Can California Requisition Water From the Columbia River via Congress? (Los Angeles: home, utilities)

[chuckmann]

Originally Posted by opossum1

Something like this would be grounds for another civil war.

NOT going to happen, don't even think of ruining Columbia or other Northern rivers. Clean up the mess CA already created, get the dams out of Yosemite, get Big Ag out and stop importing illegals. Surely, they'd want to turn OR and "all the way up to Canada" into a nighmare and a pesticide dump like Central California.

So instead of being dependent upon imported oil, we allow ourselves to become dependent upon imported food. Wow what a wonderful trade.

I grew up in the SF area. ALL the prime agricultural land became housing tracts and business parks. The agriculture moved to the 101 corridor, the I5 corridor, and other higher water consumption areas. But thye rich immigrants used the free market to get their paradises.

Sing the praises of the free market, right wing ideologues. All the time enjoying the results of your destroying this state.

[DriveNotCommute]

Originally Posted by 1AngryTaxPayer

I'm wondering if they could do a large scale partial reverse-osmosis desalination operation for ag? More of a brackish water vs clean enough to drink.

That's a practical idea but I think it wouldn't reduce the cost enough.

The membranes in reverse osmosis for water are supposed to block all molecules larger than water. If you make the pores in those membranes larger, you might slightly reduce the water pressure needed to push the water through those membranes but would also allow a lot of nasty stuff that's only a little larger than water to get through. The majority of the infrastructure expenses shouldn't change.

If you were referring to cutting back on other finishing processes for the water, I don't know enough to even guess. However I would wager that there are FDA regulations in place stating that the water used for growing human-consumables must meet a certain standard of safety. So that would probably restrict what processes could be eliminated for finishing the processing of potable water. Those regulations are probably designed to prevent events like those bacterial outbreaks from salads that we sometimes see in the news.

I would also be concerned about the accumulation of undesirable minerals in the farmland soil over time.

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by chuckmann

I personally think we Californians should just steal Oregon's water, but the libs in CA will never allow that.

I see that CA is exploring more and more desal, but it takes so fricking long. The Carlsbad Project took 8 years of planning and six years of permitting process. A billion dollars for meeting a 7% capacity requirement.

Oi vey!

A Gov't emergency decree would eliminate the years you list and ...... that plant will do 30% of SD needs, so if each County had one it would be far more than 7% for the State. SD was just ahead of the times.

[zilfondel]

Just wanted to throw this out there: average per capita water use in Portland, Oregon is ~96 gallons/day (and has been decreasing annually), vs California's 196. Statewide usage is higher, but still lower than in CA. You guys need to figure out water conservation. You reap what you sow, after all...

source: http://www.portlandoregon.gov/water/article/428229?

Anyways, we already have severe droughts in the state. Every state in the West has limited water supplies, CA isn't special, it just has an enormous population and terrible agricultural practices.

[jerrygar]

Shatner pitches Wash. pipeline to stop California drought

I think this is going to happen, although what's to say that the northwest doesn't dry up as well.

[jm31828]

Originally Posted by jerrygar

Shatner pitches Wash. pipeline to stop California drought

I think this is going to happen, although what's to say that the northwest doesn't dry up as well.

There is actually no chance this happens- the state of Washington doesn't have as much water as everyone thinks- in fact the eastern half of the state is desert or near desert-like so it wouldn't make sense to send water away to another state when it could be needed right here.

[Seacove]

California should look at taking the water from Lake Tahoe since it borders their state and Nevada.

[509]

Several points that Californian's need to understand.

Oregon does not own the Columbia River. Actually, Idaho and Washington have more demands and rights on the Columbia than Oregon. Oregon is pretty much a small player when it comes to the Columbia system.

California's irrigated acreage is 14.2% of all the irrigated acres in the United States. Idaho is 5.8%, Oregon is 3.3% and Washington is 3.1%. Montana is 3.6%. Washington is in the process of adding another half million acres to the irrigated farmland in the state.

If you assume that half of Montana's irrigated land is west of the divide and flows into the Columbia system that would make irrigated lands in these states EQUAL to that in California.

The Columbia system also provides most of the electricity used in the four states. Again, Oregon is a much smaller player.

The endangered Salmon runs in these states are finally recovering. With the drought, they once again might be on a downward trend!! There is a lot of new exciting research on off-shore impacts on Columbia river salmon stocks. Removing water from entering the Pacific Ocean might have major impacts on Salmon Recovery in the Northwest.

In 2000, President Clinton suspended the Endangered Species Act with regard to the Pacific Salmon so additional electrical power could be sent to California, as well as Seattle, Portland, Snohomish County, and Eugene. The media in the NorthWest kept very quiet about this Executive Order since the western Washington and Oregon cities benefited as well as California. This is not going to happen with water diversion.

California has 53 House Representative to 18 for Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. However, in the Senate California as only TWO Senators, versus EIGHT for the four states.

Politically it is a dead end for California in Congress. For the Northwest it is more than water. It is also electricity and a way of life in the Pacific salmon.

California is a state of 100 million acres. For years they have shifted the environmental impacts of their economy to adjacent states. Destroying several hundred thousand acres with Industrial Wind Areas, coal fired generating plants, solar plants, etc. from adjacent states. We won't even go to their meddling in issues in other states that do not affect them like immigration, dams in Washington state, etc.

I think that is the reason you see so little sympathy for California's problems from people outside the state.

Here is an interesting link on irrigated farming in the US: http://water.epa.gov/action/importan...3-Schaible.pdf

[jerrygar]

So of course I understand and agree that the columbia is not owned by Oregon. I know how large the columbia water shed is, and all states that add water to the columbia are to be compensated.

But the argument that says we cannot pipe any water from it because we'll kill the salmon is ridiculous. At the mouth it is spilling 230k cu/ft per second into the ocean. Thats like 5 trillion gallons per month. Many studies have been done and its been determined that millions and millions of gallons of water can be taken from the river with no impact to salmon, shipping or anything else. The value of selling the water also dwarfs the value of shipping, so who cares anyway. I also want to be clear and say say that CA wouldn't taking the water, they would be buying it, and proceeds from this sale would be sent to the states from where the water came from. Southern/central oregon would be doing the same as they would be tapping the water pipelines for their own use and grow more in those areas. This would be similar to the oil contract alaskans get to enjoy - every month a check comes in the mail. why not.

Regarding agriculture - I hope that you understand that the agg in CA isnt for CA's consumption - foods grown here are sent all over the US and in some cases like amonds, sent all over the world. CA ag is a national priority, and more and more food can be grown for hungry americans everywhere. Its not just CA's problem. On top of that, even more lands can be used for growing, and an abundance of food can be created. I'd go as far as selling water to mexico as well.

The pac northwest is being foolish here - line your pockets with cash, and sell the f*cking water.

[Seacove]

Originally Posted by jerrygar

The pac northwest is being foolish here - line your pockets with cash, and sell the f*cking water.

No, we don't have it to spare. Use Lake Tahoe.

Best wishes, Seattle*

*You are letting Nestle bottle and sell your water. Get your own house in order. Then drink Lake Tahoe.