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why not, agriculture consumes 80% of the water and contributes 2% to the (GSP) gross state product. What we have now is a few billionaires in the Valley heavily invested in Almond and Pistachios (over 60% for export) It's so lucrative that hedge funds are now involved. How does that help California? They keep it up they are going to collapse the aquifer, won't that be fun?
Cut SJ farming, gradually, by 20%. That would save tremendous amounts of water, build resiliency, and would allow the rivers to occasionally flow, to support native biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, to recharge aquifers, and to flush some of the agricultural wastes from the Valley. The much-lauded productivity of California agriculture has been bought on a credit card. Fiorina's solution? Up the debt limit!
Unless the water makes it to the sea, aquatic ecosystems are destroyed and the watersheds gradually are ruined by salt accumulation. Also, the native fishes and aquatic wildlife are a large part of California's richness. Why destroy them further? Again, imagine if someone talked the government into diverting water from Idaho to Nevada, and killed your fisheries, polluted the groundwater, and created a culture of migrant peasants working for a few absentee landowners, and expected the government to support the workers for the rest of the year. That is the great story of California agriculture. I am just asking that it be trimmed back and a sensible, moderate approach pursued, that recognizes resources are finite, climates vary, and extreme exploitation creates a brittle system that cannot weather variation in conditions. I also think we need to do desalinization in California. The people live on the coast, some of the impacts should be there too.
Partisan drivel?...For what it is worth, I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley on farm, and I have a PhD in this topic. I know about 10000% more about these issues than Fiorina. But she gets your attention and fealty why?
One of the best posts I have read on CD, well done
Instead of oil pipelines how about a few national ones for water. I would have been exceptionally happy to ship California all the snow that I shoveled here on the east coast last year.
Cut SJ farming, gradually, by 20%. That would save tremendous amounts of water, build resiliency, and would allow the rivers to occasionally flow, to support native biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, to recharge aquifers, and to flush some of the agricultural wastes from the Valley. The much-lauded productivity of California agriculture has been bought on a credit card. Fiorina's solution? Up the debt limit!
Unless the water makes it to the sea, aquatic ecosystems are destroyed and the watersheds gradually are ruined by salt accumulation. Also, the native fishes and aquatic wildlife are a large part of California's richness. Why destroy them further? Again, imagine if someone talked the government into diverting water from Idaho to Nevada, and killed your fisheries, polluted the groundwater, and created a culture of migrant peasants working for a few absentee landowners, and expected the government to support the workers for the rest of the year. That is the great story of California agriculture. I am just asking that it be trimmed back and a sensible, moderate approach pursued, that recognizes resources are finite, climates vary, and extreme exploitation creates a brittle system that cannot weather variation in conditions. I also think we need to do desalinization in California. The people live on the coast, some of the impacts should be there too.
Partisan drivel?...For what it is worth, I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley on farm, and I have a PhD in this topic. I know about 10000% more about these issues than Fiorina. But she gets your attention and fealty why?
Thanks for a reasoned reply. Most of the poster are far too partisan to make one. So...was there anything inaccurate in this statement (quoted in the OP)?
Quote:
While they have watched this water wash out to sea, liberals have simultaneously
prevented the construction of a single new reservoir or a single new water
conveyance system over decades. This has happened during a period in which
California’s population has doubled. It is clear that improved or additional
infrastructure would allow for greater conservation before droughts — especially
as the population continues to explode — but California has not completed a
major water infrastructure project in 50 years.
What new water storage infrastructure has been built in the last 50 years?
What has been done to provide for additional water storage during non-drought conditions, to provide for the needs during a drought? (btw, that would be a savings account, not "upping the debt limit")
Have things been done to provide more water for the doubling population?
What viable solutions have been put in place to provide the water this increasing population demands?
Would a gradual 20% reduction in agricultural water usage (as you proposed) meet the other demands?
Has the state government done anything to address the influx of the "migrant peasants" you describe?
Desalination sounds viable, but requires massive amounts of energy to do on a large scale basis. Where would this energy come from? Coal plants? Oil/natural gas? Nuke plants? Solar might be possible, but requires massive acreage to provide the energy required, not to mention requires massive resource-extraction to construct the infrastructure involved. Hydropower? No doubt the least polluting option, but what rivers do we dam up?
why not, agriculture consumes 80% of the water and contributes 2% to the (GSP) gross state product. What we have now is a few billionaires in the Valley heavily invested in Almond and Pistachios (over 60% for export) It's so lucrative that hedge funds are now involved. How does that help California? They keep it up they are going to collapse the aquifer, won't that be fun?
It doesn't help California much but it is nice being able to buy those California almonds here in Japan for less than half the price of the domestic ones.
It doesn't help California much but it is nice being able to buy those California almonds here in Japan for less than half the price of the domestic ones.
Honestly I'm happy that they benefit someone, I knew most were exported but I never bothered to find out where they were going. I just wish we had more farmers growing annual crops in California, I miss the produce stands.
California's problems are a result of population increase and an extended drought, putting dams on more rivers is not a solution nature at some point trumps technology, we saw that in the dust bowl years.
What rivers does she wish to construct dams, long on rhetoric short on details.
What annoys me is that a person with no credibility gets an article in Time discussing a topic she has no qualifications to intelligently discuss. It was a political give away, because she is a famous name, spewing partisan trash.
The rivers of the San Joaquin and most of S. California have NO WATER in them at all 90% of the time, due to impoundments. The ecosystems are destroyed outright. Believe me, the engineers were not lacking in enthusiasm in the state. Most of the water shortage is because of excess agricultural acreage in the S. half of the state.
As I recall, you live in Idaho. What if all the water were diverted from a water-rich region like N. Idaho to support chrony capitalism agriculture around Las Vegas? That is the garbage she is selling. Enough.
Why should all that water flowing into the Pacific at Astoria Oregon go to waste even worse why should the Mackenzie river flow to the icy Arctic draining a good chunk of Western Canada. . Look up a huge binational project called the North American Power and Water Authority (NAPWA). First proposed in the early 1960s. It takes the water diversion schemes in California today to a whole new level. The idea was to use hydropower to pump water from the Mackenzie and Canadian Colombia river to a series of lakes connected by aquaducts, tunnels and penstocks located along the Continental Divide from Canada to the Colorado River basin where it could be sent on its way to Arizona and California or if needed to Denver Colorado and even Texas if the headwaters of the Rio Grande del Norte or Red River are connected to the system. Given that water flows down hill gravity feeds could be used to reduce the need for pumping where ever possible just like the Romans did nearly 2000 years ago. Even the Coriolis Force can be used in a beneficial way ((I'll leave how this works to the reader as a physics exercise).
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