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America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow
- insane_dreamer 3y agoAn important topic that doesn't get enough attention. We need to start switching to crops that require less water (goodbye almonds, pistachios and alfalfa!). Meat consumption plays a big role too since pasture requires more water than many crops.
- drunner 3y agoAt the very least, regionalize the production better. Throwing out the way we currently do water rights and putting sensible limits on how much can be used for ag production would go a long ways.
- causi 3y agoThrowing out the way we currently do water rights Good luck with that one. Southern California has defeated basically every attempt to reform water rights.
- galangalalgol 3y agoReferendums can do almost anything in California can't they? Pass a water reform law as an amendment to their constitution that states the judiciary has no power to interpret the amendment. Declare war on the pacific and declare pi to be 3.
- eppp 3y agoArent water rights mostly a federal issue at this point?
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoNo. The water compacts between states are the responsibility of the federal government, but water rights (i.e. landowners' right to access ground water and sometimes river water) are state matters.
- jonhohle 3y agoWhy would the federal government have any control over a states water rights? Except on water on federal land the US government has no authority to control a state’s use of its water, nor should it.
- datavirtue 3y agoClimate change === mass migration. Right now all the people out west think that is something that applies to people in third world countries. In the US it's going to be an attempted migration of the west's middle class to other regions. At first they will have buyers for their homes to fund the migration...until they don't. Before that there will be a frenzy of wasteful government spending to try to preserve the regions and way of life. It will not work. Climate change is the reason we keep digging up civilizations that "just disappeared without a trace."
- galangalalgol 3y agoThe actual west coast is pretty low impact other than sea rise. If you are close enough for the breeze but far enough to avoid the storm surge with a 1.5m rise, that is your ideal. The reason is the cool/cold pacific current. There is no prediction that it will shift, and if it did, I'm not sure any models would tell us what came next. The rainfall issue is certainly a thing, but it impacts agriculture and housing further inland. The east isn't safe either, the extremes will get more extreme. Places that don't usually have A/C will need it. Altitude is your best bet. Buy on the west side of the rockies for the rain at ~7-9kft. Not that your deed will matter when everyone comes knocking.
- dredmorbius 3y agoSouthern California's watershed (Los Angeles, San Diego, Inland Empire), extends 1,500 miles eastward, to the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains, watershed for the Colorado River. One reason urban developments are so sparse and widely-separated west of the Rockies is that there's simply insufficient water, rights are held under Spanish-derived law (seniority), and those senior rights are held, many by large West Coast cities, most especially Los Angeles. Climate changes across that entire region will have a profound impact on coastal dwellers, even if sea-level rise is modest and coastal climates are largely unchanged. Simply because that's not where the water is coming from. (Northern California's water largely comes from Sierra Nevada snowpack (San Francisco, Central Valley), or local reservoirs (mostly coastal counties). Santa Barbara similarly relies on local sources, largely Lake Cachuma, a reservoir in the Santa Ynez Valley. Supplies can dip parlously low in drought years. <https://www.countyofsb.org/2795/Reservoirs https://www.countyofsb.org/2795/Reservoirs>).
- masklinn 3y ago> regionalize the production better. Most crops you can’t regionalise, they grow where they grow and that’s about it. You won’t get oranges in Maine (except under greenhouses at insane costs). The Central Valley is exceptional because of how flexible and productive an environment it is, it’s home to half the fruits, vegetables, and nuts production of the US, 8% of the US agricultural value, and is the primary worldwide producer of several crops. So what is necessary is to change minds about what produces people get, and when.
- hattmall 3y agoAny idea what percent of it irrigation it accounts for?
- jacobr1 3y agoThere is already a great way to do this: prices! The market isn't perfect, but with commodities it really does seem to function. We don't need artificial usage limits, we just need to charge for water on the open market. Reserve whatever is needed for residential use and sustainability and auction the rest. Or allow it to be sold freely. Right now many pleases have a tragedy of the commons situation. If you don't use up as much water as possible, and dig deeper wells to use it up faster than your neighbors, then you can end up with no water and out of business. If you could secure specific water rights you could plan your business. Farms _would_ go out of business with crops that are too water-intensive relative to the price, but that is actually a desirable property of the system. Those crops will raise in price until the demand lowers and the cost of higher water is sustained. Lower water-utilizing crops will replace the previous higher intensity usage.
- lapcat 3y agoLetting a few billionaires buy all of the water in the country is just one step closer to complete dystopia.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- someplaceguy 3y agoYeah, making water sources private property might not turn out well. But if the water sources are publicly managed and water consumption is priced progressively (and sustainably) at the source, I don't see what the problem is of letting markets do the rest. Although water pollution should be addressed as well, but this is required regardless of the scenario.
- happymellon 3y ago> There is already a great way to do this: prices! The market isn't perfect, but with commodities it really does seem to function. That's absolutely insane. Don't worry poor people, you won't be able to drink water because Amazon is being lazy with pumping tap water to cool it's data centers, but it's okay because markets have deemed you irrelevant!
- gruez 3y ago>Throwing out the way we currently do water rights IANAL but is that even remotely feasible? My impression is that they're basically akin to property rights, and the state unilaterally revoking them is going to be blocked by the courts.
- PM_me_your_math 3y ago[flagged]
- smcg 3y agoThey'll be food justice camps run by Nestle. You know the company that employs child slaves.
- PM_me_your_math 3y agoLike Apple? Think Different.
- drewg123 3y agoIndeed. Beef actually plays the biggest role. From what I can find, feef requires 106gal/oz while almonds require 23gal/oz. Reducing animal agriculture has so many benefits for the planet.
- andreiii 3y agois not like that water stays within the animal. most of it is back into the natural circuit very quick.
- masklinn 3y agoThe same is true of most crops, almonds contain less than 5% water. The problem is that the water is still pumped out the acquifer, and non-acquifer water is still water which generally becomes unavailable to other uses because it evaporates or is too polluted.
- myshpa 3y agoAnd those pastures and alfalfa fields don't replenish aquifers, forests do.
- someplaceguy 3y agoSure, but more importantly, beef requires only 10.6 gal/taste unit while almonds require 46 gal/taste unit.
- hellisothers 3y agoWhat is a taste unit?
- someplaceguy 3y agoIt's each person's measure of how much you go "hmm...! That was sooo good!" after eating 1 oz of a certain type of food. In that example, 1 oz of beef contains 10 of my taste units while 1 oz of almonds contains 0.5 of my taste units. Since each person's taste units are different, humans have decided that the best way to allocate food is to sell it on something called a "market", where each person can express their own individual taste units, or "preferences", by buying the food on this "market". The price of the food on the market reflects the scarcity of the food and everything it took to produce it, although sometimes there are distortions which should be corrected externally (e.g. by a government), not by restricting the types of food we consume, but by addressing their root causes at the source (e.g. by taxing water consumption to address the tragedy of the commons, or by taxing CO2 production to address global warming). These taxes should be increased up to the point where consumption/pollution becomes sustainable.
- donkeyd 3y ago> pasture requires more water than many crops I see this argument often in the discussion around meat (beef, mostly) consumption. I also see the counter that most of that water goes straight back into the ground and most of the rest goes back in after it goes through the cow. The counter seems logical to me, but I am probably missing something?
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoEvaporation. In most places that do above-ground irrigation of livestock crops, humidity is low, temperatures are warm, and a significant part of the water is lost to evaporation.
- tzs 3y agoThen what happens to it? For example just looking at the prevailing winds in the San Joaquin valley I'd expect a lot of water that evaporates there to end up as rain in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Does that in fact happen? If so, where does that water go after it becomes rain? If not, where does it go? The Earth's water systems as a whole are a huge collection of cyclic paths, with many branches. If you artificially take water from someplace and drop it someplace else you have almost always just borrowed the water and it will eventually end up back where it came from. "Eventually" could be a very long time though, and if we borrow enough water for long enough it is possible we could permanently change some of the cycles so that some places never recover their water. I've not been able to find any analysis that looks at this from a whole systems approach and figures out if we are borrowing enough to permanently change things, or how long it takes borrowed water in specific cases to effectively return.
- myshpa 3y agoELI5: Forests retain rainwater in the soil, replenish aquifers, cool the soil, nourish soil biodiversity, contribute to the formation of new rainfall, distribute it inland, alter local microclimates, and sustain biodiversity. With pastures, none of that applies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump
- myshpa 3y agoI agree with you that meat consumption is a menace, but please don't put almonds (or any trees) at the same level as cattle. Alfalfa consumes 10-20x more water than almonds. Alfalfa is used for animal feed, is using fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, animal ag produces methane and causes water pollution and oceanic dead zones, is a source of zoonotic diseases, consumes a lot of antibiotics ... None of that is true with almonds and pistachios, as both crops could replace milk and dairy, and they produce proteins and fats that can feed the population sustainably. I understand that growing almond monocultures in a desert may be a stupid idea, but remove animal ag. water usage and you will have water problems no more. Change those almond monocultures (and alfalfa fields) to diverse food forest, and you may reverse desertification and increase precipitation in that area.
- pragmatic 3y agoAlfalfa can be grown on dry land. You just won’t get as many cuttings. It grows in the upper Midwest just fine without irrigation. > Pasture requires more water I’m not sure where you’re getting that information? It’s not a common practice to irrigate pasture. Animals are watered from “dug outs”, wells or rural water programs which draw water from rivers like the Missouri.
- hospitalJail 3y agoBut the great lakes. Unironically. I mean, sure, conserve, but until those lakes drain, the US should be solid.
- justinator 3y agoAs Buckminster Fuller so eloquently illustrated, it's not a problem with resources, it's a problem of distribution. Plus we pollute the Great Lakes like there's no tomorrow. I see no way around this except to continue to build large cities in the desert.
- eppp 3y agoIf only we could use something to transport large amounts of liquids long distances.
- justinator 3y agoBrilliant, I wonder why no one has thought of this before?
- reaperman 3y agoLake Superior is now potable again. In most parts of the coastline you can walk out about 10 feet to where the turbidity is low and just go ahead and drink the water. The rest of the Great Lakes are unusable for many applications without processing the water first.
- Ekaros 3y agoKey point is that no uniform policy works on global scale. In some places you need to seriously limit use of ground water. In others you don't really need to care. And this can change over time.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y agoThere's almost nowhere that you don't need to care about ground water use. Acquifiers are mostly ancient systems that were at equilibrium before humans started pumping from them. Any use of groundwater is potentially destabilizing the equilibrium. What you said is true of surface water, however: there where you need to seriously limit its use and others where you don't need to care. Note, however, that even an island as famously wet as Great Britain in recent years has faced water shortage issues, not because the total precipitation across the whole island is too low, but because it falls in the "wrong places".
- say_it_as_it_is 3y agoAmerica is selling Saudi Arabia its groundwater like there's no Tomorrow.
- smcg 3y agoAmerica doesn't believe in a tomorrow beyond the next quarter.
- ToucanLoucan 3y agoI was going to say, this makes groundwater unique from what resource exactly? We're strip mining everything we can get our grubby little hands on.
- skywal_l 3y agoThe difference I see is that you can live more than 3 days without iron ore. Water is *particularily* precious.
- ToucanLoucan 3y agoI mean, with this logic, you can go about 4 minutes without air to breathe but we're still demolishing our atmosphere like it owes us money.
- sn9 3y agoWe're not at any risk of actually depleting breathable air and suffocating to death.
- gruez 3y agoYou should tell that to all the people/institutions buying 3+ month treasuries. Clearly they didn't get the memo.
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoYep, we all know 5 year planning is the best for environment and human harmony. On a serious note, we should stop exporting to feed camels in the Middle East and heavily tax water usage for food exports outside the US that go to rich countries (like China or those in Europe). https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/record-us-fy-2022-agricultural-exports-china#:~:text=Executive%20Summary,for%20the%20second%20consecutive%20year https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/record-us-fy-2022-agricultural.... https://www.fas.usda.gov/2021-country-overview https://www.fas.usda.gov/2021-country-overview
- zb1plus 3y agoI don't understand why we aren't building nuclear-powered desalinization plants? I am sure the upfront investment is costly, but they seem like an ideal solution if you can get over the "Nuclear scary" aspect for the general public.
- yabones 3y agoA big problem for desalination is the brine, the highly saline solution left over after the fresh water is removed. You can't just dump it in the sea again, because its high salt content will kill all of the fish, coral, kelp, etc. So you end up with a large retention pond full of dangerous water until it dries up, then the salt is put in a landfill. It's pretty far from sustainable.
- konschubert 3y agoBrine is just water plus the salt that was in the seawater before. You have to dilute it and spread it. But, sufficiently diluted, it’s just seawater. In a sense, it’s the same effect as water evaporating over the ocean: Water goes out and salt remains.
- nemomarx 3y agoIs there a good way to dilute it without using water?
- saalweachter 3y agoAs long as you can dilute it with salt water (until it's not deadly) that shouldn't be a problem.
- sithadmin 3y agoIt's not as easy as 'dilute and spread' -- highly concentrated brine doesn't really mix readily (halocline effect) when released back into the sea.
- Qem 3y agoMaybe they are trying to use it up before fracking contaminates it all anyway.
- alexfromapex 3y agoUsing hydroponic systems that recycle the same water is an approach I don’t hear enough about. If the climate keeps changing and agriculture is eroding topsoil, plants will need to be moved indoors eventually anyways.
- saalweachter 3y agoUnless there's a way to scale hydroponics to growing hundreds of millions of acres of wheat I haven't heard about, growing all crops hydroponically indoors is only a topic a few thousand survivors need to worry about.
- jahnu 3y agoNot hydroponics at all but you may be interested in precision fermentation like Solar Foods is developing which could replace a substantial amount of the grain and soy we grow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Foods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Foods https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/24/green-technology-precision-fermentation-farming https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/24/green-...
- konschubert 3y agoThere is always the option to build a ton of solar and desalination capacity. At least for those regions closer to the sea level.
- golemotron 3y ago[flagged]
- pixl97 3y agoYea, I've not spend my second month in record high temperatures not able to use much water because the reservoirs are running out and the wells are running dry. I'm not breaking new numbers of record high days every day. I'm not breaking records of low rain fall. Oh wait, I am.
- darklycan51 3y agoFunny I am in south america right now, where usually we are at 13 degrees mid winter at 22c... not a single day below 19/20c at lowest temps in the entire winter. Yes we've had el niño before but it was never this hot in winter, not a single time. Haven't had to wear a long sleeve or jacket all winter, it's just shirts, as if it was a cool summer day.
- wnc3141 3y agoI think they sort of project the current state of affairs, drawing attention to the issue, which may have significant developments in the future. They ran an article about COVID during the earlier days of the pandemic, where they suspected it would take several years to come up with a viable vaccine. With R+D and novel vaccine technologies, we had a vaccine in a fraction of that time. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/opinion/coronavirus-covid-vaccine.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/30/opinion/coron... Similarly, a famous wager took place in the 80's where two academics agued over whether we would have significant resource scarcity in minerals. That scarcity as projected never came, because resource use patterns changed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon%E2%80%93Ehrlich_wager
- dathinab 3y agoOr like there is no long term sustainable planing for not just ground water put a lot of things like infrastructure projects which lead to increased ground water usage. And like who has enough money (or political "friends") just gets what they want with at most paying a bit more, even through sometimes the answer should be no, no matter how much is payed. Because what point is accepting a lot of money for selling something you (as a entity like a city) needs to survive. If that person was willing to pay that much for it you likely won't be able to buy it affordable some where else when you need it.
- leokeba 3y agohttps://archive.is/VjQuZ https://archive.is/VjQuZ
- gwbas1c 3y agoJust gets me stuck in a recaputcha loop
- linuxftw 3y agoAmerica's not. The southwest and California are. The rest of the country has a surplus of water from rain. The farms near me all use rainwater retention ponds for irrigation, it's much cheaper than digging a well (the farther you lift water, the more energy it takes), and that's only for really water hungry crops (fruits and vegetables). The corn and wheat around here are all watered by the sky.
- dopidopHN 3y agoHow large are those retention pool? Football size ?
- linuxftw 3y agoThe farms I'm personally familiar with use multiple smaller ponds. I would say they have 1/10th of the acreage in retention ponds, if that.
- kedean 3y ago> The rest of the country has a surplus of water from rain I think this too strong of a generalization. The Great Plains region, for example, relies on the Ogalalla Aquifer for it's groundwater, which has been dropping at accelerating rates because so many farmers and ranchers draw heavily from it (even more than they would otherwise, thanks to crop subsidies), along with being a huge drinking water source. The depletion of groundwater is a big deal in that region.
- droopyEyelids 3y agoThat's true. On the other hand California is 1/6th of the USA's economy, and 12% of the population. The "Southwest, Great Plains, plus California" is a significant part of the USA.
- tristor 3y agoI would argue that the NY Times writing about "America" as if California + New York == America far predates the magnitude of economic importance California and New York now have. There has long been a coastal bias in the US, which predates the migrations of business and population to the coasts, where everything in the middle is disdained and not due any consideration. The reality is, when it comes to groundwater anyway, all you need to do is look at land area vs mountain ranges and you can form a pretty intuitive understanding of water flows, since water flows to the lowest spots until it eventually reaches the sea or seeps into the ground. The parent to your post is very correct, California because most of the state is between the sea and a close-in mountain range has minimal ground water outside its direct watersheds, and must use intentional irrigation and pumping to move and use water. Consequently, they are one of the primary users of water originating in other parts of the country. As someone residing in Colorado, we are /well/ (no pun intended) aware of how water is used and how water rights work, and the reality is that California has an out-sized usage compared to other states, and frankly takes more than its fair share.
- gwbas1c 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20230829133156/https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groundwater-drying-climate-change.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230829133156/https://www.nytim...
- gwbas1c 3y agoOne thing the article doesn't mention is pollution. In MA, polluted groundwater from past industrial usage is often mentioned in political debates. It's so easy to accidentally pollute groundwater because so many people just don't know any better.
- r00fus 3y ago> It's so easy to accidentally pollute groundwater because so many people just don't know any better If those "don't know any better" were appropriately punished, they would learn real quick.
- gwbas1c 3y agoOften this happens because of poor zoning choices; or because the pollution happened before anyone knew better. We have a concept in the US called "ex post facto." Basically, you can't be prosecuted for breaking laws that are passed after you did the crime. I think a lawyer could explain the nuances better than I can. PFAS is a good example. For example, where I live, there is a groundwater plume of PFAS from firefighters practicing putting out fires. The PFAS was in fire suppressants that fire fighters practiced with. Who's going to be punished? The firefighters were doing their jobs, and had no reason to believe they were polluting groundwater.
- fh973 3y agoWe have also problems with that in Germany: Berlin is currently supplied with ground water from the Lausitz region. The ground water comes via the Spree river, and was originally pumped out to keep open mining pits dry. Nowadays in Summer it makes up for up to 75% of the river's volume (and therefore Berlin's drinking water supply). The mining pits are supposed to be closed 2038 latest, and the region generally suffers from a lack of water. South of Berlin, Google wanted to build a data center, but couldn't because they couldn't get rights to water.
- mikewarot 3y agoWhy does a data center need water? Surely the few people that work there don't require much. If it was for cooling, they could build a high temperature data center, and manage for 30% humidity instead of controlling temperature. Google makes their own servers, so they could make sure it could stand the heat.
- water9 3y agoThe New York Times is basically become a publication of fear
- hamasho 3y agoJohn Oliver explained this topic well. I recommend to watch the video. https://youtu.be/jtxew5XUVbQ?si=oYLWIhuD0srg13hN https://youtu.be/jtxew5XUVbQ?si=oYLWIhuD0srg13hN
- tzs 3y agoI don't think this was in the article itself, but the description of the article on the NYT morning newsletter email had this interesting note: > Several of my colleagues — led by Mira Rojanasakul and Christopher Flavelle — have spent months compiling data on groundwater levels across the U.S., based on more than 80,000 monitoring stations. Chris and Mira did so after discovering that no comprehensive database existed. The statistics tended to be local and fragmented, making it difficult to understand national patterns. That reminds me of the situation that came to light a couple years ago during the controversies over police killings of unarmed black people. There were no national records kept of police killings, and often no state records. The first decent national level data had to be put together by going through local news sites, individual police department records, filing tons of requests under state public record laws, and many I'm forgetting. This makes me wonder how many other things there are where we might have a national problem but don't know it because we mostly only have local records? Also, I wonder how many things there are were we only have local records but we think we have a national problem because people assume what is happening where they are is happening all over? For those who have not read the article, the newsletter has a good TLDR: > The trends in this new database are alarming. Over the past 40 years, groundwater levels at most of the sites have declined. At 11 percent of the sites, levels last year fell to their lowest level on record. > The U.S., in other words, is taking water out of the ground more quickly than nature is replenishing it. “There’s almost no way to convey how important it is,” Don Cline, the associate director for water resources at the United States Geological Survey, told The Times.