7 ms·

The real solution to the water crisis is to start by admitting that water is a scarce resource in the region that needs to be rationed somehow and then start wo

The real solution to the water crisis is to start by admitting that water is a scarce resource in the region that needs to be rationed somehow and then start working on an equitable plan for rationing. While water is necessary for life, a lot of the water usage in a suburban lifestyle is just plain wasted. To give an idea, when I worked at a water treatment plant, I got to see just how different the water consumption rates were between winter and summer--winter water usage was roughly half that of summer. So a simple starting point for water rationing is... ban lawns and watering lawns (if you don't like such bans, then I'd alternatively suggest changing water rates so that it's cost-exorbitant to water a lawn). If you want to live in a desert, you need to landscape your house appropriately for living in a desert. The next contentious point will be a readjustment of the water rates for agricultural perspectives. The simple truth of the matter is that residential water usage--especially if you remove lawn care from the equation--is highly recoverable as drinkable water, since almost all of that water goes back down the sewer pipes. Agricultural water usage is generally far less recoverable, especially if you're growing plants for export whose mass is mostly water (which means you are rather literally exporting water).

r00fus 5y ago
Given that non-residential is 80% of usage, it seems like that'd be where we should start looking at recycling water usage.
- wfhordie 5y ago
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Agricultural water is usually not for sale to supplement your residential usage. Your lawn or shower is competing with other residential uses, not agriculture.
    - kbutler 5y ago
      But agricultural water could be entered into the market for residential usage - the current legal structure incentivizes using the water for agriculture, rather than allowing reselling for higher-value-per-gallon uses. I was curious about the almond statistic above. Sounds like "1-3 gallons" is exaggerated, but that 1-gallon-per-almond is at least on the right order of magnitude, but farmers are working to reduce water use. https://farmtogether.com/learn/blog/dispelling-miconceptions-about-almonds-water-use https://farmtogether.com/learn/blog/dispelling-miconceptions...
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        In some cases water could be repurposed into the residential market, for a price. The state could buy the farmers lands and water rights, or buy out their preexisting contracts with water suppliers. The taxpayers don't want to pay for this, so the water is effectively off limits. Is requiring compensation for seizure the challenging legal structure you mentioned? The gallons per nut argument is pretty arbitrary. If you look at calories per gallon, nuts are better than almost all vegetables, most meats and many fruits. The high water per mass is basically a result of nuts being one of the most energy dense foods, and photosynthesis requiring water to create calories. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, you can start looking at the gallons per mass for different foods and comparing their caloric density. https://www.healabel.com/water-footprints-of-food-list/ https://www.healabel.com/water-footprints-of-food-list/
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - google234123 5y ago
      Agricultural water is taking a growing percentage of the total in California. They are focing residential people to have to ration
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        California has a framework of private water rights. If residential people want more water beyond what they own the rights to, they have to buy it from someone who does. It is really that simple.
jdkee 5y ago
"The real solution to the water crisis is to start by admitting that water is a scarce resource in the region that needs to be rationed somehow and then start working on an equitable plan for rationing." A better plan would be to let the market allocate water. If people want golf courses, lawns, almond trees, microchip plants, etc. let them pay market prices for the necessary water.
- jjav 5y ago
  > A better plan would be to let the market allocate water. If people want golf courses, lawns, almond trees, microchip plants, etc. let them pay market prices for the necessary water. Those who use lots of water on such things also have tons of money to spend on it without caring much, or at all. So it won't conserve any water, but it will price out all the poor and middle class people who can't play that game.
  - 0xffff2 5y ago
    Progressive pricing is already a thing in other utility markets. Set tiers such that any single household can afford enough water to live and ramp up from there.
  - Panzer04 5y ago
    Except market driven allocation by and large works, despite the sheer denial going on here. Not every user of water is uncaring of price, and water prices demonstrably work. I don’t understand the resistance against such a measure, this is probably a textbook example of where market-driven allocation would work well. Most people don’t need enough water for even reasonably high prices to be a serious issue.
    - jjav 5y ago
      > Except market driven allocation by and large works, despite the sheer denial going on here. Could you please link to some studies or articles showing how it produces intended results, instead of just asserting it works? From observation here (norcal) where rates are quite high, it is clear that the rates are already too high for poorer people and yet the rich do not see any disincentive yet to stop wasting water on lawns. It would take much higher rates to make the price-insensitive consumers to stop wasting on lawns, but at that point could any poor or middle class families afford any water?
mimikatz 5y ago
Or just raise the price of water to a market level and let things work themselves out. people waste and act irrationally when they get something for less than it should cost.
- effingwewt 5y ago
  This proposal always ignores poor people. How are those with low/no income supppsed to afford it. We will have a housing and water crisis as it will bring investors and speculators. It has destroyed oil prices, housing, land, etc. Our market is a sham. Tying essential life-giving water to it was a mistake.
  - nawgz 5y ago
    Actually, poor people pay significantly (2 orders magnitude) more per unit water than (presumably sometimes corporate) farmers, who are often growing cash crops that make almost no impact on feeding anyone in the area. I don't disagree with the market being a fancy BS system to separate the working class from the wealth or anything, but you can't let your politics colour your perception in arenas you know nothing about. Otherwise you are ironically furthering the exact politic you probably hate - emotionally driven
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    You can have progressive water rates. Everyone gets X gallons of water at the current rate, then the rate goes up by 10 times. Then perhaps another 10x for the top 1% of water usage. Not doing anything makes the situation worse for everyone, poor people included. The good thing about a market-based approach is that it might allow for water to be obtained from means that are currently economically non-viable. Perhaps high-volume water users would happily pay 1000x current prices, and at those prices, desalination, or other alternate forms of water collection become viable. You might be able to give water to poor people for free. If there was a system where a households using under a certain volume of water could pay nothing, in exchange for freeing up water to be sold to large purchasers who pay 10-1000x the per gallon price.
    - 5y ago
jcoq 5y ago
70% of the water in Arizona goes to farming. Our state ships hay to the Middle East. Subsidized water is a ridiculous subversion of market economics. Blaming this on suburban households is like pretending that climate change would be solved if only consumers would be mindful of their carbon footprints.
- syspec 5y ago
  I think they alluded to that in their reply
- adolph 5y ago
  Here is a source(ish) for the above. On the supply side: 41% Groundwater 36% Colorado River (limited to 2.8 million acre feet annually) 18% In-state Rivers (unlimited) 5% Reclaimed Water https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts
- bogota 5y ago
  It’s becoming unbearable that every issue facing society is the consumers fault. I take a ten minute shower and I’m destroying the world but the farmer growing crops that wouldn’t exist in the region without imported water is fine. I realize we can fix more than one thing but the arguments i am always seeing is stating the consumer is the biggest issue and it’s infuriating.
  - colpabar 5y ago
    If they can convince us that everything is our fault, then we'll turn to fighting amongst ourselves, and nothing will change. Which is exactly where we're at, and not just with climate issues. Stop trusting the people on TV!
    - jiocrag 5y ago
      Whose fault is it?
      - 5y ago
fooey 5y ago
I completely agree that the first step is to admit water is scarce and the cost of usage needs to reflect that. The Utah Governor is an alfalfa farmer though, so good luck getting the states upstream to do play ball https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/07/16/cox-says-its-ignorant/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/07/16/cox-says-its-ignorant... > Gov. Spencer Cox — a farmer himself — is calling on Utahns to conserve water to help save the state’s farms and ranches. And he doesn’t want to hear from anyone that the state’s water woes can be solved by further restricting the flow to farms. > That’s “very uninformed,” Cox said. “I might say ignorant. … Nobody has done more to cut back on water usage in this state than our farmers,” whose water has been cut “between 70 and 75% on most farms. As a result, that’s dramatically reducing crops.”
- balthasar 5y ago
  The alfalfa must flow.
- jiocrag 5y ago
  What do you think the animals that you eat eat? Just because you don't directly consume alfalfa doesn't make it a wasteful crop.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Alfalfa is easily shipped from places with abundant water. Water is very expensive to ship uphill.
- jimt1234 5y ago
  Isn't this the same governor whose solution was to declare a special day for citizens pray for rain?
  - supercheetah 5y ago
    The same one, yup: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/utah-governor-pray-for-rain-drought https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/utah-governo...
systemvoltage 5y ago
I totally disagree. This is the mentality of defeatism. Instead, we should be trying to solve "Why is this not abundant" and use technology to stave off scarcity-driven society. If this was 1960's, our society would get together, move earth and mountains and solve the problem. Today's generation of people are being taught to live a scarcity-driven life. I will vote against any politician that wants to reduce the QoL but giving a pass to globalisation or unnecessary farming in the region that cannot support it. You shouldn't be growing Avocados in a water scarce region. First remove your special interest groups that get a free pass for polluting the environment or using resources for their own interest by reducing citizen's QoL.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  The problem is that the avocado farmers own the water rights, and you can’t just steal it from them. You might be able to eminent domain it from them but you would have to pay them a fair price for it.
lesgobrandon 5y ago
revscat 5y ago
The real solution is to get rid of fossil fuels as quickly as possible and by any means necessary, no matter the cost.
BurningFrog 5y ago
Rationing is a very blunt instrument. What works is setting a price for water usage that lets supply and demand meet at a sustainable level. This would require changing many laws and regulations, which is probably very hard to accomplish because the powerful interests that benefit from the current system. Nonetheless, that is the solution to strive for.
imchillyb 5y ago
Your /first/ solution is to ban US Citizens from using our own resource? WTF man?! Have you ever watched the program: How it's Made? This television program, unintentionally, showcases the massive water-waste that corporations perpetrate daily. How about we ban manufacturing processes that use water? How about we force companies that use our water to pay Citizens the ACTUAL VALUE of the water, and not a made-up price that makes their business competitive? How about we tell those companies to go-F themselves until they have a manufacturing plan that doesn't include our limited water supply? But, no, your immediate solution is to harm the Citizens... Again, wtf?! @Jcranmer
- riversflow 5y ago
  > not a made-up price that makes their business competitive? Ah yes, the age old strategy of exporting externalities. Manufacturers will just relocated to greener pastures my friend, our regulatory system is just a net cause of pollution if it drives manufacturing to developing countries.
AviationAtom 5y ago
I appreciate that you point out that agriculture exports contain the local water. I have always found it cool when in a showerthought moment, thinking how kind of cool it is that I'm consuming water from another part of the world, as I munch on whatever produce.
WalterBright 5y ago
Rationing is always a bad idea. It leads inevitably to mis-allocation, usually for corruption and political purposes. Rationing bureaucracies are never, ever able to manage the complexity of finding the best use of the resource. What works is letting the price rise until demand equals supply. Then the market will allocate it to the most productive use. Rationing == central economic planning, which never works.
- op00to 5y ago
  People need water to live. Letting the price rise seems like it would price many people out water.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Water rates in Seattle are 3 cents per cubic foot. Do you really think people will be priced out of water?
- krapp 5y ago
  >Then the market will allocate it to the most productive use. The market will allocate it to the most profitable use, as markets do, which isn't the best use of the resource for people outside the capitalist class, who are the people who most need access to water.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Why is nearly everything cheaper in capitalist countries than communist ones? Water rates in Seattle are 3 cents per cubic foot. Do you really think some is going to be able to hoard enough water to make a glass of water cost a dollar?
deepsquirrelnet 5y ago
> So a simple starting point for water rationing is... ban lawns and watering lawns This is far too simple of a take in my opinion. The problem being that pollution from concentrated populations in the desert regions causes air quality problems without sufficient vegetation. If you turn Denver into an even bigger parking lot, then you end up with something even more unlivable. Eventually, I think this will inevitably cause a migration out of desert areas. It used to be a crazy idea to build a city in the desert. We’ve somehow forgotten that trying to sustain large populations there is extremely volatile.
mchusma 5y ago
Adding desalination plants is a great solution.

r00fus 5y ago

Given that non-residential is 80% of usage, it seems like that'd be where we should start looking at recycling water usage.

wfhordie 5y ago
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Agricultural water is usually not for sale to supplement your residential usage. Your lawn or shower is competing with other residential uses, not agriculture.
  - kbutler 5y ago
    But agricultural water could be entered into the market for residential usage - the current legal structure incentivizes using the water for agriculture, rather than allowing reselling for higher-value-per-gallon uses. I was curious about the almond statistic above. Sounds like "1-3 gallons" is exaggerated, but that 1-gallon-per-almond is at least on the right order of magnitude, but farmers are working to reduce water use. https://farmtogether.com/learn/blog/dispelling-miconceptions-about-almonds-water-use https://farmtogether.com/learn/blog/dispelling-miconceptions...
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      In some cases water could be repurposed into the residential market, for a price. The state could buy the farmers lands and water rights, or buy out their preexisting contracts with water suppliers. The taxpayers don't want to pay for this, so the water is effectively off limits. Is requiring compensation for seizure the challenging legal structure you mentioned? The gallons per nut argument is pretty arbitrary. If you look at calories per gallon, nuts are better than almost all vegetables, most meats and many fruits. The high water per mass is basically a result of nuts being one of the most energy dense foods, and photosynthesis requiring water to create calories. If you want to go down that rabbit hole, you can start looking at the gallons per mass for different foods and comparing their caloric density. https://www.healabel.com/water-footprints-of-food-list/ https://www.healabel.com/water-footprints-of-food-list/
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - google234123 5y ago
    Agricultural water is taking a growing percentage of the total in California. They are focing residential people to have to ration
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      California has a framework of private water rights. If residential people want more water beyond what they own the rights to, they have to buy it from someone who does. It is really that simple.

jdkee 5y ago

"The real solution to the water crisis is to start by admitting that water is a scarce resource in the region that needs to be rationed somehow and then start working on an equitable plan for rationing." A better plan would be to let the market allocate water. If people want golf courses, lawns, almond trees, microchip plants, etc. let them pay market prices for the necessary water.

jjav 5y ago
> A better plan would be to let the market allocate water. If people want golf courses, lawns, almond trees, microchip plants, etc. let them pay market prices for the necessary water. Those who use lots of water on such things also have tons of money to spend on it without caring much, or at all. So it won't conserve any water, but it will price out all the poor and middle class people who can't play that game.
- 0xffff2 5y ago
  Progressive pricing is already a thing in other utility markets. Set tiers such that any single household can afford enough water to live and ramp up from there.
- Panzer04 5y ago
  Except market driven allocation by and large works, despite the sheer denial going on here. Not every user of water is uncaring of price, and water prices demonstrably work. I don’t understand the resistance against such a measure, this is probably a textbook example of where market-driven allocation would work well. Most people don’t need enough water for even reasonably high prices to be a serious issue.
  - jjav 5y ago
    > Except market driven allocation by and large works, despite the sheer denial going on here. Could you please link to some studies or articles showing how it produces intended results, instead of just asserting it works? From observation here (norcal) where rates are quite high, it is clear that the rates are already too high for poorer people and yet the rich do not see any disincentive yet to stop wasting water on lawns. It would take much higher rates to make the price-insensitive consumers to stop wasting on lawns, but at that point could any poor or middle class families afford any water?

mimikatz 5y ago

Or just raise the price of water to a market level and let things work themselves out. people waste and act irrationally when they get something for less than it should cost.

effingwewt 5y ago
This proposal always ignores poor people. How are those with low/no income supppsed to afford it. We will have a housing and water crisis as it will bring investors and speculators. It has destroyed oil prices, housing, land, etc. Our market is a sham. Tying essential life-giving water to it was a mistake.
- nawgz 5y ago
  Actually, poor people pay significantly (2 orders magnitude) more per unit water than (presumably sometimes corporate) farmers, who are often growing cash crops that make almost no impact on feeding anyone in the area. I don't disagree with the market being a fancy BS system to separate the working class from the wealth or anything, but you can't let your politics colour your perception in arenas you know nothing about. Otherwise you are ironically furthering the exact politic you probably hate - emotionally driven
- mywittyname 5y ago
  You can have progressive water rates. Everyone gets X gallons of water at the current rate, then the rate goes up by 10 times. Then perhaps another 10x for the top 1% of water usage. Not doing anything makes the situation worse for everyone, poor people included. The good thing about a market-based approach is that it might allow for water to be obtained from means that are currently economically non-viable. Perhaps high-volume water users would happily pay 1000x current prices, and at those prices, desalination, or other alternate forms of water collection become viable. You might be able to give water to poor people for free. If there was a system where a households using under a certain volume of water could pay nothing, in exchange for freeing up water to be sold to large purchasers who pay 10-1000x the per gallon price.
  - 5y ago

jcoq 5y ago

70% of the water in Arizona goes to farming. Our state ships hay to the Middle East. Subsidized water is a ridiculous subversion of market economics. Blaming this on suburban households is like pretending that climate change would be solved if only consumers would be mindful of their carbon footprints.

syspec 5y ago
I think they alluded to that in their reply
adolph 5y ago
Here is a source(ish) for the above. On the supply side: 41% Groundwater 36% Colorado River (limited to 2.8 million acre feet annually) 18% In-state Rivers (unlimited) 5% Reclaimed Water https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts https://www.arizonawaterfacts.com/water-your-facts
bogota 5y ago
It’s becoming unbearable that every issue facing society is the consumers fault. I take a ten minute shower and I’m destroying the world but the farmer growing crops that wouldn’t exist in the region without imported water is fine. I realize we can fix more than one thing but the arguments i am always seeing is stating the consumer is the biggest issue and it’s infuriating.
- colpabar 5y ago
  If they can convince us that everything is our fault, then we'll turn to fighting amongst ourselves, and nothing will change. Which is exactly where we're at, and not just with climate issues. Stop trusting the people on TV!
  - jiocrag 5y ago
    Whose fault is it?
    - 5y ago

fooey 5y ago

I completely agree that the first step is to admit water is scarce and the cost of usage needs to reflect that. The Utah Governor is an alfalfa farmer though, so good luck getting the states upstream to do play ball https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/07/16/cox-says-its-ignorant/ https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/07/16/cox-says-its-ignorant... > Gov. Spencer Cox — a farmer himself — is calling on Utahns to conserve water to help save the state’s farms and ranches. And he doesn’t want to hear from anyone that the state’s water woes can be solved by further restricting the flow to farms. > That’s “very uninformed,” Cox said. “I might say ignorant. … Nobody has done more to cut back on water usage in this state than our farmers,” whose water has been cut “between 70 and 75% on most farms. As a result, that’s dramatically reducing crops.”

balthasar 5y ago
The alfalfa must flow.
jiocrag 5y ago
What do you think the animals that you eat eat? Just because you don't directly consume alfalfa doesn't make it a wasteful crop.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Alfalfa is easily shipped from places with abundant water. Water is very expensive to ship uphill.
jimt1234 5y ago
Isn't this the same governor whose solution was to declare a special day for citizens pray for rain?
- supercheetah 5y ago
  The same one, yup: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/utah-governor-pray-for-rain-drought https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/04/utah-governo...

systemvoltage 5y ago

I totally disagree. This is the mentality of defeatism. Instead, we should be trying to solve "Why is this not abundant" and use technology to stave off scarcity-driven society. If this was 1960's, our society would get together, move earth and mountains and solve the problem. Today's generation of people are being taught to live a scarcity-driven life. I will vote against any politician that wants to reduce the QoL but giving a pass to globalisation or unnecessary farming in the region that cannot support it. You shouldn't be growing Avocados in a water scarce region. First remove your special interest groups that get a free pass for polluting the environment or using resources for their own interest by reducing citizen's QoL.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
The problem is that the avocado farmers own the water rights, and you can’t just steal it from them. You might be able to eminent domain it from them but you would have to pay them a fair price for it.

lesgobrandon 5y ago

revscat 5y ago

The real solution is to get rid of fossil fuels as quickly as possible and by any means necessary, no matter the cost.

BurningFrog 5y ago

Rationing is a very blunt instrument. What works is setting a price for water usage that lets supply and demand meet at a sustainable level. This would require changing many laws and regulations, which is probably very hard to accomplish because the powerful interests that benefit from the current system. Nonetheless, that is the solution to strive for.

imchillyb 5y ago

Your /first/ solution is to ban US Citizens from using our own resource? WTF man?! Have you ever watched the program: How it's Made? This television program, unintentionally, showcases the massive water-waste that corporations perpetrate daily. How about we ban manufacturing processes that use water? How about we force companies that use our water to pay Citizens the ACTUAL VALUE of the water, and not a made-up price that makes their business competitive? How about we tell those companies to go-F themselves until they have a manufacturing plan that doesn't include our limited water supply? But, no, your immediate solution is to harm the Citizens... Again, wtf?! @Jcranmer

riversflow 5y ago
> not a made-up price that makes their business competitive? Ah yes, the age old strategy of exporting externalities. Manufacturers will just relocated to greener pastures my friend, our regulatory system is just a net cause of pollution if it drives manufacturing to developing countries.

AviationAtom 5y ago

I appreciate that you point out that agriculture exports contain the local water. I have always found it cool when in a showerthought moment, thinking how kind of cool it is that I'm consuming water from another part of the world, as I munch on whatever produce.

WalterBright 5y ago

Rationing is always a bad idea. It leads inevitably to mis-allocation, usually for corruption and political purposes. Rationing bureaucracies are never, ever able to manage the complexity of finding the best use of the resource. What works is letting the price rise until demand equals supply. Then the market will allocate it to the most productive use. Rationing == central economic planning, which never works.

op00to 5y ago
People need water to live. Letting the price rise seems like it would price many people out water.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Water rates in Seattle are 3 cents per cubic foot. Do you really think people will be priced out of water?
krapp 5y ago
>Then the market will allocate it to the most productive use. The market will allocate it to the most profitable use, as markets do, which isn't the best use of the resource for people outside the capitalist class, who are the people who most need access to water.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Why is nearly everything cheaper in capitalist countries than communist ones? Water rates in Seattle are 3 cents per cubic foot. Do you really think some is going to be able to hoard enough water to make a glass of water cost a dollar?

deepsquirrelnet 5y ago

> So a simple starting point for water rationing is... ban lawns and watering lawns This is far too simple of a take in my opinion. The problem being that pollution from concentrated populations in the desert regions causes air quality problems without sufficient vegetation. If you turn Denver into an even bigger parking lot, then you end up with something even more unlivable. Eventually, I think this will inevitably cause a migration out of desert areas. It used to be a crazy idea to build a city in the desert. We’ve somehow forgotten that trying to sustain large populations there is extremely volatile.

mchusma 5y ago

Adding desalination plants is a great solution.