3 ms·

Residential consumption is not the issue, subsidized water for agriculture in California is. Agricultural users paid as little$70 an acre-foot for water, which

by fmajid 4y ago

Residential consumption is not the issue, subsidized water for agriculture in California is. Agricultural users paid as little$70 an acre-foot for water, which is less than a thousandth the residential rate. Under the state’s ridiculously baroque system of senior water rights, just because someone was first to nail a notice to a tree by a river in the 19th Century, everybody else in the area has to cut their water consumption to zero before their allocation can be reduced. No state politician has been brave enough to fix this because reform would be tied down in litigation for decades, as in Mark Twain’s possibly apocryphal quote that “whisky is for drinking and water’s for fighting over.” This broken system does not incentivize efficient drip irrigation, in many places they simply flood the fields with water, and you have absurdities like the despicable Saudis buying up land with senior rights and growing alfalfa, a low-value and water-intensive crop they export to Arabia to feed cows, which is basically laundering water exports.

geysersam 4y ago
> laundering water exports Sorry I might be ignorant but this sounds ridiculous. How could that ever be economically viable? If you wanted to import water, there are plenty of places (less populated than California) closer to the Arabic peninsula (not on the other side of the world) where water is more plentiful.
- mcculley 4y ago
  It would not be economically viable without the market distortion caused by the subsidization. See 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...
- tzs 4y ago
  He's overlooking that the amount of water used to grow a plant is much more than the amount of water that ends up in the plant. For alfalfa 0.005% of the water used to grow it ends up in the product. The remaining 99.995% ends up mostly in the atmosphere around where the plants are grown, either by transpiration from the plants or by evaporation from the soil around the plants.
  - pfranz 4y ago
    I've heard "exporting water" used as shorthand for the issue quite often. Sure, the water is still there, but it is still taking a large amount of potable water and making it non-potable. You're still diverting that water from the natural ecosystem even if it still end up "back in the environment."
oliwarner 4y ago
> is not the issue I think this is the biggest issue with every resource and climate issue right now. As soon as you point out something significant, somebody pops up with "But that's not the real issue", and points to another three. US domestic, residential resource usage (water, raw energy, fossil fuel) is so amazingly out of whack with the rest of the world that it's starting to demoralise the rest of us. This is a problem that can be fixed but it won't if you just want to point at other problems.
- ianai 4y ago
  How many countries successfully built highway systems by leaving the construction of them to private people? How about rail systems? Because a national water grid is closer to a power grid or highway system ie fundamental, critical, and national infrastructure than something even an hoa could pull off. These “arguments” for “personal responsibility” are increasingly shallow. The rhetorical equivalent of grabbing someones whole arm, forcing that arm to hit themselves, and asking “why are you hitting yourself? You’re so silly!” Ie abuse.
  - oliwarner 4y ago
    Where did I argue for personal responsibility or privately built infrastructure? Are you replying to the right comment? The US needs to take national responsibility for energy consumption and water use. From agriculture to residential and everything in between. That will involve a lot of Federal and state funded infrastructure but also a lot of subsidised home improvement, and tax. The whole US needs to take this seriously, we all do. Just to reiterate, I'm not saying we should ignore any of the issues you talked about; rather it's your approach of ignoring domestic because of argri that I think sends the wrong message to everyone.
- Siddarth1977 4y ago
  I agree there is a frustrating tendency to get into deflecting blame and pointing at different things, the situation with water is perhaps not a great example. If you focus on household water usage, you'll have many people oppose your effort because they don't want to take shorter showers or buy a new washing machine. If you point out that some corporation is paying pennies to drain an aquifer to grow a water-intensive crop like almonds in the desert, it's easier to get the political base to affect real change. Basically, you can try to get the majority of people to choose the greater societal good over their own comfort and convenience (good luck, humans suck) or you can try to convince enough of them to not let the almond farmers continue pillaging the shared water supply, which feels more politically viable.

by fmajid 4y ago

geysersam 4y ago

> laundering water exports Sorry I might be ignorant but this sounds ridiculous. How could that ever be economically viable? If you wanted to import water, there are plenty of places (less populated than California) closer to the Arabic peninsula (not on the other side of the world) where water is more plentiful.

mcculley 4y ago
It would not be economically viable without the market distortion caused by the subsidization. See 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...
tzs 4y ago
He's overlooking that the amount of water used to grow a plant is much more than the amount of water that ends up in the plant. For alfalfa 0.005% of the water used to grow it ends up in the product. The remaining 99.995% ends up mostly in the atmosphere around where the plants are grown, either by transpiration from the plants or by evaporation from the soil around the plants.
- pfranz 4y ago
  I've heard "exporting water" used as shorthand for the issue quite often. Sure, the water is still there, but it is still taking a large amount of potable water and making it non-potable. You're still diverting that water from the natural ecosystem even if it still end up "back in the environment."

oliwarner 4y ago

> is not the issue I think this is the biggest issue with every resource and climate issue right now. As soon as you point out something significant, somebody pops up with "But that's not the real issue", and points to another three. US domestic, residential resource usage (water, raw energy, fossil fuel) is so amazingly out of whack with the rest of the world that it's starting to demoralise the rest of us. This is a problem that can be fixed but it won't if you just want to point at other problems.

ianai 4y ago
How many countries successfully built highway systems by leaving the construction of them to private people? How about rail systems? Because a national water grid is closer to a power grid or highway system ie fundamental, critical, and national infrastructure than something even an hoa could pull off. These “arguments” for “personal responsibility” are increasingly shallow. The rhetorical equivalent of grabbing someones whole arm, forcing that arm to hit themselves, and asking “why are you hitting yourself? You’re so silly!” Ie abuse.
- oliwarner 4y ago
  Where did I argue for personal responsibility or privately built infrastructure? Are you replying to the right comment? The US needs to take national responsibility for energy consumption and water use. From agriculture to residential and everything in between. That will involve a lot of Federal and state funded infrastructure but also a lot of subsidised home improvement, and tax. The whole US needs to take this seriously, we all do. Just to reiterate, I'm not saying we should ignore any of the issues you talked about; rather it's your approach of ignoring domestic because of argri that I think sends the wrong message to everyone.
Siddarth1977 4y ago
I agree there is a frustrating tendency to get into deflecting blame and pointing at different things, the situation with water is perhaps not a great example. If you focus on household water usage, you'll have many people oppose your effort because they don't want to take shorter showers or buy a new washing machine. If you point out that some corporation is paying pennies to drain an aquifer to grow a water-intensive crop like almonds in the desert, it's easier to get the political base to affect real change. Basically, you can try to get the majority of people to choose the greater societal good over their own comfort and convenience (good luck, humans suck) or you can try to convince enough of them to not let the almond farmers continue pillaging the shared water supply, which feels more politically viable.