn't growing crops, he's not a farmer. So, he'd probably lose whatever special pricing on water he has [as well as any raising of the limit on how much water he gets], so he wouldn't be able to make a profit because he'd be buying the water at the same price he could sell it for. And, such profiteering would probably be prohibited.

From the wiki, California grows some 350 different crops. Planting more of the more efficient ones [with regulations to back that up] is no more onerous than imposing regulations on residential usage. These crops will still turn a profit, perhaps not as much as almonds/walnuts. Cutting down on [say] the top 50 water waster crops will not bankrupt farmers, but might cut agricultural water usage in [say] half.

There are times when the practical necessity of a crisis [and the market regulation that goes with it] needs to trump the free market economy [for which the purist (non-Keynesian) economic models don't account for].

We all need to sacrifice a bit. That includes everybody.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[phantomfive]

Most of the regulations [and hoopla] so far are about getting residents to use less water,

That is not true, you are mistaken. Most of the regulation you've heard about has been about getting residents to use less water, but many farmers have been limited to 20% of their normal usage (or less). Just because you haven't heard about it, doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[Forever Wondering]

Thanks for mentioning this. [My mea culpa]: I was unaware of the mandated reductions to farmers [which I'm in favor of, obviously]. I read a lot about a wide variety of topics and I missed this one, partly, because most of the followup buzz [news stories] surrounding this has been about how such-and-such movie star waters their lawn too much. After a while, my eyes started glazing over. Headlines like "Movie Star is Water Pig" are more likely to show up [because they're more sensational] than "California's Comprehensive Water Reduction Regulations Explained" [I would prefer the latter].

Because I've lived in CA for 30+ years, I'm keenly aware of the water supply issues. I had been aware of the almond/walnut thing long before Jerry Brown started the regulations, and when things starting looking bad, I cut my consumption of almonds [now down to zero--and I love almonds]. By my estimate, by eliminating almonds, I'm saving 50+ gallons per day. This is good, because I live in an apartment, and don't have a lawn that I can stop watering to conserve.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[phantomfive]

"California's Comprehensive Water Reduction Regulations Explained"

That would be such a great story.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[toadlife]

- Agriculture uses 39% of the water vs. 11% for residential use

It's actually 80% Ag use if you don't count the deceptive "Environmental" use number.

When counting water use, if you only count developed water, that is, water that is captured from the environment for human use, agriculture uses 80% of that water.

The 51% percent "used" is actually water that is not captured at all. So, for example, any river water allowed to flow into the ocean is "used" for environmental purposes. Of course, we could capture most of that water too, but entire ecosystems would be destroyed in the process.

This 40% number is frequently pushed by Ag interests to make their impact on the water system seem smaller than it really is.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[HornWumpus]

Most fish water is controlled and released to match fish/fry runs.

It isn't just left to run, it is behind a dam, then released for the fish.

Saying it doesn't count is a lie.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[Uberbah]

And if it wasn't dammed it would flow straight into the ocean with no net difference. Claiming that counts is Randian Dumbfuckery.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[Uberbah]

The best solution is to let the farmers sell the water to the residents instead of growing the crops. It's just a comparison of the profit from growing an almond vs. selling to residents at retail rates. Win-win right?

If you believe in non-productive, rent seeking middle men and the right of the few to exploit the many, because capitalism and property rights, sure.

Re:Agriculture uses way more water than residents

[HornWumpus]

And wouldn't be available for the fish on the days they need it. Net yearly flow doesn't help migratory fish. They need net daily flow on the right days.

No surprise...

[St.Creed]

Even disregarding the discussion about climate change: if you use 217 US gallons of water per capita per day, and you live in a state with water issues, and that's disregarding the water use of growing crops that is (a) not measured and (b) really hurting the ground water reserves that people depend on to live, you know you are heading for deep trouble.

I'm not surprised that Schwarzenegger ordered water meters installed in every house - I *am* surprised it's only mandatory by 2025 and not for farmers either.

Oh, and in The Netherlands we use 31 US gallons per capita per day. That's 7 times less. We don't shower less either. But in our climate we don't have a lot of swimming pools. Maybe that's a good explanation? I'm not sure about the price of water in California though - it looks rather difficult to compare to our pricing.

Re:No surprise...

[Doppler00]

Where I live (California) the base cost is about $2.50 USD per 100 cubic feet (748 gallons). There are then additional "tiers" that increase the cost over your baseline quantity. If you live in an apartment and don't have a lawn/yard/garden I can understand only 31 gallons/day, but I have a few fruit trees and such that I like to keep watered. One thing I'll admit is that if they want people to conserve, they need to raise water rates (and then use that money to acquire more water resources).

Re:No surprise...

[Anonymous Coward]

Even disregarding the discussion about climate change: if you use 217 US gallons of water per capita per day, and you live in a state with water issues, and that's disregarding the water use of growing crops that is (a) not measured and (b) really hurting the ground water reserves that people depend on to live, you know you are heading for deep trouble.

I'm not surprised that Schwarzenegger ordered water meters installed in every house - I *am* surprised it's only mandatory by 2025 and not for farmers either.

Oh, and in The Netherlands we use 31 US gallons per capita per day. That's 7 times less. We don't shower less either. But in our climate we don't have a lot of swimming pools. Maybe that's a good explanation? I'm not sure about the price of water in California though - it looks rather difficult to compare to our pricing.

Americans know the price of everything and the cost of nothing. And in the medium to long run this way of thinking is going to bite them in the ass 3 times over. It's a society brought up on the idea that natural resources are infinite. Think about how they deride the Europeans for having taxes on everything. We know the real cost of most things, Americans don't because their economic system tends to hide the costs (the so called externalities). It's amazing their hyper consumerist society didn't crash decades ago, but even in a natural rich country as the US resources are still finite. And water doesn't just spring up magically. Contaminate the deep water levels and it's gone. If behaviour can't be changed nicely then tax to death. Educate society as a parent would educate its child. If the good maners don't work, than use the bad maners. The child will remember the lesson and be better off in the long run.

Re:No surprise...

[Solandri]

Oh, and in The Netherlands we use 31 US gallons per capita per day. That's 7 times less. We don't shower less either. But in our climate we don't have a lot of swimming pools. Maybe that's a good explanation? I'm not sure about the price of water in California though - it looks rather difficult to compare to our pricing.

My (California) water bill is broken up into tiers. The lowest level - essential - is what's estimated a regular family of 4 should use (55 gal/day per capita) without landscaping. So that's really not that far off from the Netherlands where most people live in apartments without lawns. California water districts serving predominantly residential areas report an average consumption around 75 gal/day per capita. The water districts serving agricultural and wealthy areas report consumption around 300+ gal/day per capita. So the vast majority of Californians are frugal with water. It's just agriculture and landscaping for rich people which consume a profligate amount of water.

It's also worth pointing out that one of the reasons water consumption in the Netherlands is so low is because you've successfully exported your water consumption. That is, someone outside the Netherlands uses the water to produce goods, which are then imported into the Netherlands for consumption without the water use being attributed to you. This isn't really "saving" water - you're not really reducing its consumption, you're just paying someone else to use it for you in their name. Which is not a bad thing if you can shift consumption to a region where water is plentiful; just don't make the mistake of using it to brag about how "little" water you use.

Re:No surprise...

[St.Creed]

That water footprint is interesting. I would have thought that since The Netherlands is a net exporter of agricultural stuff like flowers, milk, and various foods, the internal water footprint would be much higher. Interesting.

One thing over here is that while a lot of people live in houses with lawns, the size is much smaller than US lawns and there is also no need to water, except for a few days per year, due to the standard rainfall we have here.
.
I think the main issue, however, is industrial/agricultural water use. Perhaps California isn't the best place for certain crops and increasing the price of water (and preventing people from drilling wells on their land) should help drive out undesirable crops that take up a lot of water for little return.

Import Beaver

[tom229]

Seriously. They shouldn't have killed them all.

"Recorded history"

[Troed]

"If you go back thousands of years, you see that droughts can go on for years if not decades, and there were some dry periods that lasted over a century, like during the Medieval period and the middle Holocene [the current geological epoch, which began about 11,000 years ago]. The 20th century was unusually mild here, in the sense that the droughts weren’t as severe as in the past. It was a wetter century, and a lot of our development has been based on that.

If you look at the archaeological record, you see that the Native American population in the West expanded in the wet years that preceded those long droughts in the Medieval period. Then during the droughts, they were pretty much wiped out. There was the so-called Anasazi collapse in the Southwest about 800 years ago. In some ways, I see that as an analogy to us today."

http://news.berkeley.edu/2014/...

Anyone who wasn't expecting a multi year drought in California obviously didn't study history.

Re:"Recorded history"

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Technically, this is prehistory, not history, unless there was writing in California eight hundred years ago.

Re:"Recorded history"

[dgatwood]

Anyone who wasn't expecting a multi year drought in California obviously didn't study history.

They expected it; they just all hoped that the other party would be in office when it happened, so they could blame them for not building the infrastructure to prevent it from turning into a disaster.

Re:"Recorded history"

[dgatwood]

It reminds me of the joke about the CEO who was talking with his departing predecessor. The predecessor handed him three envelopes, with instructions to open them whenever things got bad enough that his job was on the line. One day, things got bad, so he opened the first envelope. The note inside read, "Blame your predecessor." He did, and things were okay for a while. Then, things got bad again, so he opened the second envelope. The note inside read, "Restructure the company." He did, and again, the crisis was averted. Finally, things went badly wrong a third time, so he opened the final envelope. Inside it, the note read, "Prepare three envelopes."

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[ChrisMaple]

Judging by the pattern of elections and voter registration over the last half dozen decades, it's the Republicans who are wise enough to leave California. Those entering California aren't Americans, they're mostly Mexicans or people from even further south. If they bother to register, it's Democrat.

Apples and Oranges

[BrendaEM]

Well, we have a lot of tech here, that's exported all around the world, so until we are spitting dust, people here will be making money, for now.

People here in Silicon Valley have done their part and let their lawns die, and yet, we don't hear anything about export farms making any sacrifice.
If the powers that be were serious about water conservation, they would tax it, but how would that tax be distributed for residence, agriculture, and industry?

Re:This might sound silly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny you use Detroit and California as examples... You know what Detroit and California have in common? Democratic Corruption.

Nonsense

[Karmashock]

Everything is fine until it isn't.

The Greeks were fine with their debt until the Germans came to collect.

The American colonies were fine until they rebelled.

The situation with the housing market and banks was fine until it wasn't.

So saying "Cali hasn't imploded yet" is not the same thing as saying they're fine.

As to the economic arguments... the bullshit on the economic statistics is well understood at this point and basically everyone knows they're full of shit besides the willfully ignorant. So we'll just skip over that.

On the issue of the drought, the issue is that they have not linked GROWTH with infrastructure. This is why we get brown outs, over crowded schools, over worked police departments, water shortages, and hellacious traffic.

Anyone ever play sim city back in the day? It was a game of balancing things that increased your resources with things that were needed to supply the things that produced your resources. It was about managing land, tax revenue, water, power, schools, police.

Okay... so what happens if you just build lots of houses and don't build power plants, don't build water aqueducts/reservoirs/treatment plants/desalinization plants, schools, hospitals, police stations, or transport?

That's basically what happened in california. They okayed development project after development project... EVERYWHERE... and in no sense linked that to infrastructure.

So radically increasing the population did not correspond to an increase in water resources.

What is the solution? Link the two.

Say "zoning for new housing/business/etc must not exceed literal construction and activation of relevant resources required to sustain that development."

So if you want to build housing for another million people, then I want to see somewhere in there that you've expanded water and power resources for an additional million people. And if it isn't on line... NOW... then I'm not zoning land for use by another million people.

Now here someone is going to say something profoundly stupid like "well where are they going to go!?"... well... anywhere. Arizona, Texas, Montana... it doesn't really matter. There are plenty of places for people to go. And if you want those new developments THAT badly... then build the fucking power plants and reservoirs and aqueducts and schools and highways and police stations... Or go fuck yourself. Saying "we don't have the money to do X or Y or Z right now"... fine... then when you do we can build the infrastructure and then you can have your development. But if you don't have it, then you can't built the infrastructure and you can't have the development.

Suggesting otherwise is somewhere between short term exploitative thinking where someone does things that are against the long term interests of the state for short term profit... and childishness/ignorance.

The developers and politicians are mostly liars or too self interested to care what happens. And the public mostly is just too stupid to know what is going on.

Re:Nonsense

[evilviper]

So if you want to build housing for another million people, then I want to see somewhere in there that you've expanded water and power resources for an additional million people. And if it isn't on line... NOW... then I'm not zoning land for use by another million people.

It's already a California state law; on the books for decades.

SB 610 - The Water Supply Assessment Law

In 1995, the California Legislature enacted SB 901 (later codified in Water Code sections 10910-10915) to ensure that cities and counties would assess the adequacy of available water supplies to meet projected water demand prior to approving significant new land development projects. In 2001, perceived shortcomings in SB 901 compliance led the California Legislature to enact two further lawsâ"SB 610 and SB 221â"to tighten the linkage between water supply availability and land-use planning decisions. SB 610 focused on improving the Water Supply Assessment, or WSA, procedure previously established by SB 901. Among other things, SB 610 expanded the scope of development projects triggering the WSA procedure and expanded the informational requirements of the procedure, particularly with respect to groundwater supplies.

The WSA law requires that before cities or counties approve certain classes of projects (e.g., residential developments over 500 units) as lead agencies under CEQA, they must request preparation of a WSA by the public water supplier identified to serve the proposed development project. The public water supplier has 90 days to prepare and approve a WSA after receiving a request from a city or county land-use agency. The WSA must assess the supplier's projected water availability and the projected water demand in its service area over a 20-year horizon, including supply and demand projections in normal water years, dry water years and multiple-dry water years (i.e., in droughts). The public water supplier's WSA must conclude whether projected supplies will be adequate to serve existing demand, demand from the proposed development project, and demand from planned future uses.

After the water supplier's governing body (i.e., board of directors) approves the WSA, it must be submitted to the city or county land-use agency (i.e., the lead agency) for physical incorporation into the CEQA document being prepared for the proposed development project. The WSA law provides for the lead agency's CEQA document (i.e., an environmental impact report ["EIR"] or negative declaration) to evaluate the water supply and demand information in the WSA. Ultimately, the WSA law requires the lead agency to make a determination "based on the entire record, whether projected water supplies will be sufficient to satisfy the demands of the project, in addition to existing and planned future uses." (Water Code  10911(c).)

http://www.kmtg.com/node/1292

This is why we get brown outs, over crowded schools, over worked police departments, water shortages, and hellacious traffic.

Brown-outs and rolling blackouts were caused by stupid laws (deregulation) and fraud (Enron). Since those years, power outages have been quite rare. California has been investing huge amounts of money in renewable grid-connected wind and solar power sources. Name a huge solar power project, and it probably happened in California.

Over-crowded schools happened mostly from a change in tax laws, that cut-out cities/counties and instead requires them to beg the state for some of their own tax revenue back.

I have yet to see a water shortage. I turn-on the tap and water comes out. Golf courses remain bright green. etc. And California isn't remotely alone in handling water stress:

http://pipedot.org/story/2015-...

Traffic is a very complicated topical all it's own.

Now her

Re:Nonsense

[Karmashock]

If the law you cited were de facto relevant than the water issue would not be an issue.

As to brownouts, I agree that was mostly due to the botched deregulation scheme. However, if you think the government wasn't primarily responsible for the cock up then you don't know anything about it.

As to people just crowding into existing housing... in violation of fire codes? I thought all you said we had to do was pass a law and the problem would go away?

People can't crowd into housing like that because it violates the fire codes.

If they're doing it anyway than that means the laws are not being enforced... which is of course obvious in general. Which means your citation of the law at the start was meaningless because it isn't enforced.

As to your insult at the end, you contradicted yourself in your own post and YOU personally were too stupid to realize it.

You're the dummy. Not me, chump.

Re:Nonsense

[evilviper]

If the law you cited were de facto relevant than the water issue would not be an issue.

That's called circular logic. It's not evidence of anything.

The real reasons are numerous and complex. If you wish to start edifying yourself on the topic, it includes many strange and exotic things like SCOTUS rulings requiring larger percentages of water be released from dams inside and outside the state, water rights claims dating back hundreds of years, and so much more.

I thought all you said we had to do was pass a law and the problem would go away?

No, actually that's what you said... You even called it "the solution". I'm the one who pointed-out the existing law. Hope this helps reduce your confusion.

Which means your citation of the law at the start was meaningless because it isn't enforced.

Again, no. Saying that one law isn't enforced, therefore NO LAWS are enforced, is a very simple and extreme logical fallacy.

you contradicted yourself in your own post

Your wild and fevered imagination is not my problem nor concern.

Re:Nonsense

[Karmashock]

Circular logic? I say a thing hasn't happened because demand used to be less than supply... demand increased radically... supply did not increase...

And to this you tell me there is a law that says by law that the demand must be controlled so that it is within the bounds of supply.

To this I respond well that clearly couldn't have been enforced because the demand exceeded the supply.

To this you respond circular logic.

This is false.

The basis of my argument is that the supply was X and the demand was Y... and over time the demand went to 2*X and the supply remained at Y.

Thus my argument is not circular.

To the contrary, your argument is circular. Mine is based on the reality of what actually happened.

I don't doubt that there is a law that says they were barred from doing what they did.

I merely point out that it was not enforced because the demand remained unchecked as evidenced by its relationship to supply.

So no... you can take you presumption of questioning my logic and jam it up your ass sideways. My argument was logically bullet proof.
https://youtu.be/8WZ0XSf23rs?t...

As to my solution and your rebuttal... it should be taken as granted that if I say a law should be in force that its enforcement is implied. Therefore citing non-enforced laws as a rebuttal is not valid.

As to my fevered imagination, you took my comment out of context because I defined my argument. You're another of those sad people on the internet that like to pull conclusions out of context and then question them ignoring that they were supported by previous material.

*yawn* Where do you muppets come from? Who peed in your genepool? Just astounding.

Re:Nonsense

[evilviper]

I merely point out that it was not enforced because the demand remained unchecked as evidenced by its relationship to supply.

Except that's not true, and you have no evidence to indicate it is. It will be harder to find such evidence, because it doesn't exist.

citing non-enforced laws as a rebuttal is not valid.

It was and is enforced. You have no evidence to indicate otherwise. You are using only circular logical to claim it MUST NOT be enforced (even though it is) because the result doesn't live-up to the perfect world you imagine.

Re:Nonsense

[Karmashock]

No evidence?

Did you eat all the magic mushrooms? I mean... all of them? Every last one? Didn't leave any for anyone else? That's selfish.

That the infrastructure has not kept pace with the growth is self evident. Are you another of those guys where you need the full 18 inches of purple dildo facts jammed right up your ass?

Is that what you want? Want me to get the data and just give it to you? Because we both know what is in this sticky box here... I mean, if you want it... I'll give it to you. But I don't want to hear any of this "oh go slow"... "oh its too big"... If I open this box... You know where it's going and I'm not going to stop.

So... tell me... do you want it?

Let me just describe in brief the veiny outline of what I'm going to do here. If you say you want what is in the box, I'm going to get water use figures from around 1960 and I'm going to get water infrustructure figures from around 1960 and I'm going to get ratio of demand to supply. And then I'm going to compare that to what we have in 2015...

And yes... It vibrates. Of course it does.

So are you excited take the plunge as I am? Because... we can do it. if you want it.

Re:Nonsense

[evilviper]

I'm going to get water use figures from around 1960

I'm the one here who has actually sited real facts and provided sources of information. All of which directly contradicting absolutely everything you've had to say. You've provided exactly none. And here's some more for the hell of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

That's a list of California reservoirs, you can sort by date. You will note that new ones have been built continually. One of the largest came on line a few years ago. At no point did water sources stop being developed.

You may now resume your ranting.

Re:Nonsense

[Karmashock]

/. as usual is showing how incompetent its filters are... its saying that my post has too few characters. It says my post only has 23.5 characters... Point... 5. Anywho, I'm going to post it on pastebin and then provide the link. Its what I do when /. shits the bed.

http://pastebin.com/FVcGA2aV

Re:Nonsense

[evilviper]

we see that the Cali Reservoir capacity increased by 218 Percent since 1960. The population of the state however increased by about 250 percent in that same time frame.

Glad to see you've conceded the point. Of course I realize you didn't mean to do so, but the trivial shortfall easily disappears into efficiency improvements (low-flow toilets, showers, etc.) that have greatly reduced per-capita water-usage over the same time-frame. So I can draw no other conclusion than your complete agreement that the water sources are more than adequate.

And that's just the Reservoirs. I cited aqueducts as well.

No, you didn't. In fact you never even used the word aqueduct once in ANY of your previous posts in this thread.

But to the point, aqueducts are only useful if you have a huge supply of water somewhere, and just need to move it around. California doesn't. The whole state is in drought, so extra aqueducts would make no difference. And other states that have extra supply (like Oregon) haven't been willing to export theirs. Additionally, the existing aqueducts haven't exceeded their capacity at all... They aren't running dry before reaching the end of the line, or anything like that, and nobody is claiming we've all be in great shape if only they could move more water across the state. There is no particular need for more of them.

Its what I do when /. shits the bed.

I'm with /.'s lameness filter on this one. The public should be spared that horrendous wreck of worthless copy-pasta.

Re:Nonsense

[Karmashock]

Actually the biggest change they can cite is that in some areas the average water consumption per person went from 170 gallons to 150 gallons... and that's only a in a couple places. Most places the average water use per person remains 170 gallons.

Look at your data.

As to words used... we're talking about water infrastructure. If that blows your tiny little mind that isn't my problem. It is obvious that you need not only storage but some source to supply that storage.

As to your petty whining at getting raped by the facts. I warned you.

Next time don't ask for what's in the box.

I won't be responding to you again in this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Nonsense

[evilviper]

the biggest change they can cite is that in some areas the average water consumption per person went from 170 gallons to 150 gallons... and that's only a in a couple places

Bullshit.

"Two water distributors in San Francisco and one in East Los Angeles recorded the lowest average totals, 46, 46 and 48, respectively. In Santa Cruz, which has some of the toughest conservation measures in the state, residents used an average of 49 gallons per person a day." "on average, Southern California residents used 119 gallons per person a day". http://www.latimes.com/local/c...

"The population of the U.S. has grown by more than 81 million people since 1975, but total water use has declined. As a result, our per-person water use is almost 30% lower than it was 30 years ago" http://pacinst.org/news/397/

California's "TOTAL WATER USE has been DECLINING since 1980"

"Water used for urban and agricultural purposes has generally remained stable, and has even declined at times, even though population has increased." http://www.lao.ca.gov/2008/rsr...

I won't be responding to you again in this thread.

Well that is a reasonable response when you've been making stupid statements that you can't possibly support. I would have suggested keeping your mouth shut after my first reply demonstrated how baseless and ignorant your statements were.

There is no "drought" in California

[Snufu]

Private agriculture uses 80% of the water. If you stopped growing rice, alfalfa, and all other crops you should not be growing in a desert, California's city populations could increase FIVE TIMES with no shortage of water.

Re:There is no "drought" in California

[OrangeTide]

What if we all eat 80% less food?

Re:There is no "drought" in California

[Uberbah]

Distinction without much of a difference. Greedy farmers are over-consuming the water supply far beyond sustainable levels.

Re:There is no "drought" in California

[Uberbah]

You can't install sunshine in the Great Plains.

Red herring for most crops for much of the year. No, you cannot grow tomatoes in South Dakota in January. You can grow them just fine, though, spring through fall.

So, rather than grow tomatoes year round in California, grow them during winter months when other states can't. Use that water instead for oranges or avocados, which cannot grow in northern climates.

I read in The Economist the other day ...

[shoor]

That it was Nevada (mainly Las Vegas) that was coping well and that California was struggling.
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21660546-why-las-vegas-has-coped-well-drought-so-far-concrete-oasis?zid=311&ah=308cac674cccf554ce65cf926868bbc2

A quote:

Water-conservation policies in Las Vegas are more advanced than in surrounding states, particularly when compared with California, ...people who insist on keeping their palm trees and lawns must pay hefty sums for that privilege. In California, laws prevent many municipal water suppliers from charging any more than enough to cover their costs--which means that high prices cannot be used to encourage more frugal behaviour.

Black balls.

[TapeCutter]

The first thing I noticed about the "shade balls" is that they are black, meaning they will absorb virtually ALL of the sunlight that hits them and convert it to heat, given the relative conductivity of air and water, most of that heat will end up in the water. They will also significantly increase the surface area that is exposed to heating. In fact, I can't think of a more cost efficient way to heat a large body of water, so what on Earth makes them think this will "prevent evaporation"?

Re:Black balls.

[sribe]

...so what on Earth makes them think this will "prevent evaporation"?

Hmm. Perhaps they actually know what they're talking about, unlike some people ;-)

How do you "win" a drought?

[wonkey_monkey]

How California Is Winning the Drought

Who came up with that headline? You don't "win" a drought. You might beat a drought, or win against a drought.

California's population has grown faster even as the drought has deepened.

Or, to put it another way, the drought has deepend as the population has grown faster.

I seem to remember Germany doing quite well in WWII, as well, until they weren't.

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[PopeRatzo]

it's the Republicans who are wise enough to leave California.

Why do you think there's so much economic and job growth in California? In fact, California leads the nation in total number of new jobs.

I think they put big signs at the state border, thanking Republicans as they leave.

Re: moo

[meglon]

http://www.snopes.com/politics...

Supposedly you have a brain... try using it for a change.

Re: moo

[Dahamma]

Wait, what proof do you have that he has a brain (or at least a functioning one)?

Not Winning At All

[JimSadler]

California is in huge trouble already and the real solutions may not be at all possible. Growth is the cause of the misery in California. California needs to reverse growth. That means sending the population to other states, shutting down businesses and industries and getting rid of the effects of human activity. The real game is that the officials in California know that no good solution is in sight. Everybody hopes that new science and new technology will enable the madness to continue to exist. And sometimes that nick of time development actually does act to extend the status quo. However betting that science can stay one step ahead of catastrophe is a seriously stupid bet. Designing a society where everything is interwoven and interdependent assures catastrophic failure. Something as minor as a loss of the power grid could create mayhem and chaos and massive loss of life in a state like California. Since power grids are spread out it is all too easy for almost anything to knock out a grid and with bad luck the entire grid may be very heavily damaged, A solar flare, a large meteor, a sizable earthquake, or a band of terror lunatics could devolve California into total failure and chaos with an economic shock that might actually take down the world economy. The chances of anyone doing anything positive about the situation approach zero.

Re:Not Winning At All

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Growth is the cause of the misery in California.

No, mismanagement is the cause of the misery in California.

California needs to reverse growth.

At this point, growth is the only thing that keeps California from going bankrupt.

Something as minor as a loss of the power grid could create mayhem and chaos and massive loss of life in a state like California.

No, just in Silicon Valley and LA. Most of the rest of California can deal with this stuff just fine.

Expensive Desalination vs. Cheap Subsidized water

[billstewart]

Of course we should require cities to pay to build highly expensive desalination plants and burn greenhouse gasses to power them so that we can continue to provide agribusiness with cheap water using socialist-built water projects so they can continue to make a profit growing water-intensive crops in semi-desert areas. After all, how else are cotton farmers going to get subsidized for growing something other than cotton and happy cows in China going to get alfalfa grown in California, not even counting the rest of the crops that, even in average-rainfall years, were using up California's ground-water faster than rain was restocking it?

Groundwater depletion is a big problem

[billstewart]

California's been burning through groundwater supplies faster than rainfall replenishes them even in the average-rainfall years. It's unsustainable in good times, much less in crisis droughts like the current one.

It's not like that's not a problem other places around the US or the world; look at how the MidWest and Texas are doing.

Re:This might sound silly...

[blue trane]

Detroit is a victim of UBS corruption. UBS wrote interest rate swap contracts with Detroit that called for huge, immediate payouts if a credit downgrade occurred (Goldman Sachs did the same with AIG, and the Fed honored GS's contracts to the letter when they bailed out AIG). Then UBS proceeds to manipulate LIBOR downwards, so that Detroit lost on its interest rate bets. Then UBS wants to get paid before the people in Detroit.

The corruption is in the banks that create money out of thin air, charge you interest to lend it to you (interest is more created money, since it is booked in advance under "Net Worth" and thus is available for bank investors to spend), and manipulate the market with illegal setting of key rates on which your contracts are based.

Re:This might sound silly...

[thinkwaitfast]

It takes two parties to enter into a contract. I wrote a contact where the other person would give me all of their money, but I can't get anyone to agree to it.

A billion gallons isn't much.

[tlambert]

A billion gallons isn't much.

The Sacramento Valley rice paddys flood to a depth of 5 inches. This utilizes 80B gallons of water, in order to irrigate the 600,000 acres under cultivation in rice. On top of this, it requires another 4B gallons of water a day to deal with the evaporation losses.

So color me unimpressed that conservation by reduced human consumption results in 1/4 of that amount being saved. It's not a big deal, or a big amount, in the grand scheme of things, particularly compared to agricultural usage on products which are mostly exported from the U.S..

Time to get serious about desalination, if California wants to keep its agricultural export industry. Or it could let e.g. China invest in growing their own rice, instead of in building "ghost cities".

P.S. While you are at it, stop drinking "almond milk" please; a quart of that runs about 345 gallons of water.

Re:A billion gallons isn't much.

[tlambert]

We can tell you're full of shit when you mention China.

They have no need of your rice. One can only assume the rest of your post was just as idiotic.

We can tell you are full of shit when you post as an AC, and fail to cite statistics or source. Here, asshole: USDA information on China's rice imports.

http://ers.usda.gov/data-produ...

"Rice imports by China are expected to set a new record in 2015, surpassing 2014 levels by 200,000 metric tons and marking the fourth consecutive year of record imports. Rice imports surged in 2012 to more than 7 times the average of the previous 5 years, and continued to grow each year thereafter. China remains the world’s largest rice producer and consumer, and has been largely self-sufficient in rice for more than 30 years and until recently, was typically a net rice exporter. In 2012, China surpassed Nigeria to become the world’s largest rice importer. "

China has been a net importer of rice since 1981, and is currently the words largest rice importer, as of 2012.

But you know, don't let facts stop you.

Re:A billion gallons isn't much.

[Uberbah]

So color me unimpressed that conservation by reduced human consumption results in 1/4 of that amount being saved.

That's because human consumption makes up just over 10% of the state's water use, and much of that is for swimming pools and golf courses for the 1%. Half the population of California could move out of the state tomorrow, and other half could cease bathing, and you'd barely notice the difference.

Time to get serious about desalination

Why??? So taxpayers can keep up the capitalist facade that we live in a world of unlimited resources for unlimited exploitation? How about we reign in the batshit insanity of:

The Sacramento Valley rice paddys flood to a depth of 5 inches. This utilizes 80B gallons of water, in order to irrigate the 600,000 acres under cultivation in rice. On top of this, it requires another 4B gallons of water a day to deal with the evaporation losses.

Ban rice patties. Ban cattle ranching. Ban almond farms, that use one gallon of water to produce one almond. If those industries don't like it, let them build their own damn desalinization plant, not expect taxpayers to do it for them.

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[PapayaSF]

Don't illegals use water?

Civil forfeiture

[crimson tsunami]

No one believes in that nonsense anymore...

Re:Civil forfeiture

[GLMDesigns]

No believes that the government should not take property without compensation or that people think that the government can take and redistribute property at whim?

Re:Civil forfeiture

[SuricouRaven]

Property is a legal construct. Some property is more constructed than others.

Re:Civil forfeiture

[GLMDesigns]

Social Contract theory 101: "I promise not to kill you and take your stuff if you promise not to kill me and take mine."

Bring in property is but a social contract and you will get civil war and a dictatorship (whether it's a dictatorship of the proletariat - where some pigs are created more equal than others - or another kind).

Re:Civil forfeiture

[crimson tsunami]

Maybe you need to google Civil forfeiture, and then realise it's already happening. No need to bother with amendments or constitutions or what people think.

Re:Civil forfeiture

[GLMDesigns]

Preaching to the converted. I'm appalled. (perhaps I read the OP wrong) but the best way to combat that is to have a populace who considers civil forfeiture (usually to bankroll a bureaucracy - the DA, the police) to be wrong, corrupt and beyond the pale.

As long as we have people who consider property to be a mere social construct that is divorced from reality and that these social constructs can be eradicated at will by government officials then we are continue slouching down the road to servitude. (channeling hayek here)

Good grief, it's not our government!

[OrangeTide]

Things are doing better in California because the job market has picked up, not because of the government. Our government is terrible, and people who are sensitive to useless bureaucracies should stay away.

But if you like a place where investors are still pretty easy with their money, or a place that is culturally very accepting of immigrants, then maybe California is for you. I believe San Jose has the second largest immigrant population in the US, about 35% of the residents are immigrants.

Answer why our job market is doing better, and you can see how the drought is not stopping us. The drought is hurting the agricultural industry, and if it continues we're all doomed, but right now we're doing well.

Re:Good grief, it's not our government!

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Answer why our job market is doing better,

A lot of people moved to Silicon Valley back when it was inexpensive and relaxed and when the computer industry was in its infancy. These people are now very wealthy and have founded big companies. In addition, there is a gigantic professional network in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles. Those things attract workers, despite the way California is mismanaged.

a place that is culturally very accepting of immigrants, then maybe California is for you

The general attitude in California towards immigrants is that immigrants are poor, helpless, oppressed people that can only make it if the government intervenes to protect them from evil white men. Whether that is "very accepting" of immigrants is highly debatable; personally, I find it insulting.

Re:Good grief, it's not our government!

[OrangeTide]

The general attitude in California towards immigrants is that immigrants are poor, helpless, oppressed people that can only make it if the government intervenes to protect them from evil white men.

My primary exposure to people who immigrate to the US are my coworkers. Many of them choose to gain citizenship, and few of them fit your mold of "poor, helpless, oppressed people". This is the center of America's brain drain machine and it's working fabulously.

I find it insulting.

I wasn't going to say bring it up, but I find your over generalization and ignorance a bit insulting.

Re:Good grief, it's not our government!

[OrangeTide]

Yes, but you (and Silicon Valley) are not representative of California or California government.

I disagree. On the basis that you can't have a meaningful model without considering the breath of a complex issue. Distilling the issue down into a single socioeconomic group is not going to yield a productive dialog on the issue, it will just suck you into the same old racist traps.

Re:Life in a thought bubble

[OrangeTide]

With all the trees and grass we are killing for lack of water, our state's carbon footprint will rise by more than Jerry Brown's crazy train will EVER offset.

And when the trees and grass grow back, and continue their natural cycle of growing, dying, releasing carbon and growing again, we'll not have to count that as a "carbon footprint"

Now if we burn it all down and pave it over, then yes, that's a big carbon footprint. But we have no done that.

No, we won the drought

[OrangeTide]

Who came up with that headline? You don't "win" a drought. You might beat a drought, or win against a drought.

No, we've got the biggest drought. So we win this round of the drought championship.

Re:moo

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Just for fun you should peek in on Kansas some time. They're living the Republican dream!

And yet, they are NOT winning

[WindBourne]

The fact is, that they need to start desalinating along their coast line, and providing water inland for 60 miles or so.
Right now, what has been keeping LA and SD going has been the Colorado River. However, lake mead is dropping FAST, since the drought is also spread all the way to vegas.
But, they start building desalination plants now, then if the drought persists, they can solve SD and LA, while saving water for Vegas.

BTW, this is where CONgress is so wrong. We desperately need to start building new nuke plants that will use the nuke waste. With these, they can provide electricity AND desalination.

Re:And yet, they are NOT winning

[Uberbah]

desalinating along their coast line

More like subsidizing greedy farmers with taxpayer money. California has more than enough water for it's population. What it doesn't have is an unlimited supply of water to satiate the unlimited greed of almond farmers, in particular, abusing grandfathered water rights.

Re:And yet, they are NOT winning

[WindBourne]

I got news for you. It really does not matter. What should be doing on, is that the state, along with the feds, should be planning on having a LONG LONG drought. This technology should be brought to not just CA, but from Texas to Florida, and all the way up to Washington DC. Drought is going to be a REAL issue down the road. And with some 75% of our population living on coastal area, it makes sense to focus on using desalinated ocean water.

Global Warming brings more water overall

[SuperKendall]

A warmer climate means more, not less, water across the planet as a whole, even if some individual areas may have worse droughts (though California's drought to date is not nearly as bad as the worst historical droughts, so to claim it is from warming is to ignore the difference between climate and local periodic weather patterns like droughts)

Common sense dictates this is so, because most of the surface of the planet is water, therefore a warmer climate means more water vapor entering the atmosphere. Anyone who has spent time in South America knows it can be hotter than hell but still humid.

What really needs to happen (for California and elsewhere) is cheap nuclear power generation and large-scale desalinization - no reason California could not be pumping lots of water all over the dry West, instead of ravenously consuming the aquifers they have now.

Re:Global Warming brings more water overall

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

What needs to happen in California is that the state ends handing out nearly free water to large agribusinesses and charges all rate payers the same rate.

Re:Global Warming brings more water overall

[burtosis]

The localized effects of a warmer climate are not very well undsrstood at this point. It's a very hot topic in research both from a scientific interest and practical application point. It is actually possible for the earth to be wetter yet Cali to be drier.

Re:Global Warming brings more water overall

[Uberbah]

Ignores droughts, water sources from glaciers or snowpack melting, and climate change in general. If a region goes from 25 inches a rain to 15 inches, how is that 'more water'?

Re:Global Warming brings more water overall

[SuperKendall]

Weather is not Climate

Overall is not Local

Re:Global Warming brings more water overall

[Uberbah]

Tiny word salad is tiny.

what a joke

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

The biggest destinations in California are the Bay Area and LA, and people migrate there not for the quality of life (which sucks) or for gardening, but because a bunch of important companies have their headquarters there.

Furthermore, demographically, California isn't doing so well either:

http://knowmore.washingtonpost...

Re:You'll just steall their property, right?

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Senior water right are property - like real estate, gold, food, houses, cars, home computers.

No, senior water rights are quite different from property in many ways. So, just because you think the takings clause applies doesn't mean this is legally settled territory. I'm sure people will make a claim like you are attempting to do, but I don't think it has much chance of prevailing in court.

Alternatively, if you want to think of senior water rights as property, then they are property whose value and utility can change subject to arbitrary decisions of the state. That is, when people acquired these water rights, they already knew (and priced into the acquisition) that the state might come in and change the rules for water usage on them later. So, they aren't losing anything when the state exercises its option to restrict water usage.

I think a simple way for California to deal with this is to simply limit the kind of agricultural activities that constitute "beneficial use".

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[Zontar The Mindless]

I keep hearing about stuff like this. When I still lived in the US, non-citizens could not vote in US elections. When did this change?

They're "winning" by draining their reserves

[Chris Mattern]

This works great...until the reserves run out. This is a man falling off a 50-story building declaring at floor 25, "Everything's fine so far!"

Proof At Last

[JimSadler]

California is not doing well at all. The situation now clearly proves that economics and the status of a population have no relationship at all. Other examples abound. Donald Trump may be considered a mental wasteland. Yet he is a billionaire. Clearly there is no relationship between intelligence and the ability to make money. Our notions of economy are completely messed up. If economics involves the distribution of wealth which is what it is supposed to do then we can value the art or science of economics at zero. Economics is nonsense.

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[Barsteward]

yes, you could kick them all out to save water and that in turn will close down the farms they work on and that will save even more water....

Re:Expensive Desalination vs. Cheap Subsidized wat

[currently_awake]

Water from desalination isn't covered by existing water rights, so the farmers would have to pay full market value for it. The cities won't supply water to the farmers because the farmers are currently hogging 75% of the water.

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[currently_awake]

Raid all the farms during harvest, and hit them with massive fines for illegal workers. When they can't pay the fines you take their water rights as payment. And deport the illegals, more jobs for Americans.

Re:Expensive Desalination vs. Cheap Subsidized wat

[HornWumpus]

Just stop obstructing water sales and the market fixes the farmers growing cotton in Bakersfield problem. To the extent that it is a problem.

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[HornWumpus]

Non-living citizens have a long history of voting in America. I'm sure non-citizens pull it off regularly, they get caught on occasion. It's against the law to ask for ID in most states.

One party pays churches to drive the same people from polling place to polling place. So they can 'vote'. Open and flagrant, say anything and you're a racist.

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[PapayaSF]

Right, because we all remember the famines we suffered before there were millions of illegals here. And why do you assume that all illegals are in rural areas? Have you been to a California city in recent decades?

To beat the drought use better tools

[liquid_schwartz]

The current strategy to beat the drought is to cut back. Not bad for the short term, but technology can do much better if we worked on it. While desalination is expensive today it could be *much* cheaper with the application of much lower cost methods like carrbon nanofilters as described here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... http://www.industrytap.com/wat...

Re:You'll just steall their property, right?

[Uberbah]

Senior water right are property - like real estate, gold, food, houses, cars, home computers.

In some other dimension where rain falls on an acre of land and stays there forever, sure. But not here. Farmers that think they can drill as much water as they want out of the ground and to hell with everyone else can pound sand.

Re:You'll just steall their property, right?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Farmers that think they can drill as much water as they want out of the ground and to hell with everyone else can pound sand.

Farmers think:
  - they can pump as much water out of the ground, or the waterway, per year, as their water right entitles them to.
  - But they don't get the water if there isn't any left after those with water rights more seinor to theirs have consumed the amount THEIR rights entitle them to.
  - And people with more junior water rights to the same source don't get to take any unless the farmer with the more senior right has gotten as much of his rightful amount as he has chosen to take.

This is because water rights in California, like much of the west, are on the "prior appropriation" system: First, historically, to use, gets a right to keep on using - like homesteading land.

Most of the eastern part of the US uses a "riparian rights" system, where bodies of water are a commons, everybody with land abutting the water gets to use it (but not remove it from the watershed), and the collection of people with rights to a body get together and form a regulatory body to make rules to fairly apportion the water. California does NOT work this way, no matter how much the immigrants from the East Coast wish it did.

My wife and I, at our place in Nevada, have a "homestead water right" to three acre-feet per year. That's a moderately junior right to enough water to plumb a house, irrigate a small veggie garden, and water a couple horses, a milk cow, and some chickens, but not to irrigate our five-ish acres for crops. (I found out more than I wished to know about water rights when I spent a few grand on a lawyer to defend when we, and a few thousand others, were mistakenly made defendants in a water rights suit by a confused Bureau of Indian Affairs bureaucrat.)

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[Cyberax]

Bullshit. All the states require for citizens to register for elections, and that registration requires an ID. You can NOT vote without being registered. And you most definitely can't just 'drive people around'.

El Nino...

[antdude]

Supposedly, El Nino is coming to help but won't fix the drough issue. :(

El Niño...

[antdude]

Supposedly, El Niño is coming to help but won't fix the drough issue. :(

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[Zontar The Mindless]

So it's a "they say" thing, and we all know what Republican President Abraham Lincoln said about that. Thanks for clarifying.

(BTW, even though I'm not a citizen, as a legal resident of Sweden I am eligible to vote in municipal/local elections here, although I don't get to vote for the Riksdag or the EU Parliament.)

Re:The solution

[HornWumpus]

Who let the middle schoolers in?

Re:This state has way too many Republicans

[Cyberax]

Do you have a single documented example of this?

Re:You'll just steall their property, right?

[shutdown -p now]

California does NOT work this way

And the way it works, it's never going to fix the drought issue.

So, either come up with a more sensible system, or... wait, are there actually any other viable options?