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The Biggest Potential Water Disaster in the United States
- mitchbob 5y agoArchived: https://archive.ph/0CDqz https://archive.ph/0CDqz
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoPerhaps agriculture could pay a more realistic rate for water. They would instantly adapt to use less water any way they could.
- JohnWhigham 5y agoReading about the Mead Reservoir the other day and now this, I'm thoroughly convinced the US needs some sort of large scale disaster for something to really change in this country. There's obviously various pockets in the country that suffer from shitty public infrastructure (e.g. Flint, Michigan), but for most of the country, it's been OK; they're still able to to go to Wal-Mart to get their feed and be content. There's always talk about potential future disasters, but it never seems to come. We've had an inept federal government for multiple decades that doesn't work for the people anymore. We need an episode of millions of people to get mad enough for something to happen.
- nisegami 5y agoChange happens at the rate of blood spilled.
- Victerius 5y agoImagine the chaos if millions of Californians started getting saltwater in their faucets, in a matter of hours. Saltwater dehydrates the body. There would be pandemonium. Every store that sells water bottles would be cleaned in less than an hour. Hoarders would buy everything they can by the truckload. Online marketplaces would be flooded by desperate people looking for water. The price of a water bottle would quickly reach $40+. There would be a run on portable desalination machines. The governor would call the National Guard to restore order. FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security would be mobilized. California being the breadbasket of the country, the President would declare a national emergency. Congress would pass emergency spending bills to build desalination plants and nuclear power plants in California. It would be WWII/Manhattan project levels of government mobilization.
- criddell 5y ago> There would be pandemonium. In some places. In other places neighborhoods would come together to help each other out.
- lijogdfljk 5y agoSure if there's a mix of homes with and without salt water. However i think you're wishful if everyone is surviving on bottles. You can only help your neighbor if you went to the store and bought water. And that supply would go quickly.
- cyberpunk 5y agoYou can desalinate it with a solar still rather easily.. You only need a kids paddling pool, a bucket, a (clean!) tarp and a brick. :)
- lijogdfljk 5y agoFair, i was mostly commenting on the scenario that the GP seemed to create.
- rjmunro 5y agoHow many people can survive from each one of those setups?
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoHow can anyone help anyone out when an entire zip code loses water? And I don't think people understand just how much clean water our society uses, especially in the food supply chain.
- pnass 5y agoCalifornia is the breadbasket of the country? The 'fly over' Midwest would like to respectfully disagree.
- jason2323 5y agoOne would have thought the COVID-19 Pandemic would have been such an event, but alas..
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoYep. My fear at this point is that even with large scale disaster, we won’t respond with sufficient scale to avoid large scale suffering. We’re not responding for climate change. We’re not responding for student debt. We’re quick to respond with $40B for war, but what can we do for the every day people? I’m just not seeing much.
- bumby 5y agoI think the difference between your examples is timescale. People are generally good at responding to acute, existential threats. We don't seem nearly as good at managing abstract ones that occur over long timescales. I just don't think we're wired to think about risk accurately in that way and, let's face it, most decision are made at an emotional, visceral level.
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoI would also say that defense contractors are some of the largest donors to the political class (not sure how they rank in media spending) and politicians have an incentive to solve near term crises and ignore long term crises. I would not say this is purely down to human “wiring” but the real world political structures we have today (which in theory can be changed). I should also note that, regardless of how one feels about him, two things about Bernie Sanders are that he didn’t accept any SuperPAC donations and he was very willing to put effort in to eliminating student debt and alleviating climate change. So such platforms are not unheard of.
- bumby 5y agoI think this is part of the issue, but we may disagree about the magnitude. As a counterpoint, "Retirees" are the second largest political donors behind the financial system and yet the retirement system is perpetually in peril. My comment about our "wiring" is about how we are bad at estimating risks. We likely evolved to think causally rather than statistically and, when coupled with highly emotional risks, it tends to skew the accuracy of risk assessments. Climate change is not as emotionally charged as, say, terrorist attacks so it will tend to get lower priority in an individual's mind.
- mtberatwork 5y ago"Various pockets" seems to imply the problem is not that wide spread. But it is: [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/31/americas-tap-water-samples-forever-chemicals https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/31/americas-tap... [2] https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news/uranium-detectable-two-thirds-us-community-water-system-monitoring-records https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/public-health-now/news...
- Victerius 5y agoIt's clear at this point that the Southwest needs massive desalination plants on the West coast, nuclear power plants to power them, and pipelines to carry the water inland to the communities that need them. This will cost tens of billions. So be it. Civilization is not cheap.
- hotpotamus 5y agoIf I had 10's of billions, perhaps I could just unilaterally do that myself. Or that's just about the cost of Twitter, which would probably be more fun to buy.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gedy 5y agoHonestly I don't think money is the obstacle. It's the people who fear change and or have something to gain from the status quo.
- corrral 5y agoThe solution of "move", which we give to people harmed by the economy and by economic policy—something which we have quite a bit of control over!—doesn't apply in this case?
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y agoThe amount of people who have never moved away from their bubble and aren’t willing to even consider it might surprise you.
- engineer_22 5y agoYou know, this was my first reaction. I'm a civil engineer. I met a big-wig from AECOM (one of the largest engineering contractors in the county) at a conference and we sat for dinner and I asked him, why not move the people? He said it would be easier to build the pipes and the pumps than it would be to rebuild the other infrastructure, homes, offices, restaurants, and social systems those people would need after you moved them. (specifically I asked about Las Vegas, and a plan to import water from other parts of Nevada). My take-away was that "sustainability" isn't a factor in these decisions. If you want to set up yourself for a sustainable future, you have to vote with your feet. Nobody will can make that decision for you. Climate change is going to have a lot of negative effects on some parts of the globe. But there will also be a lot of opportunities, and other regions will prosper as their climates become more hospitable or productive. The challenge is trying to anticipate those changes and making responsible decisions.
- mistrial9 5y agoinstead of wild accusations, factual speculation or billion dollar ideas, what about learning+acting on it? others are.. so - research: https://pacinst.org/ https://pacinst.org/ politics: https://www.acwa.com/resources/bay-delta-plan-resources/ https://www.acwa.com/resources/bay-delta-plan-resources/ meaurements: https://ca.water.usgs.gov/bay-delta/bay-delta-water-quality-comparison-2018-2020.html https://ca.water.usgs.gov/bay-delta/bay-delta-water-quality-... Board Members: https://www.nwri-usa.org/board-of-directors https://www.nwri-usa.org/board-of-directors
- brudgers 5y agoForget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.
- chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago> Up close, the Delta doesn’t look like much: a huge expanse of flat agricultural land, with relatively few signs of human habitation. On Google Earth, it resembles a triangular green jigsaw puzzle. The principal puzzle pieces are five or six dozen irregularly shaped islands, which are separated from one another by seven hundred miles of sloughs and meandering waterways. The islands are actually what the Dutch called polders; they’re landforms that farmers created, beginning in the nineteenth century, by draining natural wetlands. Most of the islands cover thousands of acres. All are surrounded by dikes, which are known locally as levees; their purpose is to keep water from flooding back in. The cultivated fields inside the levees have gradually subsided, and in some places are now twenty-five feet below sea level. One consequence is that Delta farmers, in addition to siphoning irrigation water from the channels that surround their islands, have to pump water out—a chore familiar to anyone who has used a sump pump to keep a basement dry. > The main threat to the Delta is saltwater intrusion. If an earthquake caused a major levee failure, the sunken islands would flood, drawing salt water from the Pacific into waterways that are now kept fresh by the pressure of inflows from the Sacramento. “Instantly, your fresh water turns to sea water,” Mulroy said—and, at that moment, a resource that millions of Californians depend on for drinking and irrigation would be unusable. A month before my interview with Mulroy, I had met with Bradley Udall, who had just joined Colorado State University as a senior water-and-climate-research scientist. During our conversation, he described the Delta to me as “the biggest potential water disaster in the United States.” That was eight years ago. In the meantime, the drought has continued, making all the problems worse.
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- kodah 5y agoI actually went to look at homes near Shasta. The lake is absolutely disgusting, so to say "we don't know how to protect it" is more like, "we don't know how to save it". The reality is, we might not be able to. California has already redirected numerous water ways to the state, and we shouldn't add another. Sacrificing another states economy and ecology to save this state should never have been in the cards. Edit: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-02/stunning-drone-photos-show-severity-of-northern-california-drought https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-02/stunning... Clear Lake is actually worse, they have dangerous algae blooms across the lake and homes with docks are almost entirely dry.
- pmoriarty 5y ago"the only way to make truly meaningful reductions is to limit water use by agriculture. If that happens, it would be hard on farming communities (and on those of us who, at least occasionally, try to eat the way Michael Pollan and Alice Waters say we should), but the monetary impact within the state would be smaller than most people might guess, since agriculture accounts for no more than about two per cent of California’s economy." I wish this article had gone in to more detail about this. Which are the most water-intensive types of agriculture? What would limiting water use in these types of agriculture look like? In what ways could water be conserved there, what concrete impacts will it have (both on the agriculture industry, on consumers, and on the water supply), and what are the obstacles to implementing such conservation?
- Avicebron 5y agoA brief google search listed pasture, almonds, alfalfa, citrus and vineyards among some others. I'm fairly certain California has significant citrus, almonds, and vineyards. I'm not sure about the pasture although I can imagine there has to be some.
- bombcar 5y agoIn 2015 California had 5.2 million head of cattle, 9% of the US. 70% of the alfalfa crop goes to those cows. Another source [1] indicates 38 million acres (half owned by the federal government as BLM land I guess) is range and pasture land. It is likely possible that water use could be reduced without completely turning off agriculture entirely, but it would require rebalancing the US agriculture market as a whole, and potentially reconsidering growing ethanol corn where water is plenty and instead grow more "edible" crops. [1] https://calcattlemen.org/ranching-in-california/ https://calcattlemen.org/ranching-in-california/
- throwawayboise 5y agoUsing corn for ethanol fuel is bone-headed. That's among the first things we should quit doing. It's a convoluted subsidy for corn farmers, nothing more. As an energy supply it's net-negative.
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- CoastalCoder 5y agoI find it interesting that limiting human population rarely comes up in these discussions. It seems to me that it would address tons of problems regarding environment, housing, etc. Is there just a consensus that nobody can think of a workable way to do this without catastrophe / great evil?
- showerst 5y agoWe have enough clean water, (potential) power, food, and space to keep many times the earth's current population healthy and happy. The issue is that those things are not distributed in the same amounts and places as people. While unimaginably difficult, this is a substantially easier problem to solve than choosing some people who can't reproduce.
- jdkee 5y agoNature may ultimately solve that for us.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bumby 5y ago>limiting human population The choice of reproduction is generally considered a human right. The U.N. has adopted the following verbiage within their humans rights: >"couples have a basic human right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children"[1] Unless, of course, you are simply saying people should choose at the individual level to limit their children. [1] https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/theme/rights/index.asp https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/theme/righ...
- toomuchtodo 5y agoThere are 121 million unintended pregnancies per year per the UN. Maybe help those folks not have kids they don’t want? People themselves want to limit their fertility and simply don’t have robust options or socioeconomic support to do so. > Nearly half of all pregnancies, totalling 121 million each year worldwide, are unintended, according to a new report published on Wednesday by the UN’s sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA. > For example, an estimated 257 million women around the world who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe, modern methods of contraception. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1115062 https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/03/1115062
- jmyeet 5y agoThis isn't climate change. People try and make that argument by just looking at water levels. The water inflows are currently slightly lower than historical norms but honestly not by much. The big problem is ever-increasing consumption. Look at Figure 2 [1]. I'm glad to see California reject desalination here [2] because what that would do in essence is to further subsidize agriculture (who often don't pay for water at all) with expensive desalinated water. California agriculture is simply going to have to adapt to less water-intensive agriculture. This may mean less agriculture overall. It's a matter of when not if. [1]: https://www.usbr.gov/watersmart/bsp/docs/finalreport/ColoradoRiver/CRBS_Executive_Summary_FINAL.pdf https://www.usbr.gov/watersmart/bsp/docs/finalreport/Colorad... [2]: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/12/us/california-water-desalinization-vote-drought-climate/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/12/us/california-water-desaliniz...
- beamatronic 5y agoBuying up the properties with senior water rights seems a lot cheaper than building new reservoirs, dams, etc. What's the value of these types of properties? How much cash flow can the owners possibly be making? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
- _vdpp 5y agoSo, it’s better to produce less agriculture and drive up prices (affecting mostly those least able to afford it) than just desalinate? My understanding is that proposed desalination plants in CA were shut down because of NIMBYism. Better for people to starve, I guess. We could have practically limitless energy with solar fields and nuclear plants, build canals, aqueducts and pipelines to transport and restore all the watersheds in the west while reducing sea levels, fix deforestation, and grow abundant food for everyone, but it just requires us to stop saying “NO” to _actual_ progress.
- Sakos 5y agoI don't think people are going to starve if California stops wasting water on almonds.
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- fritztastic 5y agoThis reminds me of an article regarding Saudi Arabia's dairy industry owning land in CA to grow alfalfa. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-water-drought-scarce-saudi-arabia https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-w...
- use92 5y agoDrip irrigation is a solution no one wants to discuss. Israel has shown it is possible to grow crops at scale in a desert.