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Its obviously not as dire (yet) but I think Texas will face something like this in the coming decades. Its the kind of problem that requires people at all level
by bad_haircut72 11mo ago
Its obviously not as dire (yet) but I think Texas will face something like this in the coming decades. Its the kind of problem that requires people at all levels of society to cooperate and sacrifice - farmers & businesses need to draw less, people need to use less and government needs intelligent and actionable policy, plus big investment into unsexy and invisble infrastructure upgrades - so basically we're screwed.
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- vorpalhex 11mo agoTexas is either desert or desert adjacent. We have always gotten our water by having torrential rains inconsistently. This doesn't mean don't conserve, be intelligent, etc. But this does mean that your water won't "balance out" year to year, you need to look at big 25-30 year intervals. Right now the single biggest waste of water in Austin is leaky pipes. Like infrastructure pipes owned by the city. Meanwhile our water conservation budget is going to billboards telling people to rush in the shower. The entire population could stop bathing and not reduce enough to make up for the leaks happening in the crumbling water infra.
- jkmcf 11mo agoWe have similar problems in Colorado re: pipes leaking. People don't want to pay the full cost of water, which includes supporting infrastructure. Municipalities are caught between these unfunded costs and taxpayers refusing to pay 1¢ more. I believe the utilities require political approval to raise rates, so that doesn't happen either.
- martinpw 11mo ago> We have always gotten our water by having torrential rains inconsistently I think OP is talking more about groundwater depletion: https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/panhandle-runs-on-water-depletion-of-ogallala-aquifer-driving-up-drought-risk https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/panhandle-runs-on-water-...
- polar8 11mo agoWouldn’t it just go back into groundwater?
- ralph84 11mo agoWouldn’t leaks from underground pipes end up back in the aquifer and not really be a net water loss in the long term?
- water-data-dude 11mo agoTexas state laws make regulating groundwater use very difficult. The Trinity aquifer is probably going to go dry in ten years.
- toast0 11mo agoWater in the ground from leaky pipes will travel in all directions. Some of it may end up back in the aquifer, but some will end up on the surface and evaporate. Depends on conditions near the pipe and the volume of the leak.
- mattmaroon 11mo agoThe American Southwest needs to get started on desalination. It’s the only long term answer we have now, know works, and is at least within shooting distance of cost-feasible.
- TimorousBestie 11mo agoThe southwest, for the most part, refuses to accept the federal funding & infrastructure support that would be necessary for desalination at scale to be feasible. Nobody wants to vote for water rationing, and the state can’t even enforce consumption limits against corporations and the wealthy.
- _heimdall 11mo agoIs it really feasible if a state can only pull it off with large federal funding efforts? It seems like a problem those in the area will just have to deal with given that they're knowingly walking down that path. If you can't fund desalinization or other options, won't take federal funding, and choose not to region or conserve water then you collectively made your own bed.
- lazide 11mo agoLike people who build in flood zones and don’t have flood insurance, they do have a nasty tendency to make their problem your problem somehow though.
- _heimdall 11mo agoThey shouldn't be my problem, and I say that as someone who lived in a flood prone home with no flood insurance as it was ridiculously expensive for pretty terrible coverage. I wouldn't have lived in that house if I was unable or unwilling to deal with the consequences of a flood, no one else should either.
- lazide 11mo ago
- Forgeties79 11mo agoI can’t imagine the various legislatures in several “highly skeptical” states that are either considering or have already implemented “no chemtrails” and fluoride laws are going to find it easy to convince people to allow cloud seeding. Pretty sure Tennessee already preemptively banned it.
- bad_haircut72 11mo agoMost of that idiotic crap goes out the window when real problems show up. I do believe Texans will get the same "pray for rain" BS we're laughing at Iran for now though.
- mkoubaa 11mo agoNothing a golf course ban couldn't reverse
- DANmode 11mo agoAre you sure?
- kcplate 11mo agoAhh yes, the old “let’s outlaw those things I don’t like, but others do that has billion dollar industries supporting it” approach. That always goes over well.
- Forgeties79 11mo agoIs there a better argument for golf courses than “think of the jobs”?
- kcplate 11mo agoSure. It’s a recreation that many people get joy from doing… Just because it may not be “your thing”…doesn’t mean it’s not worth having.
- 11mo ago
- rectang 11mo agoThose of us who live in other states also have to prepare for the refugees fleeing ruined lands who will bring their destructive ideology with them.
- latchkey 11mo agoHow would you prepare?
- rectang 11mo agoI think the first step is to develop a "we're not Texas" culture. Observe the ways in which Texas is ruining its environment and deliberately, conspicuously do something else. For example, the aquifer situation in the Central Valley of California is in some ways similar to Ogallala aquifer in Texas. "If we don't want to end up like Texas, we need to get a handle on this." Enact laws and conservation measures which make it difficult for those coming from out of state to bring their ecologically irresponsible practices with them. Ideally, reduce the ecological impact wrought by well-established California interests as well, but if necessary grandfather them in in order to prepare.
- bombcar 11mo agoIt’s so lucky that even though refugees from other states bring negative consequences at least refugees from other countries don’t.
- rectang 11mo agoEvery refugee brings change. We can disagree about the desirability of changes brought by refugees from different circumstances.
- thrance 11mo agoUndocumented immigrants commit less crimes than legal Texans, as per the NIJ[0]. [0] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20250122/117827/HHRG-119-JU01-20250122-SD004.pdf https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20250122/117827/HHRG...
- treis 11mo agoPeople use very little water. Most of what is drawn is returned back to the system. By that I mean if you use 20 gallons for a shower 19 is going into the drain to be reused. The only real usage of water is evaporation and that's stuff like growing plants and cooling towers.
- bongodongobob 11mo ago??? 20 gallons get reused, 100% of it goes back into the system. If somehow 5% was destroyed from showering we wouldn't have any water left.
- treis 11mo agoSome evaporates. It will eventually come down again as rain somewhere else but as far as the original city is concerned the water is used.
- victorbjorklund 11mo agoYou know what they meant. They obviously mean the system controlled by us - not rain and shit.
- nandomrumber 11mo agoIs this true in many places in the USA? You have seperate drainage for shower water and effluent? That’s certainly not the case here in Australia. Here, typically storm water and household waste water are carried over a common system. Usually if it rains more than 3mm in 24hrs the treatment systems are overwhelmed and untreated waste is sent out to sea. Coastal areas anyways.
- toast0 11mo agoMost places get freshwater from rivers or acquifers, sometimes lakes, use it for whatever, some large amount of that used water is collected as sewage, treat the sewage and discharge it downstream/into large bodies of water/the ocean. Many systems also output reclaimed water; it's clean, but not up to environmental standards for discharge or drinking; typically excess clorination. This is often used for municipal irrigation sometimes toliet flushing, etc; uses where water below drinking standards is fine. A handful of systems discharge treated water into their reservoirs or into acquifer recharge ponds. But there's an ick factor, even when discharge water is often held to higher standards than drinking water, so it's only done when the situation outweighs the ick.
- water-data-dude 11mo agoAbsolutely. It's probably worse than you think though. I work with some groundwater conservation districts in Texas. Texas has some aquifers that they rely heavily on, and they're being depleted at an unsustainable rate. Efforts to regulate the rate at which groundwater is consumed are met with mixed results because of state laws that make it very difficult to regulate pumping. One particularly depressing example from the recent past is what happened in Hays County. The groundwater situation in Hays County is bad, to the point that springs are going dry. Hays County managed to push something through the state legislature that'd give the Hays Trinity Water Conservation District more power to manage groundwater use (it passed overwhelmingly), but then Greg Abbot vetoed it - likely at the behest of Aqua Texas, a big water utility company that pumps a TON of water and has been pretty blatant about ignoring pumping caps and generally acted in bad faith. Source: https://archive.is/b1bp1 https://archive.is/b1bp1
- vel0city 11mo agoTexas is doing things to try and address it. Prop 4 passed allocating another billion a year in sales taxes to go towards water infrastructure. https://www.texaswater.org/prop-4 https://www.texaswater.org/prop-4 Texas has also recently started building new reservoirs after a long time of not building any. Bois d'Arc and Arbuckle have recently been finished, others are in progress, and a few more are in planning phases. There's a lot to hate on about Texas politics but there are some competent people trying to address water concerns. Not saying Texas is doing everything perfectly, we're still drawing on aquifers at an unsustainable rate and need to change that.