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-- Stop growing almonds here
-- Stop growing alfalfa (as others have mentioned, these are both huge water drains)
-- Less meat (water to maintain factory farming is enormous compared to most plants)
-- Say adios to grassy lawns....grow cactus instead. It suits the climate, and deters people from running on your lawn
-- Use salt water for hosing streets down, and for ornamental fountains, water parks, perhaps even swimming pools.
In addition to the lack of rain and snow is the problem of distributing the existing water under the doctrine of Western Water Law. That is going to be tougher than desalination of sea water.
Does the Canadian ban on exporting water apply to bottled water or only to huge amounts of water as proposed by a 1970's scheme called the North American Water and Power Alliance? NAWAPA was a grandiose scheme to divert water from the rivers in Canada that drain into the Arctic Ocean to water the American southwest. It would have cost billions and billions but would have prevented the slowing of the sacred economic and population growth that frightens the Californian real estate industry.
NAWAPA was a project so big that engineers starting to work on it in then'70's would have had their grandkids working on it today. However, we might not have been having this water shortage in California. I think it was a better idea than all the Petroleum Wars we have had and are likely to have in the near future.
Another question: Where are the desalination proponents proposing to get the energy from an already critically loaded electric supply? I suggest building suitably sized nuclear power plants to provide the electricity and waste heat to operate a two phase desalination process. The California technophobe and ecofreaks would have a mass fit at this suggestion.
People and animals other than Large Farming Corporations rely on that water supply as well, but listening to these farming thugs cry you get the sense that the public water supply actually belongs to them, and that mean old President Obama is keeping it from them as some sort of punishment.
The source of all this is not President Obama or the Federal Government, rather it is because not enough precipitation is falling from the sky to support the amount of water the farmers need to run their operations at full blast while not risking turning the entire water supply into a great salt lake.
Farms have been taking the brunt of the drought for the last couple of years. Now the urbanoids are whining because they may have to quit watering their lawns and golf courses. What did they expect? They have been relying on a water infrastructure that was built 50 years ago. Farms are using less water than ever, but the cities just keep growing. 60% of the vast Central Valley has been taken out of farm use by urban sprawl, but it uses more water than ever. It's the urbanoid thugs that are the problem.
Ohwanderlust has good suggestions. Other Western states encourage "Natural" lawns to save water. Some have differential water rates that are reasonable for household cooking, washing and sewers but increase radically for over that amount to irrigate a lawn.
The biggest issue with desalination is the cost, environmental concerns are a secondary issue. It is not just the cost of building the plants (which is high) it is also cost of the huge amounts of energy that is required to desalinate the water. The new desalination plant that is being built San Diego will produce water at a cost > $2000/acre foot, which is about double the cost of other sources of water (reservoirs etc), and about four times the cost of implementing water efficiency measures to save the same amount. It just doesn't make economic sense.
But don't let that stop you politicizing this and blaming it all on the 'greenies'.
RO desalination is very electricity intensive, but there are desalination techniques that will run for free using solar energy, and SoCal has more solar than they know what to do with. San Diego is just putting its money on a technology that has been obsolete for 40 years.
Solar distillation is still extremely expensive to construct, and requires huge amounts of land - something that is exceptionally scarce in coastal CA. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it is on the order of .2 square meters per liter per day. That would mean the plant in San Diego would have to be about 20 square kilometers, or 5000 acres! If this were an easy and cost effective solution, it would have been done already.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell
RO desalination is very electricity intensive, but there are desalination techniques that will run for free using solar energy, and SoCal has more solar than they know what to do with. San Diego is just putting its money on a technology that has been obsolete for 40 years.
Lawns are not the problem. Misuse of grandfathered water rights are the problem.
If the State give water rights to grow crops but the holder of those rights decides to not grow crops but instead sell the water to users who use that water not to grow crops but for industrial purposes, why should that be allowed?
This is what is really going on.
Making the typical resident cut back 25% does little to nothing if the grandfathered water rights holders have unrestricted and unlimited access to ground water supplies that aren't being replaced.
Farms have been taking the brunt of the drought for the last couple of years. Now the urbanoids are whining because they may have to quit watering their lawns and golf courses. What did they expect? They have been relying on a water infrastructure that was built 50 years ago. Farms are using less water than ever, but the cities just keep growing. 60% of the vast Central Valley has been taken out of farm use by urban sprawl, but it uses more water than ever. It's the urbanoid thugs that are the problem.
Agriculture accounts for 80% of the total water usage in the state. Single family residential accounts for 10%, about half of which is used for landscaping. Multi-Family is 2.7% indoor and 1% outdoor. Golf courses almost all use at least some recycled water these days (it should be mandated that 90% of it is). So even if all us urbanoid thugs cut our water usage in half and had rocks and cactuses for landscaping (and most of us have cut our use by 20% already) we are talking less than 7% of the slice of the pie. It won't make for more than a tiny trickle in the spigot even as we are expected to shoulder most of the burden.
Agriculture accounts for 2% of California's GDP and 80% of our water usage. Who again are the thugs?
I grew up in the agricultural region of the state, San Joaquin Valley- Modesto's motto is Water, Wealth, Contentment, Health. For far too long Agriculture has gotten nearly free water, it's time for them to get with the program along with the rest of us.
Farms have been taking the brunt of the drought for the last couple of years. Now the urbanoids are whining because they may have to quit watering their lawns and golf courses. What did they expect? They have been relying on a water infrastructure that was built 50 years ago. Farms are using less water than ever, but the cities just keep growing. 60% of the vast Central Valley has been taken out of farm use by urban sprawl, but it uses more water than ever. It's the urbanoid thugs that are the problem.
I agree, those urbanoid thugs need to drastically reduce the amount of water they're using or rather wasting as well. Watering a lawn is by far the stupidest use of water and is something that should be outlawed, not just in California, but around the world.
All very good points. This is a complex issue for most of the West without easy solutions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by T. Damon
Agriculture accounts for 80% of the total water usage in the state. Single family residential accounts for 10%, about half of which is used for landscaping. Multi-Family is 2.7% indoor and 1% outdoor. Golf courses almost all use at least some recycled water these days (it should be mandated that 90% of it is). So even if all us urbanoid thugs cut our water usage in half and had rocks and cactuses for landscaping (and most of us have cut our use by 20% already) we are talking less than 7% of the slice of the pie. It won't make for more than a tiny trickle in the spigot even as we are expected to shoulder most of the burden.
Agriculture accounts for 2% of California's GDP and 80% of our water usage. Who again are the thugs?
I grew up in the agricultural region of the state, San Joaquin Valley- Modesto's motto is Water, Wealth, Contentment, Health. For far too long Agriculture has gotten nearly free water, it's time for them to get with the program along with the rest of us.
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