3 ms·
Wow, this has gotten bad fast. I did some reading on the water shortage in the Southwest the last time I saw a story about it on the FP, and came away with the
by ineptech 4y ago
Wow, this has gotten bad fast. I did some reading on the water shortage in the Southwest the last time I saw a story about it on the FP, and came away with the idea that this is a classic coordination trap, and the only solutions are a) everyone involved spontaneously decides to conserve water in unison, and b) the Feds enact quick, decisive regulations that almost no one (the states involved, counties and cities, developers, industrial corporations, big agriculture, etc) likes and enforce them harshly. The former is a fantasy and I'm not sure the latter isn't either. It's hard to draw any conclusion other than: don't move there.
Previous article: https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-water-wars-come-to-the-suburbs https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the...
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31987408
- lazide 4y agoNone of the players want the feds involved, including the feds near as I can tell. It’s got lose-lose-lose written all over it.
- bagels 4y agoCan't wait to see what silly signs get put up along 5 in the central valley soon.
- ethanbond 4y agoJust to be crystal clear this has not gotten bad fast. This has been a loud, obvious, well known issue at least since I was born in Arizona almost 30 years ago. I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard sentiments to the effect of, “well you know there’s no water, so that’s why we’re building on a lot further up the basin and we’ll just have to drill the well deeper than the other folks.”
- eesmith 4y agoEven older. "Cadillac Desert" was published in 1986 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert .