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"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 w

• 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.
            • s1artibartfast 4y ago
              Nothing is at odds with physics. The conflict is between people that own something and people that want that thing. Nothing in physics is stopping them from purchasing that thing from the people that have it.
• 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.