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Thank God. Now the West has to figure out how to conserve water better to avoid drying up and burning too much when future droughts occur. Drip irrigation in
by eli_gottlieb 10y ago
Thank God. Now the West has to figure out how to conserve water better to avoid drying up and burning too much when future droughts occur. Drip irrigation in agriculture and desalination are both useful technologies for water sustainability in semi-arid environments.
- pstuart 10y agoWater costs need revising to properly incentivize efficiency.
- pjungwir 10y agoJust the other week I finished reading Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs by Wallace Stegner (whose novels are wonderful by the way), and in several of the essays collected there he writes about how the defining characteristic of the West is "aridity". He complains about how we have over-settled the land, how our presence is based on exploitation, the Gold Rush, mobility, and impermanence. He talks about how the green that irrigation provides can't last. "Thoughts in a Dry Land" was from 1991; these problems aren't new, and I doubt we'll ever "solve" them. And the population keeps growing. I hope the things you mention do indeed help!
- gkop 10y agoThe canonical and excellent read on the subject is Cadillac Desert.
- polotics 10y agoread Water Knife! (or wait for the movie adaptation)
- scruple 10y agoThis reminds me of the style of writing in Desert Solitaire, which expressed what seems like many of the same thoughts back in the late 60s about the American west. I'll have to check out Stegner, thanks.
- pjungwir 10y agoAngle of Repose is amazing. Crossing to Safety is really good too, although not about the West. I still haven't gotten to Big Rock Candy Mountain, although I think he might be best known for it.
- maxxxxx 10y agoIt seems the opposite is happening. For a while LA was promoting water saving but it seems they have stopped. a lot of my neighbors also have restarted their sprinklers. I think things have to get much worse before there will be action.
- fred_is_fred 10y agoUnfortunately there's zero reason for a farmer to invest in this due to western water law. Speaking for Colorado anyway, and I think many are similar, if you conserve water, yay for you but there's no incentive. Someone with a junior right just gets more water for themselves. You can't sell it and you can't store it. You either use it or you don't In that case the most economic thing you can do is to buy the cheapest irrigation system possible, regardless of the waste and of course the cheapest is the one you already have.