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> California decided building things was bad, invented CEQA, and now here we are. Mmm, that might be glossing over the part where they decided to build farms i

> California decided building things was bad, invented CEQA, and now here we are. Mmm, that might be glossing over the part where they decided to build farms in the desert, with water from other states, to grow animal feed and food for other countries. I'd argue it's probably not the population or CEQA causing shortages, but our overzealous ag policies coupled with use-it-or-lose-it water laws and byzantine inter-state water compacts. Oh, and cyclical sustained draughts. Residential households aren't really the ones using most of the water. It's ag (and other industries). Building new reservoirs and dams affect a lot of working communities too, not just silly things like nature. Meanwhile much of California's ag output is excessive, with a lot of it going to exports or waste, and much of the rest targeting unnecessarily high levels of animal production. Our farm output is like < 1% of our national GDP, but they use 30-40% of our water. We already make way more food than Americans need. If we keep ramping up ag production and keep building reservoirs, we'd just keep propping up an over-producing industry that mostly serves the interests of huge ag conglomerates, not Californians or Americans.

BurningFrog 3y ago
You're right about crazy ag policies and ancient unchangeable water rights being serious problems. Still the simple fact remains that California hasn't expanded water supply for 50 years while both water demand and droughts have increased a lot.
- solardev 3y ago
  Has water demand increased a lot? It doesn't look like it's increased at all to me: https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ (or .gov PDF if preferred: https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/06_June/June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/...). Looks to me like it's down from a peak in the 90s, even as population continued to grow. I'm not convinced that this is a problem of insufficient storage (reservoir capacity)... do you have a cite (or at least a explanation) for why you believe that? But even if that were the main problem, California is trying to add more of that too: https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/p1.aspx https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/p1.aspx and https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/Program/ProgramDetail/451?PropositionPK=48 https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/Program/ProgramD... specifically for storage programs But this doesn't really fix anything. It's a very expensive band-aid. If there's not enough water in the upstream rivers and there are periods of sustained drought years, you can't just overfill an infinite number of reservoirs and still have enough water to last through subsequent years. Evaporation and other losses will deplete them naturally over time unless we pump enough of it underground or into other closed systems. And dams/reservoirs do have huge environment and community impacts that we really shouldn't just hand-wave away for the sake of the farm and meat lobbies. This is the sort of really difficult problem that (IMHO) the federal government should step in to tackle at the national level, possibly via a Constitutional amendment. The clouds and rivers don't care about our state borders, and our really antiquated water rights frankly need to be eminent domained away from private interests and state-level fights and managed at a national level... but there is no easy way to get there from here, nor an easy way to avoid that fight =/ It's probably as difficult a political fight, or perhaps even more so, than peace in the Middle East... there's nobody we can bomb. Building more dams is, as far as I can tell, neither necessary nor sufficient for resolving California's continued water crises. But I'm not an expert. My undergrad was in environmental science, where we lightly studied these topics, but not to any great depth. Offhandedly, it seems to me "more dams will solve California's countless water crises" is a rather extraordinary claim that requires some evidence. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though, if you have any additional details to share?
  - BurningFrog 3y ago
    > I'm not convinced that this is a problem of insufficient storage (reservoir capacity)... do you have a cite (or at least a explanation) for why you believe that? As a Californian, I know we have water crises more years than we don't. I'm a little stunned that people who don't know that throw around confident beliefs about California water management. One of a zillion easily found articles on the topic: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165378214/3-reasons-why-californias-drought-isnt-really-over-despite-all-the-rain https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165378214/3-reasons-why-cali...
    - solardev 3y ago
      That doesn't seem to address the reservoir capacity question. It also notes that Lake Mead was very low (meaning there was insufficient rainfall, rather than insufficient storage). I agree that California has water crises often... that wasn't something we disagreed on at all. And for what it's worth, I lived there for a couple decades, through many of the droughts. I just don't think what you presume to be obvious and self evident (more dams will fix it) is necessarily true.
      - BurningFrog 3y ago
        I do think it's obvious that more reservoir will store more water. And if you have more stored water, it's obvious to me that you can handle a drought better.
        solardev 3y ago
        Okay.

BurningFrog 3y ago

You're right about crazy ag policies and ancient unchangeable water rights being serious problems. Still the simple fact remains that California hasn't expanded water supply for 50 years while both water demand and droughts have increased a lot.

solardev 3y ago
Has water demand increased a lot? It doesn't look like it's increased at all to me: https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/ (or .gov PDF if preferred: https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/06_June/June2019_Item_12_Attach_2_PPICFactSheets.pdf https://cwc.ca.gov/-/media/CWC-Website/Files/Documents/2019/...). Looks to me like it's down from a peak in the 90s, even as population continued to grow. I'm not convinced that this is a problem of insufficient storage (reservoir capacity)... do you have a cite (or at least a explanation) for why you believe that? But even if that were the main problem, California is trying to add more of that too: https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/p1.aspx https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/p1.aspx and https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/Program/ProgramDetail/451?PropositionPK=48 https://bondaccountability.resources.ca.gov/Program/ProgramD... specifically for storage programs But this doesn't really fix anything. It's a very expensive band-aid. If there's not enough water in the upstream rivers and there are periods of sustained drought years, you can't just overfill an infinite number of reservoirs and still have enough water to last through subsequent years. Evaporation and other losses will deplete them naturally over time unless we pump enough of it underground or into other closed systems. And dams/reservoirs do have huge environment and community impacts that we really shouldn't just hand-wave away for the sake of the farm and meat lobbies. This is the sort of really difficult problem that (IMHO) the federal government should step in to tackle at the national level, possibly via a Constitutional amendment. The clouds and rivers don't care about our state borders, and our really antiquated water rights frankly need to be eminent domained away from private interests and state-level fights and managed at a national level... but there is no easy way to get there from here, nor an easy way to avoid that fight =/ It's probably as difficult a political fight, or perhaps even more so, than peace in the Middle East... there's nobody we can bomb. Building more dams is, as far as I can tell, neither necessary nor sufficient for resolving California's continued water crises. But I'm not an expert. My undergrad was in environmental science, where we lightly studied these topics, but not to any great depth. Offhandedly, it seems to me "more dams will solve California's countless water crises" is a rather extraordinary claim that requires some evidence. I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though, if you have any additional details to share?
- BurningFrog 3y ago
  > I'm not convinced that this is a problem of insufficient storage (reservoir capacity)... do you have a cite (or at least a explanation) for why you believe that? As a Californian, I know we have water crises more years than we don't. I'm a little stunned that people who don't know that throw around confident beliefs about California water management. One of a zillion easily found articles on the topic: https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165378214/3-reasons-why-californias-drought-isnt-really-over-despite-all-the-rain https://www.npr.org/2023/03/23/1165378214/3-reasons-why-cali...
  - solardev 3y ago
    That doesn't seem to address the reservoir capacity question. It also notes that Lake Mead was very low (meaning there was insufficient rainfall, rather than insufficient storage). I agree that California has water crises often... that wasn't something we disagreed on at all. And for what it's worth, I lived there for a couple decades, through many of the droughts. I just don't think what you presume to be obvious and self evident (more dams will fix it) is necessarily true.
    - BurningFrog 3y ago
      I do think it's obvious that more reservoir will store more water. And if you have more stored water, it's obvious to me that you can handle a drought better.
      - solardev 3y ago
        Okay.