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California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

105 points by multifasciatus 4y ago

orlp 4y ago
"Californians are being asked to reduce their water use by 15 percent over 2020 levels to protect water reserves and help maintain critical flows for fish and wildlife wherever possible." And by that they surely mean agriculture, right? Right? The industry responsible for 80% of the water usage in California? They surely couldn't just be asking urban consumers to reduce? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/23/california-drought-water-restrictions-gavin-newsom https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/23/california-d... Nope, it's households and small businesses.
- AceJohnny2 4y ago
  Agricultural Water Rights are a complex issue...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - michaelt 4y ago
    A reduction in water consumption is needed. Agriculture uses 80% of the water - and pays far less for it than other users. Doesn't seem very complex to me?
    - darkerside 4y ago
      Just because it doesn't seem complex doesn't mean it isn't.
    - nikanj 4y ago
      It’s complex: agricultural water usage is by giant corporations with expensive lawyers. Home water usage doesn’t get defended by an all-star legal team. Hence it’s much easier to cut down the home usage
    - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
      That is an ignorant and short sighted viewpoint. There's all sorts of legal precedent tangling this up. While the math of where the water goes is straightforward you can't just invalidate prior agreements and rules and whatnot without going through the process otherwise you just cause more problems because you send a message and set a precedent that the state will not honor its own rules. In the long term that is very damaging.
      - jjoonathan 4y ago
        throwaway0a5e 4y ago
        Yes it is. Try and think a couple steps ahead. The system we live under only works because people believe in it and more or less voluntarily play by the rules. Feel free to undermine state legitimacy but know that this will result in more entities (and it will be the more powerful ones first, BigCo, city governments, etc) thumbing their nose at the state and engaging in short sighted behavior. If CA isn't gonna honor it's promises then anyone who deals with CA has less incentive to enter into agreements with the state or honor existing ones. In that future if CA grants someone permission to take X of Y resource they might just take 5X on the basis that CA won't honor their end so why should they. Any lasting solution needs to be constructed on a solid legal foundation.
        KSteffensen 4y ago
        The solid legal foundation needs to take physical reality into account. Sure, if previous legal agreements did not account for reality, somebody needs to own up to that, cancel the previous agreements openly while sucking up the relevant penalties. However, if this doesn't happen, physical reality will eventually assert itself over legal agreements.
        nradov 4y ago
        Yes and those issues will have to be worked out in the state legislature. This is a complex political process with many conflicting stakeholders. Regardless of the physical reality, the political reality will take time to change. We don't live in a dictatorship where policies can change on a whim.
- saboot 4y ago
  Reduce so they can sell it off for more money elsewhere .. "Sacramento To Sell 3 Billion Gallons of Water After Declaring ‘Water Alert’" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmw7kVgrrW4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmw7kVgrrW4
- nabla9 4y ago
  It seems that Water Resources Control Board is already pushing the limits of it's mandate to curtail agricultural water use governed by water rights. The issue will be settled politically and/or in courts. 2021: >California has reduced water rights only a handful of times in the past, but it will probably become more routine as the climate crisis worsens, Jay Lund, the co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis, told the LA Times.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/04/california-drought-sacramento-san-joaquin-river-delta https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/04/california-d... >Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to curtail nearly all agricultural water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed ... However, if drought and the board’s no-diversion policy continue into 2022, they will almost certainly ignite a high-stakes political and legal conflict over whether the state can essentially usurp historic water rights and dictate how local farm water systems are to be operated. https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/08/california-water-rights-drought/ https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/08/california-water-r...
- bamboozled 4y ago
  This! It's also why I don't like being told to stop eating beef / meat to stop the climate crisis when fracking and other ridiculous practices are still legal. Food and nutrition is important. Disclaimer: I tried being a vegetarian for 2 years, I didn't feel good mentally and physically so I went back to consuming meat. I'll probably try again another time.
  - QuarterReptile 4y ago
    Is there actually fracking in California?
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      yes - Bakersfield, Calif. and a few other places, mostly in SoCal.
    - nradov 4y ago
      Yes there is some fracking now but the state government has stated that they will stop issuing new permits for it. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/23/governor-newsom-takes-action-to-phase-out-oil-extraction-in-california/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/23/governor-newsom-takes-acti...
  - paulcole 4y ago
    This is why we’ll never “stop the climate crisis.” Everybody thinks somebody else is causing the problem and that somebody else needs to change more than they themselves do. The truth is, stopping the climate crisis involves everybody changing how they live in a significant way. Anything short of that and you better hope your great grandkids like eating crickets and forest fires. The sadder truth is that the climate crisis is unstoppable so it doesn’t really matter how many cows you eat.
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      If someone focus’s on 1% of the problem and never touch the 99%, the former is going to get frustrated and give up.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Either way, Californians should stop pretending water is cheap, plentiful or sourced in a sustainable way. It simply isn't. Instead of pointing fingers at each other, the best way is to price it accordingly. The root problem is that this is not the case and it's too cheap. And it's only cheap because it comes from non renewable sources that are getting scarcer. Everybody feels entitled to the cheap water and then ends up wasting it because it is so cheap. More expensive water leads to people taking better care of what they do with it. E.g. watering a lawn because you like it to be green should not be close to free. Especially not in what is essentially a desert (which large parts of California effectively are). That's an epic waste of water. You should have the freedom to buy that water at a fair price and waste it as you please. But it should cost you. Lawns should be an expensive hobby. Same with toilets. There's no need to flush five gallons every time you use the toilet. Less wasteful toilets exist. And of course, farmers can learn a thing or two about farming more sustainably. But why would they when that does not save them any money? There is no shortage of water. California borders on the largest reservoir of it on the planet (the pacific). All it needs is a little bit of desalination. Lots of other countries do this at scale; typically because it is preferable to not having clean water. This takes energy and money but it can be done sustainably. If water was priced correctly, more water would be desalinated. Instead, aquifers are drained, former lakes are turned into salt lakes, etc.
  - QuarterReptile 4y ago
    >All it needs is a little bit of desalination. And that brings us to the other biggest market problem that California has unsolved by collective action: energy markets. Highways would be up there, too.
  - timst4 4y ago
    Yes, this is a big factor. Water is too cheap - similar to carbon. Both need to be priced higher soon or we’re toast.
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      Since when has raising the price of anything changed anyone’s behavior? Oh you mean change the behavior of the poor, not the rich. Gotcha.
- xtiansimon 4y ago
  Why would California agriculture conserve, when last week in Long Island, NY we were enjoying California cherries at 5.99/lb? Though, one wonders if that profit might not be less due to high gas price to get them here.
  - GloriousKoji 4y ago
    In the California Bay Area cherries go for 4.99/lb and if drive out to Brentwood and pick your own cherries it's $4/lb.
    - xtiansimon 4y ago
      The economy around fresh produce is crazy.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > it's households and small businesses Is it? The people I know who reduce use self select. The ones who don’t want to ignore these directives.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  During the last big drought year in California (was it 2015 or so?) we turned our lawn into a drought-tolerant one — no more grass, no more watering the lawn. It was a little annoying to see the lush golf courses carry on with business (literally) as usual.
  - scruple 4y ago
    Golf courses use reclaimed water. There are a lot of things wrong with golf courses in California, like pesticide and herbicide use that runs off into the ocean and other water ways, but fresh water waste isn't typically one of them.
  - mdavis6890 4y ago
    Great. This saved zero water though. You instead allowed the production of an additional handful of avocados (about 50 gallons each). I hope that was a fair trade.
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      I don't eat avocados, so I don't understand your comment.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Dead wrong. The state water project is not delivering any water to agricultural customers this year. Ag is on a mandatory 100% reduction.
  - frickinLasers 4y ago
    What does this mean? That farmers don't get enough water to wash their hands now? That there will be no crops coming out of California unless they were grown on well water? Where can I look up this reduction rate?
    - jeffbee 4y ago
      California "farmers" all live in Beverly Hills. And yes, they are pumping out groundwater as fast as they can.
      - softjobs 4y ago
        https://yashalevine.com/books/oligarch-valley https://yashalevine.com/books/oligarch-valley
      - aerostable_slug 4y ago
        > California "farmers" all live in Beverly Hills. That's untrue and a harmful stereotype. I personally know farmers who live in and around where they grow in Watsonville, SLO county, and other places, and they are hardly living the Kardashian lifestyle.
- kolanos 4y ago
  > Climatologist Bill Patzert estimates that more than 80% of the region's rainfall ends up diverted from urban areas in Southern California into the Pacific . “All those trillions of gallons of rain, which sound so sweet, really end up in the ocean,” he said. [0] > Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban, although the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatically across regions and between wet and dry years. Some of the water used by each of these sectors returns to rivers and groundwater basins where it can be used again. [1] [0]: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-rainwater-lost-wet-winter-california-20190220-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-rainwater-lost-wet... [1]: https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/jtf-water-use.pdf https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/jtf-water-use.pdf
  - Melting_Harps 4y ago
    > > Climatologist Bill Patzert estimates that more than 80% of the region's rainfall ends up diverted from urban areas in Southern California into the Pacific . “All those trillions of gallons of rain, which sound so sweet, really end up in the ocean,” he said. [0] You don't need to be a climatologist to figure this one out, just being a resident there you figure out very soon how flash flood areas are possible (specifically in SoCal) since every square inch is paved the rain water, when it actually falls, is destined to cause damage and/or make it's way to the gutter system: often overwhelming the drains depending on the area. It doesn't seep into the Earth to replenish the aquifers because everything is paved relative to just undeveloped land. This is an entirely absurd missed opportunity to build the infrastructure for water reclamation, and while we're at it the Australian model to extract the waste water and reclaim it and create fertilizer for plants from human waste should be explored as well. The money is there, and a need for jobs is, too. Even if CA were only to spend 50% of the ~$90 Billion it would still be able to do a great deal to ensure it's longterm future by investing in this critical infrastructure. * There used to be a running bet of what celebrities mansion in Malibu would end up sinking into the Pacific when i was a kid in the 90s as it was so common back then. It was a Schadenfreude based bet with more amusement than just playing the lotto apparently. Incidentally enough, those homes were soon replaced with another the following year(s) anyway more often anyway.
youeseh 4y ago
For additional context, here's a breakdown of water usage in California: https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
wudangmonk 4y ago
What is the tactic here? we know the cause is agriculture and blaming grass lawns and car washing can easily be disproven by a quick superficial google search. Pitting people against each other by being water snitches may work unless any actual restrictions are placed. As soon as any restrictions are placed, the whole show gets exposed. So...what is the whole point of the show in the first place?.
- Sightline 4y ago
- nikanj 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- joenathanone 4y ago
  I can think of three possibilities(there easily could be more) 1. There are contracts in place that cannot be broken. 2. Money comes first, then life and limb. 3. Restrictions on agriculture use will lead to higher food prices, and this is considered the lesser evil.
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    4. Farmers are historically a cossetted political class that politicians are rarely wont to cross.
- kolanos 4y ago
  > we know the cause is agriculture and blaming grass lawns and car washing can easily be disproven Agriculture is where your food comes from. Unless you're eating your lawn? 40% of the water going to food production is precisely where it should go. Mass starvation is bad.
  - scruple 4y ago
newaccount2021 4y ago
systemvoltage 4y ago
California is becoming a untenable to live. We had several power outages, roads are awful, had a sewage backup issue that took a month to get resolved, and the price of electricity is through the roof ($0.40/kWH). The idea of the people have here is to regress into a third-world standard of living through the virtue of environmentalism, depopulation, and general attitude against success/ambition/improvement. Providing ideas and solutions is considered offensive.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  Sounds like you should get out of California for a while. I'm not saying it's not bad, but modern California living means accepting natural disasters and horrible governance in exchange for the weather (and family/community ties.)
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    “horrible governance” seems pretty strong. I think you get what you pay for. Road signage and access in Washington state is awful; Florida is astonishingly corrupt; Texas’s energy management policies will kill you during weather extremes.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Exactly where are you? I haven’t had this experience in CA recently. I do remember the Enron brownouts that cost Gray Davis the governorship, but that was a long time ago. And where in the USA would you go that’s so much better? I assume fundamentalist, anti-science red states are off the list. I can see arguments for Colorado if you can stand the dryness.
  - frumper 4y ago
    Also not my experience in northern California, except for bad roads. The only power outage I can remember in recent memory was a drunk driver hit the neighborhood transformer a few years ago.
  - thehappypm 4y ago
elmolino89 4y ago
For some context, here is a fairly good Guardian article: * 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...
thisNeeds2BeSad 4y ago
The irony being that israel has "solved" water problems in agriculture largely, by reusing waste water and drip irrigation and simply have the users pay for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in... This sounds like a typical US thing. Suffering from a solveable problem, while creating the maximum public drama and having the society incapable of reform as a sort of greek-tragedy-background chorus humming nimby. Should such topics be removed similar to us-healthcare to give important topics with actual solution discussions more room?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- cersei 4y ago
  "This sounds like a typical US thing. Suffering from a solveable problem, while creating the maximum public drama and having the society incapable of reform as a sort of greek-tragedy-background chorus humming nimby." Love this summation of the US
  - kordlessagain 4y ago
    We would prefer you don't summarize US until we are fully awake. :)
- briga 4y ago
  The situation is a bit more complex than you're making it out to be. Leaving aside the somewhat unique politics of Israel, it is a much smaller and more unified country than the US--the problems in the US are simply orders of magnitude bigger, even if you were to only consider California. If the solutions were in any way "easy" the drought problem would have been solved already. It isn't, and the percentage of the US with drought conditions isn't getting any smaller.
  - newsclues 4y ago
    If it was a scale instead of policy issue, there would be places in the US with effective policy, but because of scale not everywhere…
pneumatic1 4y ago
Here’s the trading white paper: https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2022/Groundwater-Trading_White-Paper_Final.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2022/...
Melting_Harps 4y ago
Remember, Huntington Beach also refused to move forward with the desalination plant at a time of (extremely rare) budget surplus [0]. I hope this is taken into consideration, because conservation alone won't solve this problem: it plays a vital role, but it doesn't make water magically appear. 0: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/desalination-plant-ocean-water-drought-huntington-beach-climate-change/2893051/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/desalination-plant-...
- mchusma 4y ago
  I couldn't believe this was rejected when I heard it. Mind-blowing. Of all the possible ways to get water desalination is by far the least ecologically harmful. You are talking about getting a tiny tiny fraction of water from the giant body of water right next to us instead of a significant fraction of small lakes and rivers many miles away.
Barrera 4y ago
> Statewide precipitation for the water year to date is 73 percent of average. Sierra-Cascades snowpack for the water year to date is 10 percent of average, down from 18 percent last week. Statewide reservoir storage is 71 percent of average for this time of year. And more stats like that. Where are the stats about California's reservoir levels? Isn't that the relevant metric? The state's very existence depends on water being in those reservoirs. Should one or more of them actually run dry, I don't think there is even a plan for what happens next. Along those lines, where are the mandatory cutbacks in water distribution to conserve what's left?
- jeffbee 4y ago
  The state provides an abundance of such data, from thousands of sensors, in real time and in daily reports. https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reservoir.html https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reservoir.html
- harlanlewis 4y ago
  Current reservoir levels: https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond.pdf https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond... Snowpack is not an irrelevant statistic. Gradual melt from snowpack is what flows into reservoirs. 10% of avg snowpack now means significantly less gradual resupply as we head into summer. “ Snowpack accounts for the much of California’s water source and storage, because early spring snowpack “contains about 70 percent as much water, on average, as the long-term average combination of the major and ‘other’ reservoirs” (Dettinger and Anderson, 2015).” - https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Snow pack is the ultimate reservoir for California. It is what feeds the rivers and man-made Lakes
- mistrial9 4y ago
  some additional context in "California Extreme Heat Action Plan 2022" and related documents from Sacramento
mdavis6890 4y ago
The best plan for CA to get their water under control is: 1. Fix agriculture water rights to numerical limits, somewhat higher than what is already being used. This will cap water usage and move away from an all-you-can-drink model, but not penalize existing farmers. 2. Buy back those water rights from farmers using a reverse-auction, allowing the farmers who generate the least value from their water to sell it back to the state.
- whiplash451 4y ago
  Interesting. How is this implementable realistically, though? Asking genuinely.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    really simple. If a city wants more water it writes a big check and buys it from someone who has it.
  - mdavis6890 4y ago
    1. Place a moratorium on any new water rights. (So no starting new farms with new claims, etc) 2. Identify all existing water rights holders. Every single farm/lot with some kind of water privileges. I'm sure there are thousands. 3. Determine how much water they used over, say, the last 5 years. This is obviously the hardest part, but it's no harder than many other large government projects. You'd probably have to use some estimation, formulas, etc - and it won't be perfect. It would take a couple of years and there would be a lot of wrangling. Similar maybe to housing assessment values. Probably include an appeal process as well, just like you can appeal a house assessment. 4. Give each user a new numerical water cap (say, 500k acre-feet), that is 125% or so of above usage. This will avoid hurting existing farms by allowing them to continue using water as they have been, with even some room for growth - but still puts a fence around the problem. 5. Require metering of all ag water, with random audits for enforcement and stiff penalties for violations. 6. Use the state's very large budget surplus to buy up those numerical water rights from the lowest bidders until the water crisis goes away.
    - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
formerkrogemp 4y ago
Thirsty folks from California and the Southwest want more water to be piped in to feed their water intensive crops and lawns in the desert. I'm sure that'll go down well in outlying regions. Maybe changes in meteorological patterns and population levels hitting critical mass without the attendant infrastructure are bad for water levels. Aquifers are depleted. Rainfall is reduced. There's no more snowmelt to bank on as that savings account has been drained. Wildfires, drought, sinkholes, and rising sea levels will displace significant numbers of people. Agriculture will shift north and east. I think California peaked a few years ago.
sologoub 4y ago
And at the same time we are being prohibited from paying for more water production (desalination) by the coastal commission and various activists: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-12/residents-celebrate-as-california-coastal-commission-rejects-plan-for-huntington-beach-desalination-plant?_amp=true https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-12/resident... Paying for desalinated water should absolutely be an option. If a household can’t afford it, then a necessary normal amount should be provided, but let others fund the infrastructure we need. Politicians and activists keep saying there are other solutions, but all seem to target the most efficient users and not the 80% (agriculture) that actually can make the difference. Even our own water officials admit that there is not much to be gained by being even more efficient with toilets and such. Another crazy point - apparently for liability reasons, recycled water that’s not potable quality (meaning just fine for watering, but you shouldn’t drink it or use in a pool) cannot be delivered to consumers. They fear consumers will screw up and connect it to potable pipes. There is a pretty simple solutions there too - they are called back flow prevention devices.
- Layke1123 4y ago
  All it takes is for one bad apple to not install them correctly or use badly defected ones, and boom, people drinking water they should not. Sometimes, regulation IS the answer.
  - sologoub 4y ago
    It’s a solved problem - backflow prevention devices will not let water from one user to flow to others, with inspections, etc there is no issue. Want recycled water? Pay for inspections and protective devices. Business users have been doing this for years. A given property has one potable water entry point - the water meter. So no, it’s not one bad apple and all get bad water. Also, there is no regulation here, just fear of liability by water boards.
    - Workaccount2 4y ago
      I can't imagine the cost to install a backflow device on every single lone connection.
xivzgrev 4y ago
I can't take any of these emergencies / droughts seriously with stats like these "Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban" https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/
twiddling 4y ago
Doing my second read through of the Water Knife. A book I recommend as good near-future dystopia. Pulls heavily from Cadillac Desert...
PeterStuer 4y ago
"If a household can’t afford it, then a necessary normal amount should be provided, but let others fund the infrastructure we need." This sounds ass backwards. If a company can supply water into the communal system at the current supplier prices, they should be free to do so, taking into account corrections for negative externaities etc. . However, if they insist on creating a price differentiation on vital commodities, I think the state has an obligation to prevent them because otherwise the system of basic survival solidarity goes down the drain (maybe even literally in this case).
bokohut 4y ago
A native East Coaster here which also owns undeveloped land in Northern California (Modoc). While we here on the East Coast (Mid Atlantic) have been experiencing significantly larger quantities of rainfall per storm in the last 10 years it would seem to be the inverse to the West's issue and not as publicized since we have surplus. As to the land owned in California a month ago I was informed that PG&E would be killing the power to the area anytime the wind is forecast to go above 20 miles per hour and that planning should start immediately for localized continued power delivery whether parties decide to deploy generators or renewables with battery storage. PG&E speculates at this point that the area should anticipate 5 to 15 hours of outages a week and has zero information about when or if this will change. No matter the outcome of this unfolding event, as this document states “signed into law the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act”, I am going to make an educated guess that no government will be solving this issue by printing more water or electricity.
chriscjcj 4y ago
Mandates to reduce water use by 15% have an unintended consequence. The fine citizens who conserve water even when there are no restrictions take it in the shorts. The lesson then becomes, "Use extra water when there are no restrictions so that when restrictions go into effect, cutting your water usage won't be so painful."
hungrigekatze 4y ago
If you really wanna get your blood boiling read up on Sacramento as a water district... I moved to California some years ago from a water-rich area of the US after having spent some time living in a European country where water is very expensive. The state that I lived in near the Great Lakes has incredibly strict water use and pollution guidelines BECAUSE water is so integral to the social and economic well-being of that Great Lakes state. I was flabbergasted by the wastefulness of non-industry water use in California but then a few years ago I learned about Sacramento and water and was speechless: Due to historical reasons Sacramento has absurd water use policies that have - for whatever reason - barely been changed in the past fifty years. As of 2005 only 20% of Sacramento had metered water: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Conservation/water-wise-tools/water-meters https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Conservatio... Yes, you read that correctly. Then, in the mid-2010s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a bill requiring that all residential and commerical buildings in CA have water meters installed ... by 2025. Sacramento tried to 'get out ahead' of the law and install water meters which don't actual require you to pay for water used as a large portion of Sacramento is still on flat-rate water plans. The water meters simply tell you how much water you're using. The company that was doing the installation of water meters installed faulty / fraudulent meters in 90% of the 13,000 homes and business that it was contracted to install water meters at: https://sacramentocityexpress.com/2022/04/13/city-of-sacramento-sues-teichert-construction-for-defective-work-and-fraudulent-billing-related-to-the-accelerated-water-meter-program/ https://sacramentocityexpress.com/2022/04/13/city-of-sacrame... A large portion of Sacramento is on flat-rate water, meaning you can use as much water as you want for ~$50 - $60 a month: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Water-Service https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Water-Servi... As someone who has lived in the Great Lakes region I was shocked to learn that in such an arid region of the country there's such an (absurd) thing as "flat-rate water" plans for residential and commercial buildings. KQED did some reporting a few years ago and - unsurprisingly - in places in California where there's "flat-rate water" people use more water - A LOT MORE!- than in places where you're actually billed for your usage. Flat-rate water customers use 40% more water: https://www.kqed.org/science/15191/california-communities-that-pay-a-flat-rate-for-water-use-more-of-it https://www.kqed.org/science/15191/california-communities-th... An upside, I guess, is that I was looking at a habitability map produced by the (US) public television station(s) and within 20-30 years the Central Valley will be so hot for most of the year as to render it uninhabitable. I guess the 'plan' of Sacramento - the state government, I mean - is to stick their heads in the sand for another few decades until there's a massive population exodus from Central Valley. Houses on the coast are so expensive, yes, because people want to live there now, but are also taking into account that most of the interior of the state will not be liveable in a few short decades. (Heres's the link to the analysis that was shown on my local public TV station: https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/ https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/ Note how the middle of California becomes too hot to sustain life within a few decades. I'm personally of the belief that this will happen sooner due to depleted aquifers and general mismanagement of the water table. Water evaporation 'behaves strangely' when you've already screwed up the porous groundwater-holding rock that is underneath the surface water - lakes, rivers, wetlands, etc.)

orlp 4y ago

"Californians are being asked to reduce their water use by 15 percent over 2020 levels to protect water reserves and help maintain critical flows for fish and wildlife wherever possible." And by that they surely mean agriculture, right? Right? The industry responsible for 80% of the water usage in California? They surely couldn't just be asking urban consumers to reduce? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/23/california-drought-water-restrictions-gavin-newsom https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/23/california-d... Nope, it's households and small businesses.

AceJohnny2 4y ago
Agricultural Water Rights are a complex issue...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- michaelt 4y ago
  A reduction in water consumption is needed. Agriculture uses 80% of the water - and pays far less for it than other users. Doesn't seem very complex to me?
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Just because it doesn't seem complex doesn't mean it isn't.
  - nikanj 4y ago
    It’s complex: agricultural water usage is by giant corporations with expensive lawyers. Home water usage doesn’t get defended by an all-star legal team. Hence it’s much easier to cut down the home usage
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    That is an ignorant and short sighted viewpoint. There's all sorts of legal precedent tangling this up. While the math of where the water goes is straightforward you can't just invalidate prior agreements and rules and whatnot without going through the process otherwise you just cause more problems because you send a message and set a precedent that the state will not honor its own rules. In the long term that is very damaging.
    - jjoonathan 4y ago
      - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
        Yes it is. Try and think a couple steps ahead. The system we live under only works because people believe in it and more or less voluntarily play by the rules. Feel free to undermine state legitimacy but know that this will result in more entities (and it will be the more powerful ones first, BigCo, city governments, etc) thumbing their nose at the state and engaging in short sighted behavior. If CA isn't gonna honor it's promises then anyone who deals with CA has less incentive to enter into agreements with the state or honor existing ones. In that future if CA grants someone permission to take X of Y resource they might just take 5X on the basis that CA won't honor their end so why should they. Any lasting solution needs to be constructed on a solid legal foundation.
        KSteffensen 4y ago
        The solid legal foundation needs to take physical reality into account. Sure, if previous legal agreements did not account for reality, somebody needs to own up to that, cancel the previous agreements openly while sucking up the relevant penalties. However, if this doesn't happen, physical reality will eventually assert itself over legal agreements.
        nradov 4y ago
        Yes and those issues will have to be worked out in the state legislature. This is a complex political process with many conflicting stakeholders. Regardless of the physical reality, the political reality will take time to change. We don't live in a dictatorship where policies can change on a whim.
saboot 4y ago
Reduce so they can sell it off for more money elsewhere .. "Sacramento To Sell 3 Billion Gallons of Water After Declaring ‘Water Alert’" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmw7kVgrrW4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmw7kVgrrW4
nabla9 4y ago
It seems that Water Resources Control Board is already pushing the limits of it's mandate to curtail agricultural water use governed by water rights. The issue will be settled politically and/or in courts. 2021: >California has reduced water rights only a handful of times in the past, but it will probably become more routine as the climate crisis worsens, Jay Lund, the co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis, told the LA Times.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/04/california-drought-sacramento-san-joaquin-river-delta https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/aug/04/california-d... >Water Resources Control Board voted unanimously to curtail nearly all agricultural water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed ... However, if drought and the board’s no-diversion policy continue into 2022, they will almost certainly ignite a high-stakes political and legal conflict over whether the state can essentially usurp historic water rights and dictate how local farm water systems are to be operated. https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/08/california-water-rights-drought/ https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/08/california-water-r...
bamboozled 4y ago
This! It's also why I don't like being told to stop eating beef / meat to stop the climate crisis when fracking and other ridiculous practices are still legal. Food and nutrition is important. Disclaimer: I tried being a vegetarian for 2 years, I didn't feel good mentally and physically so I went back to consuming meat. I'll probably try again another time.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  Is there actually fracking in California?
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    yes - Bakersfield, Calif. and a few other places, mostly in SoCal.
  - nradov 4y ago
    Yes there is some fracking now but the state government has stated that they will stop issuing new permits for it. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/23/governor-newsom-takes-action-to-phase-out-oil-extraction-in-california/ https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/04/23/governor-newsom-takes-acti...
- paulcole 4y ago
  This is why we’ll never “stop the climate crisis.” Everybody thinks somebody else is causing the problem and that somebody else needs to change more than they themselves do. The truth is, stopping the climate crisis involves everybody changing how they live in a significant way. Anything short of that and you better hope your great grandkids like eating crickets and forest fires. The sadder truth is that the climate crisis is unstoppable so it doesn’t really matter how many cows you eat.
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    If someone focus’s on 1% of the problem and never touch the 99%, the former is going to get frustrated and give up.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
Either way, Californians should stop pretending water is cheap, plentiful or sourced in a sustainable way. It simply isn't. Instead of pointing fingers at each other, the best way is to price it accordingly. The root problem is that this is not the case and it's too cheap. And it's only cheap because it comes from non renewable sources that are getting scarcer. Everybody feels entitled to the cheap water and then ends up wasting it because it is so cheap. More expensive water leads to people taking better care of what they do with it. E.g. watering a lawn because you like it to be green should not be close to free. Especially not in what is essentially a desert (which large parts of California effectively are). That's an epic waste of water. You should have the freedom to buy that water at a fair price and waste it as you please. But it should cost you. Lawns should be an expensive hobby. Same with toilets. There's no need to flush five gallons every time you use the toilet. Less wasteful toilets exist. And of course, farmers can learn a thing or two about farming more sustainably. But why would they when that does not save them any money? There is no shortage of water. California borders on the largest reservoir of it on the planet (the pacific). All it needs is a little bit of desalination. Lots of other countries do this at scale; typically because it is preferable to not having clean water. This takes energy and money but it can be done sustainably. If water was priced correctly, more water would be desalinated. Instead, aquifers are drained, former lakes are turned into salt lakes, etc.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  >All it needs is a little bit of desalination. And that brings us to the other biggest market problem that California has unsolved by collective action: energy markets. Highways would be up there, too.
- timst4 4y ago
  Yes, this is a big factor. Water is too cheap - similar to carbon. Both need to be priced higher soon or we’re toast.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    Since when has raising the price of anything changed anyone’s behavior? Oh you mean change the behavior of the poor, not the rich. Gotcha.
xtiansimon 4y ago
Why would California agriculture conserve, when last week in Long Island, NY we were enjoying California cherries at 5.99/lb? Though, one wonders if that profit might not be less due to high gas price to get them here.
- GloriousKoji 4y ago
  In the California Bay Area cherries go for 4.99/lb and if drive out to Brentwood and pick your own cherries it's $4/lb.
  - xtiansimon 4y ago
    The economy around fresh produce is crazy.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> it's households and small businesses Is it? The people I know who reduce use self select. The ones who don’t want to ignore these directives.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
During the last big drought year in California (was it 2015 or so?) we turned our lawn into a drought-tolerant one — no more grass, no more watering the lawn. It was a little annoying to see the lush golf courses carry on with business (literally) as usual.
- scruple 4y ago
  Golf courses use reclaimed water. There are a lot of things wrong with golf courses in California, like pesticide and herbicide use that runs off into the ocean and other water ways, but fresh water waste isn't typically one of them.
- mdavis6890 4y ago
  Great. This saved zero water though. You instead allowed the production of an additional handful of avocados (about 50 gallons each). I hope that was a fair trade.
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    I don't eat avocados, so I don't understand your comment.
jeffbee 4y ago
Dead wrong. The state water project is not delivering any water to agricultural customers this year. Ag is on a mandatory 100% reduction.
- frickinLasers 4y ago
  What does this mean? That farmers don't get enough water to wash their hands now? That there will be no crops coming out of California unless they were grown on well water? Where can I look up this reduction rate?
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    California "farmers" all live in Beverly Hills. And yes, they are pumping out groundwater as fast as they can.
    - softjobs 4y ago
      https://yashalevine.com/books/oligarch-valley https://yashalevine.com/books/oligarch-valley
    - aerostable_slug 4y ago
      > California "farmers" all live in Beverly Hills. That's untrue and a harmful stereotype. I personally know farmers who live in and around where they grow in Watsonville, SLO county, and other places, and they are hardly living the Kardashian lifestyle.
kolanos 4y ago
> Climatologist Bill Patzert estimates that more than 80% of the region's rainfall ends up diverted from urban areas in Southern California into the Pacific . “All those trillions of gallons of rain, which sound so sweet, really end up in the ocean,” he said. [0] > Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban, although the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatically across regions and between wet and dry years. Some of the water used by each of these sectors returns to rivers and groundwater basins where it can be used again. [1] [0]: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-rainwater-lost-wet-winter-california-20190220-story.html https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-rainwater-lost-wet... [1]: https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/jtf-water-use.pdf https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/jtf-water-use.pdf
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > > Climatologist Bill Patzert estimates that more than 80% of the region's rainfall ends up diverted from urban areas in Southern California into the Pacific . “All those trillions of gallons of rain, which sound so sweet, really end up in the ocean,” he said. [0] You don't need to be a climatologist to figure this one out, just being a resident there you figure out very soon how flash flood areas are possible (specifically in SoCal) since every square inch is paved the rain water, when it actually falls, is destined to cause damage and/or make it's way to the gutter system: often overwhelming the drains depending on the area. It doesn't seep into the Earth to replenish the aquifers because everything is paved relative to just undeveloped land. This is an entirely absurd missed opportunity to build the infrastructure for water reclamation, and while we're at it the Australian model to extract the waste water and reclaim it and create fertilizer for plants from human waste should be explored as well. The money is there, and a need for jobs is, too. Even if CA were only to spend 50% of the ~$90 Billion it would still be able to do a great deal to ensure it's longterm future by investing in this critical infrastructure. * There used to be a running bet of what celebrities mansion in Malibu would end up sinking into the Pacific when i was a kid in the 90s as it was so common back then. It was a Schadenfreude based bet with more amusement than just playing the lotto apparently. Incidentally enough, those homes were soon replaced with another the following year(s) anyway more often anyway.

youeseh 4y ago

For additional context, here's a breakdown of water usage in California: https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

wudangmonk 4y ago

What is the tactic here? we know the cause is agriculture and blaming grass lawns and car washing can easily be disproven by a quick superficial google search. Pitting people against each other by being water snitches may work unless any actual restrictions are placed. As soon as any restrictions are placed, the whole show gets exposed. So...what is the whole point of the show in the first place?.

Sightline 4y ago
nikanj 4y ago
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joenathanone 4y ago
I can think of three possibilities(there easily could be more) 1. There are contracts in place that cannot be broken. 2. Money comes first, then life and limb. 3. Restrictions on agriculture use will lead to higher food prices, and this is considered the lesser evil.
- jcranmer 4y ago
  4. Farmers are historically a cossetted political class that politicians are rarely wont to cross.
kolanos 4y ago
> we know the cause is agriculture and blaming grass lawns and car washing can easily be disproven Agriculture is where your food comes from. Unless you're eating your lawn? 40% of the water going to food production is precisely where it should go. Mass starvation is bad.
- scruple 4y ago

newaccount2021 4y ago

systemvoltage 4y ago

California is becoming a untenable to live. We had several power outages, roads are awful, had a sewage backup issue that took a month to get resolved, and the price of electricity is through the roof ($0.40/kWH). The idea of the people have here is to regress into a third-world standard of living through the virtue of environmentalism, depopulation, and general attitude against success/ambition/improvement. Providing ideas and solutions is considered offensive.

QuarterReptile 4y ago
Sounds like you should get out of California for a while. I'm not saying it's not bad, but modern California living means accepting natural disasters and horrible governance in exchange for the weather (and family/community ties.)
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  “horrible governance” seems pretty strong. I think you get what you pay for. Road signage and access in Washington state is awful; Florida is astonishingly corrupt; Texas’s energy management policies will kill you during weather extremes.
KerrAvon 4y ago
Exactly where are you? I haven’t had this experience in CA recently. I do remember the Enron brownouts that cost Gray Davis the governorship, but that was a long time ago. And where in the USA would you go that’s so much better? I assume fundamentalist, anti-science red states are off the list. I can see arguments for Colorado if you can stand the dryness.
- frumper 4y ago
  Also not my experience in northern California, except for bad roads. The only power outage I can remember in recent memory was a drunk driver hit the neighborhood transformer a few years ago.
- thehappypm 4y ago

elmolino89 4y ago

For some context, here is a fairly good Guardian article: * 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...

thisNeeds2BeSad 4y ago

The irony being that israel has "solved" water problems in agriculture largely, by reusing waste water and drip irrigation and simply have the users pay for that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in... This sounds like a typical US thing. Suffering from a solveable problem, while creating the maximum public drama and having the society incapable of reform as a sort of greek-tragedy-background chorus humming nimby. Should such topics be removed similar to us-healthcare to give important topics with actual solution discussions more room?

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cersei 4y ago
"This sounds like a typical US thing. Suffering from a solveable problem, while creating the maximum public drama and having the society incapable of reform as a sort of greek-tragedy-background chorus humming nimby." Love this summation of the US
- kordlessagain 4y ago
  We would prefer you don't summarize US until we are fully awake. :)
briga 4y ago
The situation is a bit more complex than you're making it out to be. Leaving aside the somewhat unique politics of Israel, it is a much smaller and more unified country than the US--the problems in the US are simply orders of magnitude bigger, even if you were to only consider California. If the solutions were in any way "easy" the drought problem would have been solved already. It isn't, and the percentage of the US with drought conditions isn't getting any smaller.
- newsclues 4y ago
  If it was a scale instead of policy issue, there would be places in the US with effective policy, but because of scale not everywhere…

pneumatic1 4y ago

Here’s the trading white paper: https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2022/Groundwater-Trading_White-Paper_Final.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2022/...

Melting_Harps 4y ago

Remember, Huntington Beach also refused to move forward with the desalination plant at a time of (extremely rare) budget surplus [0]. I hope this is taken into consideration, because conservation alone won't solve this problem: it plays a vital role, but it doesn't make water magically appear. 0: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/desalination-plant-ocean-water-drought-huntington-beach-climate-change/2893051/ https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/desalination-plant-...

mchusma 4y ago
I couldn't believe this was rejected when I heard it. Mind-blowing. Of all the possible ways to get water desalination is by far the least ecologically harmful. You are talking about getting a tiny tiny fraction of water from the giant body of water right next to us instead of a significant fraction of small lakes and rivers many miles away.

Barrera 4y ago

> Statewide precipitation for the water year to date is 73 percent of average. Sierra-Cascades snowpack for the water year to date is 10 percent of average, down from 18 percent last week. Statewide reservoir storage is 71 percent of average for this time of year. And more stats like that. Where are the stats about California's reservoir levels? Isn't that the relevant metric? The state's very existence depends on water being in those reservoirs. Should one or more of them actually run dry, I don't think there is even a plan for what happens next. Along those lines, where are the mandatory cutbacks in water distribution to conserve what's left?

jeffbee 4y ago
The state provides an abundance of such data, from thousands of sensors, in real time and in daily reports. https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reservoir.html https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reservoir.html
harlanlewis 4y ago
Current reservoir levels: https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond.pdf https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=rescond... Snowpack is not an irrelevant statistic. Gradual melt from snowpack is what flows into reservoirs. 10% of avg snowpack now means significantly less gradual resupply as we head into summer. “ Snowpack accounts for the much of California’s water source and storage, because early spring snowpack “contains about 70 percent as much water, on average, as the long-term average combination of the major and ‘other’ reservoirs” (Dettinger and Anderson, 2015).” - https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3062/fs20163062.pdf
s1artibartfast 4y ago
Snow pack is the ultimate reservoir for California. It is what feeds the rivers and man-made Lakes
mistrial9 4y ago
some additional context in "California Extreme Heat Action Plan 2022" and related documents from Sacramento

mdavis6890 4y ago

The best plan for CA to get their water under control is: 1. Fix agriculture water rights to numerical limits, somewhat higher than what is already being used. This will cap water usage and move away from an all-you-can-drink model, but not penalize existing farmers. 2. Buy back those water rights from farmers using a reverse-auction, allowing the farmers who generate the least value from their water to sell it back to the state.

whiplash451 4y ago
Interesting. How is this implementable realistically, though? Asking genuinely.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  really simple. If a city wants more water it writes a big check and buys it from someone who has it.
- mdavis6890 4y ago
  1. Place a moratorium on any new water rights. (So no starting new farms with new claims, etc) 2. Identify all existing water rights holders. Every single farm/lot with some kind of water privileges. I'm sure there are thousands. 3. Determine how much water they used over, say, the last 5 years. This is obviously the hardest part, but it's no harder than many other large government projects. You'd probably have to use some estimation, formulas, etc - and it won't be perfect. It would take a couple of years and there would be a lot of wrangling. Similar maybe to housing assessment values. Probably include an appeal process as well, just like you can appeal a house assessment. 4. Give each user a new numerical water cap (say, 500k acre-feet), that is 125% or so of above usage. This will avoid hurting existing farms by allowing them to continue using water as they have been, with even some room for growth - but still puts a fence around the problem. 5. Require metering of all ag water, with random audits for enforcement and stiff penalties for violations. 6. Use the state's very large budget surplus to buy up those numerical water rights from the lowest bidders until the water crisis goes away.
  - 4y ago

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formerkrogemp 4y ago

Thirsty folks from California and the Southwest want more water to be piped in to feed their water intensive crops and lawns in the desert. I'm sure that'll go down well in outlying regions. Maybe changes in meteorological patterns and population levels hitting critical mass without the attendant infrastructure are bad for water levels. Aquifers are depleted. Rainfall is reduced. There's no more snowmelt to bank on as that savings account has been drained. Wildfires, drought, sinkholes, and rising sea levels will displace significant numbers of people. Agriculture will shift north and east. I think California peaked a few years ago.

sologoub 4y ago

And at the same time we are being prohibited from paying for more water production (desalination) by the coastal commission and various activists: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-12/residents-celebrate-as-california-coastal-commission-rejects-plan-for-huntington-beach-desalination-plant?_amp=true https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-12/resident... Paying for desalinated water should absolutely be an option. If a household can’t afford it, then a necessary normal amount should be provided, but let others fund the infrastructure we need. Politicians and activists keep saying there are other solutions, but all seem to target the most efficient users and not the 80% (agriculture) that actually can make the difference. Even our own water officials admit that there is not much to be gained by being even more efficient with toilets and such. Another crazy point - apparently for liability reasons, recycled water that’s not potable quality (meaning just fine for watering, but you shouldn’t drink it or use in a pool) cannot be delivered to consumers. They fear consumers will screw up and connect it to potable pipes. There is a pretty simple solutions there too - they are called back flow prevention devices.

Layke1123 4y ago
All it takes is for one bad apple to not install them correctly or use badly defected ones, and boom, people drinking water they should not. Sometimes, regulation IS the answer.
- sologoub 4y ago
  It’s a solved problem - backflow prevention devices will not let water from one user to flow to others, with inspections, etc there is no issue. Want recycled water? Pay for inspections and protective devices. Business users have been doing this for years. A given property has one potable water entry point - the water meter. So no, it’s not one bad apple and all get bad water. Also, there is no regulation here, just fear of liability by water boards.
  - Workaccount2 4y ago
    I can't imagine the cost to install a backflow device on every single lone connection.

xivzgrev 4y ago

I can't take any of these emergencies / droughts seriously with stats like these "Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban" https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/

twiddling 4y ago

Doing my second read through of the Water Knife. A book I recommend as good near-future dystopia. Pulls heavily from Cadillac Desert...

PeterStuer 4y ago

"If a household can’t afford it, then a necessary normal amount should be provided, but let others fund the infrastructure we need." This sounds ass backwards. If a company can supply water into the communal system at the current supplier prices, they should be free to do so, taking into account corrections for negative externaities etc. . However, if they insist on creating a price differentiation on vital commodities, I think the state has an obligation to prevent them because otherwise the system of basic survival solidarity goes down the drain (maybe even literally in this case).

bokohut 4y ago

A native East Coaster here which also owns undeveloped land in Northern California (Modoc). While we here on the East Coast (Mid Atlantic) have been experiencing significantly larger quantities of rainfall per storm in the last 10 years it would seem to be the inverse to the West's issue and not as publicized since we have surplus. As to the land owned in California a month ago I was informed that PG&E would be killing the power to the area anytime the wind is forecast to go above 20 miles per hour and that planning should start immediately for localized continued power delivery whether parties decide to deploy generators or renewables with battery storage. PG&E speculates at this point that the area should anticipate 5 to 15 hours of outages a week and has zero information about when or if this will change. No matter the outcome of this unfolding event, as this document states “signed into law the Extending Government Funding and Delivering Emergency Assistance Act”, I am going to make an educated guess that no government will be solving this issue by printing more water or electricity.

chriscjcj 4y ago

Mandates to reduce water use by 15% have an unintended consequence. The fine citizens who conserve water even when there are no restrictions take it in the shorts. The lesson then becomes, "Use extra water when there are no restrictions so that when restrictions go into effect, cutting your water usage won't be so painful."

hungrigekatze 4y ago

If you really wanna get your blood boiling read up on Sacramento as a water district... I moved to California some years ago from a water-rich area of the US after having spent some time living in a European country where water is very expensive. The state that I lived in near the Great Lakes has incredibly strict water use and pollution guidelines BECAUSE water is so integral to the social and economic well-being of that Great Lakes state. I was flabbergasted by the wastefulness of non-industry water use in California but then a few years ago I learned about Sacramento and water and was speechless: Due to historical reasons Sacramento has absurd water use policies that have - for whatever reason - barely been changed in the past fifty years. As of 2005 only 20% of Sacramento had metered water: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Conservation/water-wise-tools/water-meters https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Conservatio... Yes, you read that correctly. Then, in the mid-2010s Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a bill requiring that all residential and commerical buildings in CA have water meters installed ... by 2025. Sacramento tried to 'get out ahead' of the law and install water meters which don't actual require you to pay for water used as a large portion of Sacramento is still on flat-rate water plans. The water meters simply tell you how much water you're using. The company that was doing the installation of water meters installed faulty / fraudulent meters in 90% of the 13,000 homes and business that it was contracted to install water meters at: https://sacramentocityexpress.com/2022/04/13/city-of-sacramento-sues-teichert-construction-for-defective-work-and-fraudulent-billing-related-to-the-accelerated-water-meter-program/ https://sacramentocityexpress.com/2022/04/13/city-of-sacrame... A large portion of Sacramento is on flat-rate water, meaning you can use as much water as you want for ~$50 - $60 a month: https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Water-Service https://www.cityofsacramento.org/Utilities/Water/Water-Servi... As someone who has lived in the Great Lakes region I was shocked to learn that in such an arid region of the country there's such an (absurd) thing as "flat-rate water" plans for residential and commercial buildings. KQED did some reporting a few years ago and - unsurprisingly - in places in California where there's "flat-rate water" people use more water - A LOT MORE!- than in places where you're actually billed for your usage. Flat-rate water customers use 40% more water: https://www.kqed.org/science/15191/california-communities-that-pay-a-flat-rate-for-water-use-more-of-it https://www.kqed.org/science/15191/california-communities-th... An upside, I guess, is that I was looking at a habitability map produced by the (US) public television station(s) and within 20-30 years the Central Valley will be so hot for most of the year as to render it uninhabitable. I guess the 'plan' of Sacramento - the state government, I mean - is to stick their heads in the sand for another few decades until there's a massive population exodus from Central Valley. Houses on the coast are so expensive, yes, because people want to live there now, but are also taking into account that most of the interior of the state will not be liveable in a few short decades. (Heres's the link to the analysis that was shown on my local public TV station: https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/ https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/ Note how the middle of California becomes too hot to sustain life within a few decades. I'm personally of the belief that this will happen sooner due to depleted aquifers and general mismanagement of the water table. Water evaporation 'behaves strangely' when you've already screwed up the porous groundwater-holding rock that is underneath the surface water - lakes, rivers, wetlands, etc.)