6 ms·

Funny for this to come up now. I'm reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner now which is all about water policy in the western US. The short answer is that we c

by pilom 13y ago

Funny for this to come up now. I'm reading Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner now which is all about water policy in the western US. The short answer is that we consume WAY more water than all of the precipitation on the entire region can support so we end up depleting the aquifers. Eventually (likely within my lifetime) those will dry up and they we will have to either start diverting water from Canada and Alaska, or decrease the population in the west. Edit: Changed entire country to entire region. The Great Lakes area will do just fine for a very very long time.

Buttons840 13y ago
Would conservations (like people giving up luscious grass lawns) be enough to sustain the population in the west? (In your opinion.)
- pilom 13y ago
  Well, about 80% of water use (in the west) is for irrigation purposes. Ideally, making farmers pay market (and externality adjusted) rates for their water would discourage them from growing plants which need a lot of water per unit food (like alfalfa). We could get a LOT further with water-aware legislation for what farmers can grow (or if you prefer a libertarian viewpoint, have the government stop subsidizing water for farmers in drought prone areas). Whether that would be enough to survive off the precipitation alone with our current population I kinda doubt (especially in Southern California), but you never know.
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    How much of that 80% of water used for irrigation is lost to evaporation and such. As the water is essentially 'free' to the farmers, they have little incentive to use it efficiently, so it would probably be cheaper to use sprinklers than more water efficient methods like drip irrigation. Also, is the problem really that the government subsidizes water. As I understand it, there is a naturally occurring aquifer that is currently being used at free market rates. We would need the government to tax this to reduce usage.
    - pilom 13y ago
      I guess you're right in the cases of the aquifer's. There are 2 possible solutions. 1. Tax water pumped out of aquifers so that demand levels off at the aquifer fill rate, or 2. Wait until all the the aquifers are depleted to lower levels and force people to re-drill their wells and build new more expensive pumps. Eventually the cost of pumping out the aquifers will reduce demand to the aquifer fill rate.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - schiffern 13y ago
        >Eventually the cost of pumping out the aquifers will reduce demand to the aquifer fill rate. What actually happens is groundwater salting which starts at the coast and works inland, killing pretty much all plant life as it goes.
  - Nogwater 13y ago
    a source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California A bunch of water also goes back to the environment, but I don't think we want to take that.
moocowduckquack 13y ago
Pump seawater to Nevada and cover it in desalination greenhouses. http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/ http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/
- schiffern 13y ago
  How is this better than local rainwater collection? Rainwater is desalination, you just cheated and let nature do the expensive part. Heck, lots of rainwater is already collected in gutters/roof drains, but is contaminated when it falls on the ground instead of into a tank. For irrigation all that is necessary is to soak the rainwater in as soon as possible to prevent evaporation and runoff, since potability is not a requirement. This is even cheaper than rooftop catchment. Of course you may need to re-green the upwind deserts first (since ~80% of terrestrial rainfall comes from plants, not evaporation), but we already have that technology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1rKDXuZ8C0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1rKDXuZ8C0 This is hardly unprecedented. The CCC installed thousands of miles of swales during the Depression (that function to this day), but nowadays most people don't even know what a swale is.
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    How is this better than local rainwater collection? It works when there is no rain without needing a tank big enough to last a several year long drought. The architecture of the greenhouse acts as a solar desalinator that in testing creates more water than is needed to irrigate the plants, so it not only grows plants, but also can provide clean water in the desert.
    - Zancarius 13y ago
      I find it curious that on HN of all places, there are some who seem appalled that technology could be used to offset much of what we've done, largely as a fault of technological advancement. That's not to say I'm against conservation. I think conservation is a necessity that few appreciate (having lived in a desert all my life, I have a certain appreciation for scarce resources), but comments like the one you replied to are exactly the kind we don't need. That is, dismissal of alternate solutions isn't going to help the problem get any better. Out here, there's a large, untapped reservoir of brine that would be ample water to supply the neighboring communities for decades or more. The local government continues to humor bonds to build a desalinization plant every 10 years with conditions that the money will be redirected after 3 years if the plant isn't built, and unsurprisingly, the plant is never built. These greenhouses, if they work, would be a worthwhile experiment and probably substantially cheaper considering the wider variety of crops that could be grown and sold. Not to mention local growers could continue growing their crops without ruining the freshwater wells of their neighbors by running them dry. I just doubt it'll happen until the cost of pumping fresh water becomes too expensive or the wells are run completely dry.
schiffern 13y ago
…or switch away from insanely inefficient (90% evaporation) center-pivot irrigation. Not to mention our practice of shunting rainwater off fields as fast as possible. This high-speed, high-runoff condition leads to soil erosion, failure to recharge aquifers, and really gives rise to the need for irrigation. Dynamically unstable monocultures are neither sustainable nor efficient. They're not even cost-optimal or land-optimal, merely labor-minimizing (most of the arable land in the US is controlled either directly or indirectly by conglomerates, who generally view labor as messy and undesirable). Again, dynamically unstable monocultures are neither sustainable nor efficient. Fortunately this means that when they inevitably collapse, we get wealthier as more efficient systems replace them.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Can you point to an interpretation of the data here: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/agriculture/farms_and_farmland.html http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/agriculture/farm... that supports your 80%? Because when I interpret the data I end up at 'most acreage is owned by families, families that may have done some sort of incorporation'. I guess if you throw in some of the big forestry outfits you buy a lot of acres, but that perhaps indicates the need for a more precise phrasing or more interesting measure than arable (like, land used to produce food in the last 50 years, or something like that).
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    I think what 'schiffern means to say is that 80% is farmed in corporate fashion, even if not literally by corporations. The families you're talking about have generally taken big loans to buy (or hire) big machinery and big fertilizer for their big farms. Some of that is the market talking, but much of it is big ag companies like Monsanto ensuring that corn and other subsidies stay in place [0], and their sharecro^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers can only farm in the manner that funnels all profits to the ag company. (Of course there are other family farmers who aren't like that, but they farm a small fraction of the acreage.) Apparently the Farm Bill that just passed the House is supposed to change this situation somewhat, but I'll believe that when and if I see it over the next decade or so. [0] http://www.yale.edu/sustainablefood/S9256YSF_farm_bill_s.pdf.pdf http://www.yale.edu/sustainablefood/S9256YSF_farm_bill_s.pdf...
Theodores 13y ago
I read Cadillac Desert more than twenty years ago and I got a lot out of it. I really wanted to loan my copy to someone, but, being British and living in the UK, I just did not find anyone to share the joy of that book with. It helps to have a love and a fascination for the American West, sadly none of my friends on this side of the pond have that so I never loaned out Cadillac Desert. Anyway, you have made my day by merely mentioning that read, and I will have anything else you care to share on your reading list. I take it you are also an Edward Abbey fan?!?
- WildUtah 13y ago
  Cadillac Desert is one of the great American books of the twentieth century. I wish I could make everyone in my region read it. And Ed Abbey wrote some great books, too. Desert Solitaire is always worth rereading. Last time I was camping at the Maze I took in a couple evening sunsets enjoying that book again.
- pilom 13y ago
  Edward Abbey is on my reading list but I haven't gotten there yet. I will definitely recommend The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko. It says its a story of the fastest trip down the Grand Canyon but its really a story of the history of the river and the balance that society has currently chosen between recreation/conservation and development. It also has a great description of the major problems at the Glen Canyon Dam in 1983
  - Theodores 13y ago
    Looks like I might have to revisit the South West via words alone. Thanks for the recommend. Powell's book looks good too, with a touch of Shackleton grit to it. I too second Desert Solitaire as a must read, it is not a novel like Monkey Wrench Gang, it made me think again about values of freedom and what it is to be alive without having to suspend one's belief in a way that pure fiction demands. I also recommend walking down the Grand Canyon and up the other side carrying very little and without knowing what is going to happen to you. By very little I mean a light snack, some water and a picnic rug to sleep on (under the stars at the bottom of the Canyon).
rayiner 13y ago
The whole southwestern U.S. is basically a mistake caused by Big Government. "Manifest destiny" led the federal government to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to irrigate all these places that wouldn't have been habitable otherwise, and now we have a bunch of people living in places that are simply inappropriate for civilization given the water constraints.
joshuahedlund 13y ago
It's bad enough to consume more water than is replenished by precipitation, but it's even worse considering that the recent century or so of precipitation (i.e. the entire development of the West) may have been a pretty wet outlier compared to the last millennium.[0] At the same time, I've learned never to underestimate the power of people to respond to incentives, and I don't want to overstate the doom-factor. But it sure gives me another reason not to move to California. [0]http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-dr...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

by pilom 13y ago

Buttons840 13y ago

Would conservations (like people giving up luscious grass lawns) be enough to sustain the population in the west? (In your opinion.)

pilom 13y ago
Well, about 80% of water use (in the west) is for irrigation purposes. Ideally, making farmers pay market (and externality adjusted) rates for their water would discourage them from growing plants which need a lot of water per unit food (like alfalfa). We could get a LOT further with water-aware legislation for what farmers can grow (or if you prefer a libertarian viewpoint, have the government stop subsidizing water for farmers in drought prone areas). Whether that would be enough to survive off the precipitation alone with our current population I kinda doubt (especially in Southern California), but you never know.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  How much of that 80% of water used for irrigation is lost to evaporation and such. As the water is essentially 'free' to the farmers, they have little incentive to use it efficiently, so it would probably be cheaper to use sprinklers than more water efficient methods like drip irrigation. Also, is the problem really that the government subsidizes water. As I understand it, there is a naturally occurring aquifer that is currently being used at free market rates. We would need the government to tax this to reduce usage.
  - pilom 13y ago
    I guess you're right in the cases of the aquifer's. There are 2 possible solutions. 1. Tax water pumped out of aquifers so that demand levels off at the aquifer fill rate, or 2. Wait until all the the aquifers are depleted to lower levels and force people to re-drill their wells and build new more expensive pumps. Eventually the cost of pumping out the aquifers will reduce demand to the aquifer fill rate.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - schiffern 13y ago
      >Eventually the cost of pumping out the aquifers will reduce demand to the aquifer fill rate. What actually happens is groundwater salting which starts at the coast and works inland, killing pretty much all plant life as it goes.
- Nogwater 13y ago
  a source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California A bunch of water also goes back to the environment, but I don't think we want to take that.

moocowduckquack 13y ago

Pump seawater to Nevada and cover it in desalination greenhouses. http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/ http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/

schiffern 13y ago
How is this better than local rainwater collection? Rainwater is desalination, you just cheated and let nature do the expensive part. Heck, lots of rainwater is already collected in gutters/roof drains, but is contaminated when it falls on the ground instead of into a tank. For irrigation all that is necessary is to soak the rainwater in as soon as possible to prevent evaporation and runoff, since potability is not a requirement. This is even cheaper than rooftop catchment. Of course you may need to re-green the upwind deserts first (since ~80% of terrestrial rainfall comes from plants, not evaporation), but we already have that technology. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1rKDXuZ8C0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1rKDXuZ8C0 This is hardly unprecedented. The CCC installed thousands of miles of swales during the Depression (that function to this day), but nowadays most people don't even know what a swale is.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  How is this better than local rainwater collection? It works when there is no rain without needing a tank big enough to last a several year long drought. The architecture of the greenhouse acts as a solar desalinator that in testing creates more water than is needed to irrigate the plants, so it not only grows plants, but also can provide clean water in the desert.
  - Zancarius 13y ago
    I find it curious that on HN of all places, there are some who seem appalled that technology could be used to offset much of what we've done, largely as a fault of technological advancement. That's not to say I'm against conservation. I think conservation is a necessity that few appreciate (having lived in a desert all my life, I have a certain appreciation for scarce resources), but comments like the one you replied to are exactly the kind we don't need. That is, dismissal of alternate solutions isn't going to help the problem get any better. Out here, there's a large, untapped reservoir of brine that would be ample water to supply the neighboring communities for decades or more. The local government continues to humor bonds to build a desalinization plant every 10 years with conditions that the money will be redirected after 3 years if the plant isn't built, and unsurprisingly, the plant is never built. These greenhouses, if they work, would be a worthwhile experiment and probably substantially cheaper considering the wider variety of crops that could be grown and sold. Not to mention local growers could continue growing their crops without ruining the freshwater wells of their neighbors by running them dry. I just doubt it'll happen until the cost of pumping fresh water becomes too expensive or the wells are run completely dry.

schiffern 13y ago

…or switch away from insanely inefficient (90% evaporation) center-pivot irrigation. Not to mention our practice of shunting rainwater off fields as fast as possible. This high-speed, high-runoff condition leads to soil erosion, failure to recharge aquifers, and really gives rise to the need for irrigation. Dynamically unstable monocultures are neither sustainable nor efficient. They're not even cost-optimal or land-optimal, merely labor-minimizing (most of the arable land in the US is controlled either directly or indirectly by conglomerates, who generally view labor as messy and undesirable). Again, dynamically unstable monocultures are neither sustainable nor efficient. Fortunately this means that when they inevitably collapse, we get wealthier as more efficient systems replace them.

maxerickson 13y ago
Can you point to an interpretation of the data here: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/agriculture/farms_and_farmland.html http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/agriculture/farm... that supports your 80%? Because when I interpret the data I end up at 'most acreage is owned by families, families that may have done some sort of incorporation'. I guess if you throw in some of the big forestry outfits you buy a lot of acres, but that perhaps indicates the need for a more precise phrasing or more interesting measure than arable (like, land used to produce food in the last 50 years, or something like that).
- jessaustin 13y ago
  I think what 'schiffern means to say is that 80% is farmed in corporate fashion, even if not literally by corporations. The families you're talking about have generally taken big loans to buy (or hire) big machinery and big fertilizer for their big farms. Some of that is the market talking, but much of it is big ag companies like Monsanto ensuring that corn and other subsidies stay in place [0], and their sharecro^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcustomers can only farm in the manner that funnels all profits to the ag company. (Of course there are other family farmers who aren't like that, but they farm a small fraction of the acreage.) Apparently the Farm Bill that just passed the House is supposed to change this situation somewhat, but I'll believe that when and if I see it over the next decade or so. [0] http://www.yale.edu/sustainablefood/S9256YSF_farm_bill_s.pdf.pdf http://www.yale.edu/sustainablefood/S9256YSF_farm_bill_s.pdf...

Theodores 13y ago

I read Cadillac Desert more than twenty years ago and I got a lot out of it. I really wanted to loan my copy to someone, but, being British and living in the UK, I just did not find anyone to share the joy of that book with. It helps to have a love and a fascination for the American West, sadly none of my friends on this side of the pond have that so I never loaned out Cadillac Desert. Anyway, you have made my day by merely mentioning that read, and I will have anything else you care to share on your reading list. I take it you are also an Edward Abbey fan?!?

WildUtah 13y ago
Cadillac Desert is one of the great American books of the twentieth century. I wish I could make everyone in my region read it. And Ed Abbey wrote some great books, too. Desert Solitaire is always worth rereading. Last time I was camping at the Maze I took in a couple evening sunsets enjoying that book again.
pilom 13y ago
Edward Abbey is on my reading list but I haven't gotten there yet. I will definitely recommend The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko. It says its a story of the fastest trip down the Grand Canyon but its really a story of the history of the river and the balance that society has currently chosen between recreation/conservation and development. It also has a great description of the major problems at the Glen Canyon Dam in 1983
- Theodores 13y ago
  Looks like I might have to revisit the South West via words alone. Thanks for the recommend. Powell's book looks good too, with a touch of Shackleton grit to it. I too second Desert Solitaire as a must read, it is not a novel like Monkey Wrench Gang, it made me think again about values of freedom and what it is to be alive without having to suspend one's belief in a way that pure fiction demands. I also recommend walking down the Grand Canyon and up the other side carrying very little and without knowing what is going to happen to you. By very little I mean a light snack, some water and a picnic rug to sleep on (under the stars at the bottom of the Canyon).

rayiner 13y ago

The whole southwestern U.S. is basically a mistake caused by Big Government. "Manifest destiny" led the federal government to direct the Army Corps of Engineers to irrigate all these places that wouldn't have been habitable otherwise, and now we have a bunch of people living in places that are simply inappropriate for civilization given the water constraints.

joshuahedlund 13y ago

It's bad enough to consume more water than is replenished by precipitation, but it's even worse considering that the recent century or so of precipitation (i.e. the entire development of the West) may have been a pretty wet outlier compared to the last millennium.[0] At the same time, I've learned never to underestimate the power of people to respond to incentives, and I don't want to overstate the doom-factor. But it sure gives me another reason not to move to California. [0]http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24993601/california-dr...

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]