California's water crisis... interesting article

If this article is even close, and I've read others about their water problems... Californians are prolly thinking hard about moving. Here's the money quote from the article: "Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley." I can't help but wonder why they'd want to build a billion dollar train when the entire western border is... the Pacific ocean! You could whip up a few desalinization plants for that kind of $$, AND lower the ocean levels a bit so the warming hysterics could get some sleep...



R.I.P. California (1850-2016): What We’ll Lose And Learn From The World’s First Major Water Collapse
MARCH 22, 2015

Last week when NASA announced that California is on its death bed and has only 12 months of water left, the news hit like a punch to the gut. “Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the snow, river and reservoir water, water in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million acre-feet below normal in 2014. That loss is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir,” writes Jay Famiglietti of NASA.

Famiglietti adds: “Statewide, we’ve been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. But these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year.”

Tensions are high in the state, and small conflicts are breaking out as people are beginning to steal water from others. Caroline Stanley of Refinery 29 writes: “As Tom McKay points out, the water crisis will likely have the biggest impact on the state’s agricultural community — which currently accounts for a whopping 80% of its water usage. (According to Carolee Krieger, president and executive director of the California Water Impact Network, the almond crop alone uses enough water to supply 75 percent of the state’s population.) But, recently, your average citizens are feeling it, too. People in the Bay Area are actually stealing water from their neighbors.”

So what will happen when California turns into a dust bowl? Will the beauty and rich fabric of California’s cultural history evaporate as well? SF Weekly put together a list of the top 51 reasons why California is America’s greatest state, and you can read them HERE. BuzzFeed also points out the 32 reasons why California is the most beautiful place in the world and you can read them at BuzzFeed.com as well. And what about the amazing culture of spirituality, peace, tolerance, ingenuity, and love that permeates the Golden State — would we lose that too?

From another perspective, the North American food supply will also suffer a devastating blow because the state’s agricultural production zone is smack dab in the middle of the drought’s most severely hit area. And not only will California’s farming industry come to a screeching halt — the little water that is left will be so filled with toxins and pollutants that it will be undrinkable for local residents. Mother Jones put together an eye-opening set of infographics which paint a disturbing picture, and you can study them below.

Mother Jones also points out that the lifeblood groundwater Californians are surviving on is 20,000 years old. Tom Knudson writes: “Such water is not just old. It’s prehistoric. It is older than the earliest pyramids on the Nile, older than the world’s oldest tree, the bristlecone pine. It was swirling down rivers and streams 15,000 to 20,000 years ago when humans were crossing the Bering Strait from Asia. Tapping such water is more than a scientific curiosity. It is one more sign that some parts of California are living beyond nature’s means, with implications that could ripple into the next century and beyond as climate change turns the region warmer and robs moisture from the sky. ‘What I see going on is a future disaster. You are removing water that’s been there a long, long time. And it will probably take a long time to replace it. We are mining water that cannot be readily replaced,’ said Vance Kennedy, a 91-year-old retired research hydrologist in the Central Valley.”

The California water crisis is reminiscent of The Dust Bowl, also known as the Dirty Thirties — “a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the US and Canadian prairies during the 1930s” (Wikipedia). “Severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent wind erosion (the Aeolian processes) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–40, but some regions of the high plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years. With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester contributed to farmers’ decisions to convert arid grassland (much of which received no more than 10 inches (250 mm) of precipitation per year) to cultivated cropland.”

The Dust Bowl resulted in a mass evacuation of the heartland, as tens of thousands of people were forced to abandon their farms. A similar evacuation is already underway in California as many farmers have been forced to give up. Unlike the Dust Bowl, however, California’s crisis doesn’t end with abandoned farms — it ends with abandoned cities.

 

I had a guy in my office from Salt Lake City this week, sounds like they've got the same issue as well. Normally they count on the snow melt to fill their reservoir, but the snow is almost completely gone already, and the water level is still too low. It's going to be interesting what happens in the next decade if this keeps up. I feel bad for everyone, but at the same time I really don't want southern Californians flooding the other states and bringing their wacky politics with them!

 

I agree with stinny on this issue if our military ship can make fresh water from the ocean Cali needs to build some water purification plants .dont get me wrong it would probably take yrs to do but its a start.imo they should of been thinking about this problem long ago.

 

There was was a song about it back in the 70's.........

 

help may be on the way. El Nino is supposed? to go on a positive phase finally. That historically increases rainfall. Once the nino falls back to neuteral dry conditions are likely to persist. interview this am on the news said that Calif. is really only a normal years rain and snowpack from normalcy water wise.

 

It's a subject I've only recently been interested in enough to read articles about. My brother lives in Colo, a cousin in SF and some friends in Wyoming. Water is an important subject there. Maine has so much water, underground and above... it's almost nuts. Rivers, lakes, streams... and, the ocean. Ground water levels are rarely low, but it has happened during a few hot dry summers. We get plenty of rain and snow usually too.

Cal's problems will become all of ours if the scenario in this article actually happens, just with the food supply. It's pretty clear, the issues caused from not having enough water is from too many people located in dry, desert-like areas. Like the entire southwest. I don't see any real solution other than getting on the ball and building mega desalinization plants along the coast. I forgot prell 73 ... ships that are already built to do that. Too bad politicians will decide whether it's a good idea or not.

 

http://www.vxv.com/video/KPO7qbT6pdeU/albert-hammond-it-never-rains-in-southern-california.html

 

They could solve this issue or put a big dent in the problem.but it boils down to political pocket stuffing

 

Lots of golf courses there. $$ talks.
They get watered daily. Have big lakes on the GC that need filled daily.
Prez was in Palm Springs at a private golf course for 3 days when I was there. shut down many streets for hours. $$ has clout.
Think this guys private golf course in on the list to ration water ? ? ?


Water conservation is a political topic, that like most, gets talked about.
Taking action would cost votes,
Better to talk tough & do nothing. (has been working for many years )

"Here's $10,000 for your election, don't reduce my water usage "

 

i"m not positive but? a lot Fla . Golf and home owners grass gets their water from recycled watse water from sewerage. Calif probably does the same . If they don't probably should. it all comes down to a desert, nobody really lived there before, but for scattered people. if not for the Colorado R. they would have left with the cliff dwellers.

 

I saw an article about a certain bottled water plant in cali has been illegally using water for a couple years. It's a big plant, and the company I used to work for sold them new bottling lines for expansion of their business. That is a huge issue.

 

more of that great filtered bottled water? I can see the add. "PURE DESERT WATER"

 

should have been AD

 

Would require 2 water lines, one for drinking , 1 non potable . Got to know which one to use.

Aquifer under Palm Spring is huge & stays pretty full.
But if the water were piped to cities like LA & San diego, I bet it could be drained , like they've done to Colorado R .

But many farms have already shut down due to the water shortage, Most of the USA's in the winter veggies grown there.
Price for a salad & a carrot are gonna jump big time .
Rode by an orchard with thousands of dead dry trees. (fire wood )

So the cost of food will be noticed everywhere,.
Getting more & more South American imported veggies, A rapidly growing trend over the past 10 years.
Might be a good thing to get N & S America to partner up more & more . Their summer is our winter, & they have the Amazon R.
Apple growers have been trading back & forth for a long time.

 

fla. maybe only muni also to golf courses.. but they do recycle waste h2o. import veggies goin on for a long time. asparagus year round as an example. calif. more important for food though, drink or grow? tough when everybody relies on h2o from many miles away. only that, that comes from snow runoff falling to the west or south running rivers.. death valley is on the other side, wonder how it got that name?

 

agenda? you have asked a question with no answer. wild life danger, can't produce enough a realistic cost?

 

Article on CA desalination plants. http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near. It's really expensive water.

Guess you can't do it with railroad tank cars from the east assuming there was a place to get that much water from. To equal the plant in San Diego that is under construction (50 million gallons for 7% of San Diego's needs) you would need 1450 railroad tank cars per day.