[HN Gopher] Rainy years can't make up for California's groundwat...
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Rainy years can't make up for California's groundwater use
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 73 points
Date : 2021-12-26 17:00 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| It was posted on an older thread, but there's a quote by a
| surveyor and geologist in the 1800s as they were defining water
| rights. He mentioned there is no way to sustain an agricultural
| population in these areas despite the aquifers.
| kickout wrote:
| So the US abandons agriculture production and Brazil slurps it
| up by chopping down Amazon rainforests? Global effects, not so
| simple.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Old timey academics often had no idea what they were talking
| about. I don't know the full quote, but that's _obviously_
| untrue because indigenous peoples already lived here.
| [deleted]
| R0b0t1 wrote:
| They weren't intensively farming the area. What he (and I)
| meant was "sustain an agricultural population." They were
| divvying up water rights but it was recognizable very early
| on that even modest farming could deplete the aquifer faster
| than it regenerates.
|
| I've edited it for clarity, but this is one of those times to
| refer to the site guidelines. You're supposed to look for the
| most charitable interpretation of a comment's phrasing --
| what are the odds I somehow didn't know Indians exist?
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I presumed you knew about native Americans, but that
| doesn't mean the geologist considered them.
|
| Anyway, it's still relevant since many populations in the
| Sonoran and Mojave had highly intensive traditional
| agriculture. I assume those are the areas that were being
| discussed?
|
| The lack of what we'd traditionally call intensive
| agriculture in places like central valley is mainly just a
| historical semantic distinction. They cultivated and
| intensively shaped their local environments to maximize
| food production, but they weren't herding or clearing
| fields so it doesn't count.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| mrfusion wrote:
| Why can't farmers extract water from the air like they do in Star
| Wars? Or maybe from all the fog in San franscisco?
| waffle_maniac wrote:
| It's being trialed in Galapagos.
|
| https://www.darwinfoundation.org/en/blog-articles/743-update...
| throwawaysea wrote:
| This is actually possible today but the newest technology
| hasn't quite matured and scaled up. See this article:
| https://news.mit.edu/2020/solar-extracts-drinkable-water-101...
|
| > Existing AWH approaches include fog harvesting and dew
| harvesting, but both have significant limitations. Fog
| harvesting only works with 100 percent relative humidity, and
| is currently used only in a few coastal deserts, while dew
| harvesting requires energy-intensive refrigeration to provide
| cold surfaces for moisture to condense on -- and still requires
| humidity of at least 50 percent, depending on the ambient
| temperature.
|
| > By contrast, the new system can work at humidity levels as
| low as 20 percent and requires no energy input other than
| sunlight or any other available source of low-grade heat.
| trompetenaccoun wrote:
| Water we take out of the air can't go into clouds and rivers
| upstream anymore.
|
| Maybe, and this might sound crazy but hear me out, we should
| stop consuming that much water in regions where it's scarce.
| It's not sustainable and lowering the ground water table is
| only going to work for so long.
| ryan93 wrote:
| California would have enough water to almost double population by
| just ceasing alfafa production/
| mwattsun wrote:
| I've been hearing about water issues my entire life living in
| California but I don't worry about it because one of these days
| people will come to their senses and realize clean water is a
| precious resource that is priced too cheaply. Once we pay for it
| what it's worth, it will no longer be economical to grow water
| intensive crops [1] and it will become economical desalinate
| Pacific Ocean water like San Diego [2] powered by the falling
| price of renewable energy [3] (one day with plentiful fusion
| energy maybe) or pumping water from Oregon to California through
| an undersea pipeline [4] and more far out plans like pumping
| water from Alaska using 6 nuclear powered pumping stations and
| atomic bombs to dig trenches will be unnecessary [6] [7]
|
| [1]
| https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/specialsections/these-...
|
| [2] https://www.sdcwa.org/your-water/local-water-
| supplies/seawat...
|
| [3] https://www.statista.com/chart/26085/price-per-megawatt-
| hour...
|
| [5]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_interstate_water_pipe...
|
| [6]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...
|
| [7] https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/nijhuis/pipe-dreams-
| the...
|
| edit: For example, people are fine with paying $2 for a bottle of
| clean water but farmers get mad if you suggest paying more than
| $70 an acre foot for similar quality water. An acre foot is
| 325,851 gallons of good clean water suitable for growing the high
| quality crops California is known for
| Someone wrote:
| The fear is that there's an analogue to Keynes' _"Markets can
| stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"_ along the
| lines of _"Markets can stay irrational until irreparable damage
| is done"_.
|
| Some will say that hasn't ever happened yet, so it won't happen
| this time, either, but typically, those will also believe
| _"Past performance is no guarantee of future results"_ , so
| that's no guarantee it will never happen.
|
| In the end, this is a matter of belief.
|
| Also, even if we get to the "desalination plants and
| solar/nuclear fusion saved California", we may end up with a
| different California, where "big water" has the power. Some
| will think that's not an outcome we should aim for.
| mwattsun wrote:
| > "Markets can stay irrational until irreparable damage is
| done"
|
| If we don't address this in regards to climate change then we
| have bigger problems, but thank goodness California is more
| forward thinking than most other states.
| beej71 wrote:
| I did the math a while ago and figured California would need a
| desal plant on every couple miles of coastline to meet its
| total water needs, including ag, assuming no other water
| sources. Something else has to give even with the current rain
| and snow levels.
|
| And I fear as a central Oregonian that we're going to have our
| own water problems. Planning to ship our water to California is
| a political third rail here, just like in the Owens River
| Valley.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _California would need a desal plant on every couple miles
| of coastline to meet its total water needs_
|
| "Water needs" are price dependent. People will come up with
| unlimited ways to waste water at the prices California
| charges for it.
| lettergram wrote:
| You'd think so, but that's already happening -- taxes will be
| used and already are used, to subsidize water. Everyone is
| already paying more, but it's not a direct correlation. This is
| part of the issues related to subsidizing resources.
|
| Further, only a few companies and families control the water
| rights. Many of those farmers purchased the water rights and
| water once used returns to the soil in many cases (plus
| evaporation, but that's being reduced constantly with improved
| irrigation)
| b3morales wrote:
| > pumping water from Oregon to California
|
| Oregon does not have a magical surplus supply of fresh water
| ready and willing to ship off to California.
|
| (Your link for that one is missing, by the way.)
| e40 wrote:
| You are forgetting about aquifer depletion.
| kevin_b_er wrote:
| The farmers can use pretty much as much as they want from the
| aquifers and they pay that $70 for 325 _thousand_ gallons of
| water. That 's how individual water conservation pales in
| comparison to a farmer paying for $20 more in water. Or a new
| chip fab plant that uses millions of gallons of water per day.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| For what it's worth, chip fabs mostly recycle water. Intel is
| also funding water restoration projects to achieve net
| positive water use. See https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/04/why-
| intel-tsmc-are-building-...
|
| > Glenn O'Donnell, vice president and research director at
| analyst firm Forrester, told CNBC that chip fabrication
| plants "recycle water religiously," adding that it's a bit
| like a swimming pool in an enclosed building.
|
| > "You need a lot to fill it, but you don't have to add much
| to keep it going," he said. "Also, being in an enclosed
| space, a lot of the water that evaporates can be captured
| with a dehumidifier and returned to the pool. The fabs will
| do similar things with their own water usage."
|
| > Intel notes on its website that it is striving to achieve
| "net positive water use" in Arizona and that it has funded 15
| water restoration projects that aim to benefit the state.
| "Once fully implemented, these projects will restore an
| estimated 937 million gallons each year," the company says.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Note that most municipal water is recycled in similar
| fashion (something like 90% of tap water ends up in the
| sewers directly, and that's low-balling it)--which means
| you can get great mileage out of municipal systems just by
| sticking your water treatment intake downstream of your
| wastewater treatment effluent, although people are somewhat
| squeamish to discover that this happens.
|
| Agricultural use is pretty much the most effective way to
| export water out of the watershed--the water that is used
| in the crops is more likely to be lost due to
| envirotranspiration or simply literally part of the weight
| of the crop that is exported (especially for leafy crops
| like lettuce).
| isoskeles wrote:
| Wouldn't this also drive up prices of those crops? Not that
| it's a bad thing, I'd rather we pay a fair price than something
| cheaper because the water is effectively subsidized. I'm
| curious what effect would occur on the prices of CA crops.
| 01100011 wrote:
| It's time for a national water
| grid(https://www.osti.gov/biblio/963122-national-smart-water-
| grid):
|
| > The National Smart Water Grid{trademark} will pay for itself in
| a single major flood event.
|
| Weather patterns will likely change dramatically and violently.
| We cannot relocate our farmland fast enough. We need a system
| capable of absorbing extreme precipitation and reclaiming it for
| food.
|
| This isn't about stealing water from the Great Lakes(that's a
| common worry). Yes, pumping water takes energy, but it also
| provides an infrastructure for gravitational storage of solar
| energy for night time use.
|
| We need to think big, and we need to think fast.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > The National Smart Water Grid{trademark} will pay for itself
| in a single major flood event.
|
| That claim seemed... inflated to me. Digging into the report,
| the project is estimated to cost $82 billion (in 2009 dollars).
| That's... not a single major flood event. The worst flood in
| recent US history only managed ~$30 billion in ~2011 dollars,
| and many of the more pedestrian "major flood events" are
| managing to cost somewhere around $1-10 billion. (And that
| presumes it's not something like Hurricane Harvey, that would
| drench a metropolitan area downstream of any intakes to the
| west coast, so it wouldn't actually mitigate those events.)
| gravypod wrote:
| > That's... not a single major flood event. The worst flood
| in recent US history only managed ~$30 billion in ~2011
| dollars, and many of the more pedestrian "major flood events"
| are managing to cost somewhere around $1-10 billion.
|
| This is only half of the equation. There are large areas of
| the US with water shortages. If you could, hypothetically,
| completely remove the effects of the flooding you would
| "save" $30 billion in damages and then sell that water for
| profit to areas with droughts. For example, from 2010 to 2017
| water bills for some families jumped 71% [0]. A quote from
| the same article:
|
| "Bills increased from $86.31 to $195.86 a month for a
| household of four using 150 gallons per person a day"
|
| So ~0.10 $/gallons. I'm not going to attempt to calculate the
| amount of water that recent floods have had but statements
| like "peak flow of 213,000 [ft^3/s]" are used I think we
| could see how it would be possible to make this math balance
| out. I'm not saying it does but the napink math leads me to
| believe that it could be possible if construction and
| maintenance was cheap enough. It would also improve economic
| prosperity in the regions (Vegas, etc).
|
| [0] - https://www.kqed.org/science/1920428/californians-are-
| strugg...
|
| [1] - https://www.weather.gov/lix/ms_flood_history
| CursedUrn wrote:
| How do you stop a bad actor (e.g. CA) using up the entire
| country's water supply?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Pricing
| gumby wrote:
| I think CA often gets a bad rap from jealous people but your
| message is a case that is 100% right on. California's
| agricultural practices are unsustainable and exploitative.
| syki wrote:
| There are certainly some bad practices but overall don't we
| need the agricultural capabilities of California? It's not
| like all those crops can be grown elsewhere in the country
| more efficiently, right?
| zamfi wrote:
| California is a great place to grow what is grown there,
| but it is not efficient in terms of water use, in part
| because the incentives are screwed up.
|
| The end result of the existing water rights systems is
| that for some farms in very arid regions, water is
| basically free, so they use a ton of it growing e.g.,
| Almonds and Pomegranates, highly water-intensive crops
| which should probably be grown in less-arid parts of the
| state.
|
| If water cost effectively reflected water scarcity within
| the central valley, I suspect things would be quite
| different. But this is hard to change, because politics
| (in California but also everywhere) favors incumbents who
| have a lot to lose, over newcomers who could have a lot
| to gain, or over a large population that stands to gain a
| little bit but not enough to vote over it. (See:
| occupational licensing, Prop. 13, etc.)
| syki wrote:
| This is my understanding too. That the types of crops
| being grown in a given place (like almonds) is a problem
| and water use could be much less than it is but we do
| absolutely need California to grow things because it's an
| important agricultural contributor. Other states wouldn't
| be able to pick up the slack in California's absence.
| Such is my understanding.
| stevehawk wrote:
| doesn't seem like they're being grown efficiently in
| California, either, though?
| syki wrote:
| Efficiently in that with enough water it's the best place
| to grow things. The soil, weather, etc. are really good.
| Water needs to be better allocated but my understanding
| is that it's not feasible to just say that California
| should have much less farmland since there isn't
| elsewhere in the country that can have its output.
| gumby wrote:
| I'm talking about the Central Valley, which is basically
| an unsustainable extractive factory. Agriculture in
| coastal areas is largely lower value row crops and
| vegetables.
|
| Water is discussed the most, as there are essentially no
| pricing signals to moderate use. High water crops like
| rice are grown in the desert. Water has been pulled
| without limit from a 20 Ky old aquifer; the land has
| subsequently settled meaning it won't ever refill even if
| you could wait long enough. It's not just water though;
| topsoil practices are equally short-term oriented,
| leading to a rise in topsoil prices (old topsoil is
| trucked out and replaced by new) though not water rates.
|
| I've done projects out there; visiting a farm or farm
| town is more reminiscent of a chemical factory than the
| bucolic pictures on the packages in the supermarket.
|
| Agriculture is responsible for about 80% of water
| extraction yet the burden of rationing is placed on
| consumers who collectively use about 10% of the State's
| water directly. So 80% of the water goes to 2% of the
| gross state product, a lot of which is exported.
| Literally exporting the thing for which there is a
| shortage.
|
| It would be cheaper, simpler, and ecologically superior
| for the tech and aerospace sectors to simply pay the
| farmers to stay home and watch TV.
|
| It's hard not to notice that the Central Valley was
| settled by refugees from Oklahoma who had unsustainably
| farmed their area until it literally blew away (read, for
| example, The Grapes of Wrath) and just restarted those
| practices in their new home. But they had nothing to do
| with the unsustainable fishing practices that destroyed
| the industry described by Steinbeck in Cannery Row et al.
| bell-cot wrote:
| At least from skimming the Abstract, the "National Water Grid"
| on that OSTI.gov page would be nothing resembling a "national
| grid". It could only move water from the Mississippi R. to the
| upper Colorado R. Ignoring the pumps...just the aqueduct that
| you'd need to build - ~1,400 miles long, with the capacity of a
| _major_ river - would have zero political chance of being
| approved & funded.
|
| And for a water grid that could absorb extreme events - upgrade
| the sizes of all the aqueducts and pumps by an order of
| magnitude or two. And then you've got to extend it to every
| spot you want to protect from extreme weather...
| jcranmer wrote:
| > just the aqueduct that you'd need to build - ~1,400 miles
| long, with the capacity of a major river
|
| The heart of the proposal is 4 x 8' diameter pipes from the
| Ohio/Mississippi River junction to Lake Powell, and having
| worked in a water treatment plant, that amount of flow might
| quench the thirst of a few million people, but it won't
| divert even a river the size of the Potomac River, let alone
| the Missouri, Upper Mississippi, or Ohio Rivers.
| dghughes wrote:
| > This isn't about stealing water from the Great Lakes(that's a
| common worry)
|
| Yes and the people who worry we Canadians because we border
| four of five lakes with the USA. It's often been said if the
| USA ever attacks us it will be for water not oil or land. Or at
| the very least force us via some obscure trade agreement clause
| to sell or allow the sale of water to the USA.
| analog31 wrote:
| Not just Canadians. The US states that border the great lakes
| are also very strong supporters of the treaty with Canada.
| kodah wrote:
| Instrumenting water usage I think is the more important task
| that would fall under a national water grid. California uses an
| incredible amount of water that can be blamed on maintaining
| habitats, scenic views, and landscapes as well as agriculture
| respectively [1]. When states can't get enough water from the
| ground, they focus on redirecting rivers [2] which destroys
| other habitats and extracts value out of other states.
|
| [1]: https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
|
| [2]: https://disappearingwest.org/rivers.html
| 01100011 wrote:
| Is it a problem if CA uses an incredible amount of water if
| that water can be provided cheaply and in an environmentally
| sound manner? Sure, the current situation is unsustainable,
| but we don't have to focus on conservation and usage
| restrictions if we have a way to supply CA's water wants
| while reducing flood damage outside of CA.
|
| What do you think is more likely:
|
| - People voluntarily accepting a reduced quality of life by
| cutting back on water usage and forgoing water intensive
| produce.
|
| - Using excess water from flooding in other parts of the
| country to replenish CA aquifers and support historical usage
| patterns while helping to reduce flood damage outside CA.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > People voluntarily accepting a reduced quality of life by
| cutting back on water usage and forgoing water intensive
| produce.
|
| IMO this is what people need to understand. If we need
| conservation, it won't be the people of California cutting
| back on their showers. That has very little to do with
| consumption. It will be _everyone_ in the country who
| benefits from all the farming in California who will have
| to learn to do without some of their favorite water-
| intensive produce.
| kodah wrote:
| Farming is indeed a big user of water, but I was
| surprised to see maintaining scenic views and habitat
| conservation being nearly equal to farming. That's
| effectively drawing water from other states and
| destroying other habitats in the name of conservation in
| California.
| demadog wrote:
| What are some specific examples? The main I could think
| of would be green belts and parks in the suburbs, not
| watering state park forests.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Moving a lot of water is very expensive. Perhaps not
| impractically so, but it's getting there.
| jshen wrote:
| There are very basic things CA can do to improve things
| before your hypothetical. For example, we can filter and
| re-use water rather than letting it drain into the ocean.
| However, everyone a politician proposes this, their
| opponents brand it "toilet-to-tap" and it never passes
| because who wants to drink toilet water.
| zamfi wrote:
| > California uses an incredible amount of water that can be
| blamed on maintaining habitats
|
| Wait, am I reading this right? Are you saying California is
| to be "blamed" for letting water run through rivers it
| normally (i.e., without human intervention) would have run
| through, so that the natural habitats of the state continue
| to serve as habitats? Your second point is even about how bad
| destroying habitats is. I'm confused about what you're trying
| to say.
|
| As I understand it, about 50% of CA's water use goes to
| maintaining rivers, things like making sure fresh water
| always flows _out_ the golden gate, rather than letting
| seawater flow into the Sacramento delta (which would be an
| ecological catastrophe).
|
| You can "instrument" (measure?) all the water you want, but
| in California you will always need a ton of water flowing out
| through the Bay unless you want to destroy huge areas of
| wetlands.
|
| The amount that goes towards environmental needs won't
| decrease just because you measure it.
|
| But overall I completely agree with you: we should measure
| and users should be charge appropriately for water in
| agriculture, as they are for any other use -- the water
| rights system means that water use is not allocated
| efficiently in the economic sense, but rather by seniority
| and incumbency (as is typical with other scarce resources in
| the state: zoning, Prop 13, rent control, etc).
| luckylion wrote:
| > Are you saying California is to be "blamed" for letting
| water run through rivers it normally
|
| Don't you think there's a valid argument to not just
| interfere in one particular area ("pumping up water") and
| then throw your hands up when it comes to others that could
| help offset the first interference? If you have e.g. flood
| events and you don't capture that water, you're essentially
| wasting it. Instead, draining wetlands and channeling
| rivers makes sure that you get rid of the water as soon as
| possible and dump it into the ocean instead of giving it a
| chance to permeate into the ground.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| That is insane, but the "why" is subtle.
|
| What is to stop this system from stealing water off to
| California when there is a drought everywhere?
|
| Let California use the water it has. And when it's wrecked it's
| resources, then industry has to face reality.
|
| California's water resources has been managed badly and
| industry has run rampant there.
| jshen wrote:
| Look up "California water rights", it's a fascinating
| history.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| If you factor out usage for agriculture (which serves others out
| of state) does CA per capita use more or less water? That is, how
| much of this problem is strictly CA and how much is it a national
| food system issue? Mind you, I realize there are crops that grow
| best in CA (and not elsewhere in the US) but that doesn't nean we
| have to grow them if they weaken other aspects of the broader
| system.
| aaron695 wrote:
| kerneloftruth wrote:
| California could easily build reservoirs, but they don't -- which
| makes the constant water fear mongering annoying. Reservoirs
| would capture much of the rainfall which isn't absorbed into
| ground water, and currently flows to the sea. The reservoirs
| would create new habitat for wildlife.... the downsides are few,
| if any.
| varelse wrote:
| Don't know why you're getting downvoted for this and it's
| absolutely true. Cue the pedants nitpicking every word of the
| story below. We could do so much better here but we choose
| otherwise despite the highest state income taxes in the
| country.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-rainwater-lost-wet...
| throwawaysea wrote:
| That really baffles me about CA. The quality of services and
| amenities doesn't seem any higher there - in fact in many
| cases it seems lower than low tax burden states. Where does
| it all go? Is it too simplistic to say the government is
| mismanaged and has unqualified workers spending massive
| budgets? Or is it that public workers are lazy/coasting?
| Something else?
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| One possible cause is that municipal workers (cops,
| teachers, firefighters) require much higher salaries due to
| the higher CoL
| varelse wrote:
| If it's to be believed, 40% of our budget is spent on
| education, 25% on health and human services, and 7% on
| prisons...
|
| https://www.ebudget.ca.gov/2008-09-EN/BudgetSummary/SUM/1
| 249...
|
| But also, people are really triggered by rain reclamation
| for some reason. They're not saying why though which is
| weird.
| proggy wrote:
| The major downside is total inundation of all of the valleys
| filled in by the reservoir. The 20th century is littered with
| dams whose headwaters have completely destroyed unique natural
| environments, eg Hetch Hetchy [1]. They are technically "easy"
| to build if only speaking to their constructibility, but dams
| are incredibly charged from an environmental perspective.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hetch_Hetchy
| noah_buddy wrote:
| Imagine if instead of every building having parking spaces,
| we required a mandatory water store and used that non-potable
| water for watering green spaces, flushing toilets, etc.
| Doesn't remove the impact of agriculture but it does make
| residential areas more resilient in times of draught. But
| that would require public transit and California is rather
| lacking in that regard. Even LAs plan for metro expansion is
| going to take 30-40 years.
| jeffbee wrote:
| This is a phenomenally poor idea which effectively outlaws
| cities.
| jefflinwood wrote:
| Which reservoir sites could be built that aren't?
|
| Most of the good sites for building reservoirs in California
| are already taken. You could dam the Smith River, but that
| isn't going to be popular.
|
| Same thing goes for the Los Angeles River - replacing the
| channelized aqueduct with a meandering set of flood plains that
| recharges an aquifer would require removing large chunks of
| residential, commercial, or industrial land.
| capybara_2020 wrote:
| Just making an observation. As someone living in Asia, pre-
| pandemic our apartment association had to buy 3-6 times the water
| we normally did, during this time of the year. We had people
| visiting from outside the country mostly from the US. So
| basically for an additional 10% population at the very least we
| had to get 3 times more water.
|
| A personal observation with relatives, they tend to use toilet
| paper. Maybe it is our plumbing. But they flushed like 5-7
| times(yes I counted a few times). Flushes take a ton of water,
| not sure if toilet paper actually makes you use more water even
| in the west.
| giantg2 wrote:
| There are toilets that use approximately 1 gpf that can flush
| toilet paper well. It depends on the design of the toilet.
| MarcoZavala wrote:
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Just need to upgrade the hardware to something more modern. Any
| mid-grade or better low-flow toilet made in the past 10 years
| or so can flush a lot of TP without any difficulty. Some of the
| early low-flow toilets weren't particularly good at it, and the
| high-flow toilets from the 70s were amusingly bad given the
| sheer quantity of water they use.
|
| Also, encourage people to use bidets. Those are the best.
| jeltz wrote:
| This is mostly irrelevant since almost all of the water use in
| California comes from agriculture.
| pkaye wrote:
| Don't forget about the Ogallala reservoir in the mid west.
|
| http://duwaterlawreview.com/crisis-on-the-high-plains-the-lo...
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I think the Ogallala is an indication that industrial farming
| cannot work long term. The immense increase in yields from
| advanced machinery and GMO crops effectively means that rich
| farmlands are basically shipping out vast quantities of water
| and disrupting the local balance. The underground aquifers
| don't have much more left, so we will have to confront this at
| some point. Maybe that means a new advance in farming
| technology and reduced consumption, but I also wonder if we
| just need fewer people and a lot of other problems go away
| without needing to roll the dice on the possibility of new
| advancements.
| kickout wrote:
| The problem is we try and grow crops in places like Kansas,
| Texas, and Oklahoma (corn, soybeans) that have no business
| being grown there. There production could disappear overnight
| and no one would notice. Problem is what are you replacing
| the economic activity with? Ideally it would be pasture fed
| cattle, but again that's 'inefficient' compared to other
| production tactics.
|
| I'd rather people in Nebraska/high Plains use the Ogallala
| aquifer than California residents.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Something that Desert really drove home was that _the
| universe doesn 't owe you a solution_. Just because we back
| ourselves into a corner does not mean we will be able to
| innovate our way up and out.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| People in California who are interested in actually improving
| things should read up on what Fresno county does and see what
| lessons they can borrow.
|
| Fresno county is where a lot of California water law was hashed
| out more than a hundred years ago. It was basically a desert with
| a river (or rivers) running through it and they built a series of
| irrigation canals. The history of those canals is one of the most
| fascinating books I have ever read. Fresno county then turned
| lush and green. It is a modern Hanging Gardens of Babylon and I
| never hear about that. I only know because I spent a couple of
| years there while homeless and read some local history.
|
| Following the creation of the canals, they began having problems
| with low lying areas turning into ponds and they began creating
| recharge ponds. In some years, they have actually raised the
| water table.
|
| In addition to the history of the canals, there's a book called
| _Salt Dreams_ that I highly recommend that is about the history
| of water stuff in Southern California, basically.
|
| The Salton Sea is both kind of a manmade accident kept alive by
| agricultural runoff and a recurring periodic feature of the
| region historically. It would turn into a body of water for some
| reason and then slowly dry up over a period of years or decades
| because it wasn't getting recharged. The current version was
| predicted to dry up but hasn't because of recharge from
| agriculture.
|
| If you are actually interested in understanding water issues in
| the state, I recommend those two books. I don't think this is
| hopeless.
|
| Edit: _Water for a thirsty land_ is the history of Fresno water
| development
|
| https://www.worldcat.org/title/water-for-a-thirsty-land-the-...
|
| .
| jcranmer wrote:
| > It was basically a desert with a river (or rivers) running
| through it and they built a series of irrigation canals.
|
| My understanding is that much of the Central Valley was
| actually a (seasonal?) marshland/grasslands ecosystem, not a
| desert environment. The irrigation and diversion to Southern
| California caused many large, shallow lakes (e.g., Tulare Lake)
| in the region to dry up entirely.
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