16 ms·

California has about one year of water left

• CWuestefeld 12y ago
  I just moved to Austin, TX 1.5 years ago. We've got our own severe drought here, and I wonder what's going to happen in the long term. Was it a mistake to move here? At least in TX, there are a couple of ways in which it's clear we're doing it to ourselves. First, we can't keep the reservoirs full because a significant amount of water flow is earmarked for rice farmers down at the mouth of the river. That's right: rice farmers. It's clearly not a good idea to be supporting a water-intensive crop in this geography. Second, Texas has a "right of capture" in its laws. That basically means that whatever water you can capture, you can have. There's a controversy near my town where a private company wants to drill well into the deep aquifer to pump and sell huge amounts of water, such that local homeowners are afraid their less-deep wells will run dry. And there's little one can do to insulate oneself: there's no way to stake claim to the part of the aquifer under your house, other than to be the first person to pump it all out. I wonder how much of this stupidity is also driving CA's problems.
  • lsb 12y ago
    http://calrice.org http://calrice.org
  • BryantD 12y ago
    Almonds are a very water-intensive crop. We grow a huge amount of almonds here in California. (Most of them are exported.) See http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30052290 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30052290 for one writeup. Now, they're also a very lucrative crop, so not growing almonds would certainly affect the state's economy. But...
    • bashinator 12y ago
      Specifically, one almond takes about one gallon of water to produce.
      • jaryd 12y ago
        Hate to be that guy but do you have a source for this? That's pretty incredible and I'd want to read more. nevermind: the parent article pretty much covers it
        • bashinator 12y ago
          Sure, here's some mainstream reporting of it http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-californias-water-going http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-califo... And here's the original research. http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report47-WaterFootprintCrops-Vol1.pdf http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Report47-WaterFootprin...
          • jaryd 12y ago
            Wow--thanks! The "How Thirsty Is Your Food" infographic from the first link is really incredible. Definitely makes me think differently about eating handfuls of almonds, or a huge amount of broc with dinner.
            • CWuestefeld 12y ago
              I agree that's really interesting. But it would be better to normalize to serving size. It doesn't seem fair to compare one almond or one grape to a whole head of broccoli.
            • kaybe 12y ago
              Water use is often seen as something negative. When the crops come from a wet place anyway, it shouldn't be a problem I think.
  • sosuke 12y ago
    The droughts in Austin, and Texas, are far longer running than 1.5 years. Welcome to Austin, water shouldn't be a reason you think it is a mistake to live here. There is a City of Austin Drought Contingency Plan: http://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Water/Conservation/Planning_and_Policy/Drought_Contingency_Plan_8-16-2012.pdf http://www.austintexas.gov/sites/default/files/files/Water/C... Not Austin, but you can read an article on central Texas rainfall patterns done in Mason county on a ranch from 1950-2012 http://doublehelixranch.com/FlyGapRainTrends.html http://doublehelixranch.com/FlyGapRainTrends.html Read about the "Record Drought" when the rain stopped in 1947 http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/current-drought-pales-in-comparison-with-1950s-d-1/nRdC5/ http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/current-drought-pal... I hear the elder in south Texas talk about how everything was green and they had various fruit trees when they were younger, all that is down there now is dust and mesquite. Edit: The Lower Colorado River Authority has a Drought Update as of March 2015 http://www.lcra.org/water/water-supply/drought-update/Documents/Highland-Lakes-Combined-Storage-Gauge-030615.pdf http://www.lcra.org/water/water-supply/drought-update/Docume...
    • CWuestefeld 12y ago
      A couple of other things that concern me here: It appears that the authorities are sacrificing Lake Travis in order to keep the city lake full and beautiful. IMHO, it would be better to let the level fall there as well, to keep people thinking about the need to conserve. I live just a few minutes from Jacob's Well [1]. Having heard stories of how this spring used to sometimes shoot 20 feet into the air, but in some recent events has stopped flowing altogether, makes concern about draining of the aquifers (not just surface water) seem quite real. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob%27s_Well_%28Texas%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob%27s_Well_%28Texas%29 edit - spelling
      • sosuke 12y ago
        I would love for the city to reflect our water problems in town lake, lake travis is being sacrificed. They won't go for that though, not with all the downtown development.
  • valgaze 12y ago
    That's interesting you mention rice farmers in TX because in Sacramento rice farmers are getting paid to sell not rice but water to Los Angeles. Evidently many of these folks will probably end up making more $$ selling water than rice See: http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article13908632.html http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drough...
  • kyrra 12y ago
    The 2011 drought destroyed the Austin water reserves. Check the lake level in 2010/2011 vs where we are today[0]. For those that don't know, in 2011 we had record temperatures and little water which led to a few wild fires. The Bastrop wildfire [1] burned 34,000 acres of land destroying 1650 homes. There was also a smaller fire (160 acres) in west Austin in the Steiner Ranch development destroying 25 homes. Temperature wise, Austin had 90 days with temperatures >= 100 degrees that summer. The area hasn't recouped its loss in water from that drought yet, and it will likely take a very long time for that to happen. Also, the Lower Colorado River Authority is the one that dictates where the water ends up, so they try to balance it for everyone that uses this supply (which is why Lake Travis is still so low). For fun, Lake Travis had a island that would appear in the middle sometimes depending on water levels, called "Sometimes Island". Since the drought, it's been jokingly renamed "Sometimes Peninsula"[2]. [0] http://travis.uslakes.info/Level.asp http://travis.uslakes.info/Level.asp [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastrop_County_Complex_fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastrop_County_Complex_fire [2] http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/no-boat-needed-to-get-to-sometimes-island/nRhBY/ http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/no-boat-needed-to-g...
  • pnut 12y ago
    Not related to water per se, but I've lived in Austin for over 6 years now, and can confidently say it was a mistake to move here for me. Where do you go when you want to get out of town? Big Bend? New Orleans? Sure, 8 hours later... And beyond that, what? So much cultural desolation, for hundreds of miles. May as well be in a moon colony. Texas, where dreams go to die. Of course, these are my personal feelings, so downvote away. If you moved here because it's cheap, like most people do, like I did from the Bay area, you'll find a cheap existence, as in, you get what you pay for.
    • driverdan 12y ago
      It seems you've forgotten we have an airport.
    • kyrra 12y ago
      3 other large cities within a 3 hour drive (Dallas, Houston, San Antonio). The Gulf coast is also around 3 hours away. Not close, but it's something.
    • perturbation 12y ago
      Dallas and Houston are a bit of a hike (4 and 3 hours, respectively), but San Antonio is only an hour away. I find that there's plenty of stuff to do in Austin itself anyway. (Heck, SXSW is going on right now.) I have a theory that a lot of people move to Austin expecting it to be somehow hermetically sealed away from Texas; if you don't like Texas, you will eventually not like Austin. What do you like about the Bay area that you miss in Austin?
  • jseliger 12y ago
    Was it a mistake to move here? People are moving to the South in general because housing is cheap there—as Matt Yglesias discusses in The Rent is Too Damn High: http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0078XGJXO http://www.amazon.com/Rent-Too-Damn-High-Matters-ebook/dp/B0... : There is another option besides denser cities or more sprawling ones: People can just relocate to other cities altogether. And increasingly, that’s what Americans have been doing. If the only way to afford a place in a safe neighborhood in some metropolitan areas is to bear the enormous costs of long commutes, those are just cities with little if any housing that’s truly affordable. The natural choice is to go to the cities that aren’t choked with these problems. As Forbes magazine put it, “It’s no secret that the Southeast and Western United States are booming. The costs of living and doing business there are often cheaper than in big coastal cities.” People have to go somewhere, and by and large they’re going where it’s cheap. That’s why between 2000 and 2010 the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas each added about 1.2 million people, dwarfing the approximately 500,000 each added by the much bigger New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago metro areas. But this kind of boom driven by a low cost of living is a particular kind of boom. The relatively sluggish population growth in New York City and its suburbs during this period wasn’t a repeat of the urban collapse of the 1970s. The financial services sector at the core of the region’s economy was, for all the (oft-deserved) opprobrium it’s attracted over the past several years, one of the decade’s major money-making success stories. The city’s specialization as the main headquarters of American journalism and publishing seemed relatively unaffected by the sweeping technological change reshaping media. The crime drop of the 1990s that turned the city’s momentum around in the first place continued. A wave of gentrification swept through the Lower East Side, vast swathes of Brooklyn, important parts of Queens, and even Hoboken and Jersey City across the Hudson River. But while this kind of gentrification demonstrates the continuing appeal of the Big Apple, it represents only a small net increase in the population. The people moving in are largely replacing other people who are moving out as rents go up. Some of this is due to working-class families moving out of now-expensive neighborhoods. Other times, it is the cycling of twentysomething professionals out of the city as they start families and want more space. In both cases, the city can prosper without its population increasing very much. By contrast, the “booming” cities of the Southeast and the western United States aren’t necessarily booming in the sense of getting rich. The ten metropolitan areas with the fastest population growth between the 2000 and 2010 censuses were, in order, Palm Coast, Florida; St. George, Utah; Las Vegas, Nevada; Raleigh, North Carolina; Cape Coral, Florida; Provo, Utah; Greeley, Colorado; Austin, Texas; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina; and Bend, Oregon. That geographical distribution supports the idea of a boom in the Southeast and West. But it’s striking that in 2009 all ten of these metro areas had per capita personal incomes below the national average of $40,757. Indeed, only Cape Coral was even close. It may be a long-term mistake, but the localities that control building height, parking minimums, and so forth have ensured that people move to the desert states.
• lotsofmangos 12y ago
  If we ever manage to actually run out of fresh water or power on a planet that has an incoming 89 peta-watts and is mostly ocean, then if there is a galactic civilisation, we will enjoy brief celebrity as the latest species to win whatever passes for a Darwin Award.
• sporkenfang 12y ago
  Maybe I skimmed the article a bit fast, but I saw no mention of desalination plants, which are the obvious solution (though expensive and as far as I'm aware not implemented yet).
  • mariusz79 12y ago
    It's not going to be easy to build few of them in less than a year.
    • joshstrange 12y ago
      It's amazing what you can do when you've run out of water... But you are right, it would/will be a massive undertaking. I wonder if desalination will become water's "fracking", something we only turn to due to high price of what we used before or unavailability of what we used before.
      • _delirium 12y ago
        I don't think the price will be near what would be needed to make desalination profitable without subsidies, though. The state could choose to maintain current usage and pay whatever it takes to maintain it, but it'd be at a huge loss. The main user of California water is agriculture, and desalinating water just to use it to grow rice is a good way to burn money.
    • melling 12y ago
      I've seen complaints that it has a big environmental impact too.
      • winslow 12y ago
        Is it due to the amount of power required? Any sources? (Not that I don't believe you, I'm just curious).
  • digikata 12y ago
    It looks like there are proposals, but who knows how serious that is: http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-large...
• malchow 12y ago
  A historical view: http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_california-drought.html http://www.city-journal.org/2015/25_1_california-drought.htm...
  • glesica 12y ago
    That reads like it was written by a clueless reactionary. Draining reservoirs didn't cause the drought. It caused the water supply to dry up sooner in the midst of a drought. > Then they alleged that global warming, not their own foolish policies, had caused the current crisis. One of the most brain-dead sentences I've ever read. No one is claiming that global warming is responsible for the reservoirs being depleted. They are claiming that global warming is responsible for the fact that the reservoirs have not been replenished by rain and snow melt. It is a subtle, but extremely important difference.
    • malchow 12y ago
      @glesica I'm not sure I understand the putative difference. Can you explain more?
      • glesica 12y ago
        We can certainly debate the "correct" reservoir capacity, maybe California doesn't have enough reservoirs, I don't know enough about it to make an intelligent argument on that point. However, claiming that anyone who wants to get rid of dams (which are environmental disasters in many cases) is some kind of "extremist" is absurd to me. As for the global warming bit, people (not me, some other commenters seem confused on this fact) are blaming global warming for the drought itself, not for the empty reservoirs. In other words, they are saying that global warming is why it hasn't rained or snowed very much. In this sense, it wouldn't matter one bit (in the big picture) if California had more reservoirs, if the state turns into a desert, the largest reservoirs in the world would still eventually run out. If the state hadn't removed dams, perhaps they could capture a larger percentage of what precipitation there is, but a larger proportion of a vastly smaller total is still small. The Sierra Nevada snow pack is apparently only 20% of its normal size this year [1]. That means that if the rate of capture was twice as high as it is, the amount captured would still be less than half of normal (back of the envelope calculations). The link I responded to originally was clearly written by someone playing politics, not by someone actually trying to help others understand the situation. [1] www.sierranevada.ca.gov/factsheets/snc_factsheet_drought.pdf
• joshstrange 12y ago
  So what happens when they run out of water? Are there water sources that are just undrinkable that can be cleaned up; similar to fracking now being cheap enough to compete with OPEC is there no water or just no drinkable water? Can they just "ship" or "pipe" the water in from neighboring states or are they too on the edge of a draught. Is this country-wide, just Western states, or just California and can other states give up water without risking throwing them into a draught? I know that's a bunch of questions but this article seems to raise more questions than it answers, at least for me.
  • tdees40 12y ago
    My understanding is that under most scenarios water for humans is fine, but agriculture will be totally dead in California.
    • ChuckMcM 12y ago
      This. What it really means is that we won't be able to grow crops in the desert which is the central valley region. And that means that prices for foods will go up, and we'll not be able to use the corn belt for just corn, or conversely growing something other than corn there will be more profitable. It really is too bad we couldn't build a water pipeline of some scale to help folks like Boston out with their excess snow.
    • joshstrange 12y ago
      Ahh, ok they hinted at that in the article but for some reason it didn't click in my head. I wonder if the farmers will just move to neighboring states (not that it's easy to pick up and move a farm....) losing farms in California would be a huge loss: > California produces a sizable majority of many American fruits, vegetables, and nuts: 99 percent of artichokes, 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots (and the list [1] goes on and on). [0] [0] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/07/california_grows_all_of_our_fruits_and_vegetables_what_would_we_eat_without.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2... [1] http://www.motherjones.com/files/2agovstat10_web-1.pdf http://www.motherjones.com/files/2agovstat10_web-1.pdf
• blake8086 12y ago
  I wish there was some way to change prices to alter demand. Maybe a "task force of thought leaders" can crack open an Econ 101 textbook and look at the supply and demand curve on the first page. Sorry for the sarcasm, I'm just disappointed in the "reach for regulation first" approach to dealing with shortages.
  • sp332 12y ago
    You're right, if people can't afford water to drink, they're clearly not valuable enough to live. If a farm can't afford water for crops, the crops weren't profitable enough to grow anyway. And if the rest of the nation can't afford food since some foods will be scarce without California farms, they should just be more productive. No need for regulation!
    • mikeash 12y ago
      The amount of water used for drinking is minuscule. Even for residential use, it's basically irrelevant. How high would prices hive to rise before the cost of water would cause people to literally go thirsty? Long before that point, people would cut down on showers, laundry, car washes, pools, and all the other uses of water, and prices would stabilize. You say "If a farm can't afford water for crops, the crops weren't profitable enough to grow anyway." From context, I gather you intended this to be ironic. But I don't see why! That's a totally true and justifiable statement. There's plenty of farmland in wetter areas of the country to take up the slack. We won't starve if we decide to stop subsidizing crops in inappropriate climates by providing artificially cheap water.
    • jerf 12y ago
      In all seriousness, if California's water problems really did get to Arrakis levels of expensive where some set of people could not even afford to drink, then "they move to somewhere where water is cheaper" would actually be a good outcome. It would relieve an incredibly overloaded infrastructure. (If there was going to be nowhere to move those people, that would be a different problem, but that's not the current problem. There are many places with enough water to drink.) I mean, this is just the "planetary carrying capacity" issue applied to a smaller area. The argument still holds, so if you accept the idea that the planet has a certain carrying capacity for a certain level of lifestyle, the idea that maybe California can not support necessarily arbitrarily large numbers of people in a given lifestyle is just the same idea. Which idea is going to win out if they conflict?
• antidaily 12y ago
  Just ban almonds. Problem solved.
  • vinhboy 12y ago
    Maybe you were being tongue in cheek, but I kind of like this solution. Why don't we just find some non-essential crops and ban them. I am sure it will suck for that farmer, but we're not really in a position to be accommodating to every industry at this point.
    • wnissen 12y ago
      Almonds get something of a bad rap because they are moderately water-intensive (1 gallon per almond) but they are also highly profitable. So it makes sense to grow them. Rice is frequently grown using the water that is released for wildlife, so it is also reasonable to keep growing. The real problem is the forage crops (alfalfa hay) that are water-intensive and cheap. Price water competitively and your problem will be solved overnight. Naturally, the farmers using the water can't allow this to happen.
• brianbreslin 12y ago
  This could be a boon for middle eastern water companies (Israel has some geniuses in this space) for selling into California. There are a few tactics for tackling this problem (disclaimer: I didn't read the article) - Reduction of waste (leaks, more efficient plumbing, rationing) - Desalination (only useful along the coast) - Deep wells - water extraction from the air - water recycling - what else?
  • emodendroket 12y ago
    I think in the long-term California needs to consider desalinization but that hardly seems like something that could happen in the next year.
    • michaelchisari 12y ago
      If there was the political will to do so, it could come close. The actual construction is a small part of the process, compared to securing permits and such.
• noobermin 12y ago
  So it looks like there is suddenly water everywhere in the solar system...except for California.
  • nosuchthing 12y ago
    In the absence of fresh water, it becomes a matter of the energy required to clean / desalinate / or distill contaminated water. Abundant clean renewable energy would solve "rare" water issues.
    • stouset 12y ago
      So would magic. We need to rid ourselves of the mythical notion of "abundant", meaning arbitrarily cheap, energy. There are only a few more doublings of global energy usage left before we heat the atmosphere significantly, not due to greenhouse gases, but by raising the equilibrium temperature of Earth as a radiating blackbody in space. TANSTAAFL. Every resource is ultimately finite. Let's live within our limits rather than justifying our actions with unrealistic fantasizing about future technology.
      • nosuchthing 12y ago
        "Solar energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels by 2016", Dutche Bank [1] Recently Germany had reached a day with %50 of electricity produced by Solar. [2] [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-29/while-you-were-getting-worked-up-over-oil-prices-this-just-happened-to-solar http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-10-29/while-you-... [2] http://theweek.com/speedreads/451299/germany-gets-50-percent-electricity-from-solar-first-time http://theweek.com/speedreads/451299/germany-gets-50-percent...
        • stouset 12y ago
          This has nothing to do with us having the ability to produce "arbitrarily cheap energy". Did you even read my comment?
  • ForHackernews 12y ago
• nfriedly 12y ago
  How feasible is desalination? If they can make that work on a large scale, then there's quite literally an ocean of water available to California.
  • acomjean 12y ago
    Desalination is expensive and not great for the environment, but its starting to happen. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/533446/desalination-out-of-desperation/ http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/533446/desalin...
    • akkartik 12y ago
      Don't forget solar desal. For example, http://waterfx.co http://waterfx.co. That would eliminate any pollution.
      • ceejayoz 12y ago
        It probably wouldn't. Desalinization leaves a lot of salty brine to be disposed of.
        • refurb 12y ago
          Put it back in the ocean? That's where it was before anyways. It's not like that would have any impact on the salt concentration of the ocean.
          • ceejayoz 12y ago
            > It's not like that would have any impact on the salt concentration of the ocean. Ocean-wide, no. Where it's dumped, definitely.
            • refurb 12y ago
              My understanding is that desalination doesn't give you crystalline salt, but rather more salty sea water back. Of course you'd have to be careful where you dumped it as a small bay doesn't mix that well. I don't see why you couldn't pipe it out 1-2 miles from the coast. It should mix quite well.
• Shivetya 12y ago
  What has happened before will happen again. California had similar issues with mild winters and the reduced water associated with them back in the 1930s. [1][2] The difference now of course is that there are a great many more people there and a great many more farms. The Bureau of Reclamation is pretty much at fault for the lack of water available for human consumption because of mismanagement and prices below the cost which encouraged over development of farming. The current drought can likely be traced to changes in the Pacific Ocean dating to 1976 [3]. As in, we have more than time enough to see something was changing. What can be done? Rationing won't solve it all. The states need to have more control over the water that the Bureau of Reclamation currently controls. They are in a far better position to understand their needs and cooperate amongst each other instead of using the weight of Washington politics to force a way. First and foremost priorities have to be set and reasonable prices for the cost of water need to be assigned. Yes this will likely mean a reduction in farming but it is artificially propped up now by unrealistically low water prices. People also need to understand conservation and large lawns should either be restricted or the water use for such maintenance needs to be surcharged. The key is better use of resources and not redirecting the problem which is more mismanagement than natural causes. note, I haven't read much on site #2, but they consolidated nicely some NOAA charts which make it easier to view. [1] http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/061/mwr-061-09-0251.pdf http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/061/mwr-061-09-0251.pdf [2] http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/01/california-drought-update-not-even-close-to-worst-drought-ever.html?doing_wp_cron=1426269408.9994280338287353515625 http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2015/01/california-dro... [3] http://icecap.us/images/uploads/More_on_The_Great_Pacific_Climate_Shift_and_the_Relationship_of_Oceans_on_Global_Temperatures.pdf http://icecap.us/images/uploads/More_on_The_Great_Pacific_Cl...
  • malandrew 12y ago
    The way I see it water consumption for household and business uses that are not farms should be on a per person basis, going up exponentially at each strata of consumption. This would not be unlike how the desirable island of Fernando de Naronha controls limits tourism, while still keeping it accessible. IIRC, every day you are on the island you pay a fee, but each day you stay the fee increases until it gets so expensive that even the rich feel it. The island is limited to 420 tourists at a time. http://www.ilhadenoronha.com.br/ailha/taxadepreservacao_em_noronha.php http://www.ilhadenoronha.com.br/ailha/taxadepreservacao_em_n... Likewise, for water a person might pay a nominal rate per gallon for the first 40 gallons in a day, then the price doubles for the next 40, then doubles for the next 40, etc, etc. until it's literally unaffordable by even the rich. This would also have the nice side effect of limiting yard size, which would curb urban sprawl.
• rjett 12y ago
  Disclaimer: I have no clue if what I'm proposing is realistic or not, but: Perhaps the federal government should step in and gradually step down the level of subsidies given to farmers in California and gradually increase subsidies given to NEW farmers in other, more water rich parts of the country. This would have the effect of moving farms to more sustainable locations in the country. Sure, the types of crops produced would change and consumer demands would have to shift with that, but that isn't the worst thing in the world. Another solution is to allow utilities to drastically increase water prices for communities that import most of their water anyways. All in all, both solutions are geared towards population displacement in unsustainable locations. Just as New Orleans is probably destined for another Katrina, SoCal is probably destined to be a desert despite the demands we've put on the land in the last century.
  • j_baker 12y ago
    The Midwest would make a good alternative place to grow. It won't be as prone to droughts and will have a longer growing season due to climate change. Either that or giving farmers a subsidy for growing crops that require less water. Our huge Almond industry is a giant water-guzzler.
    • malandrew 12y ago
      Almond Trees at maturity seem to be small enough to be movable to new locations (12-33 ft high, 12 in trunk)
      • chrisBob 12y ago
        You can move a tree. Moving a tree successfully is completely different. If you are in a race to grow a 20', you are generally better off starting with a seedling than a 10' tree because they handle the move so poorly.
      • jqm 12y ago
        You can't move almond trees to other areas. They wouldn't thrive there. You might as well suggest moving a Banana plantation from Honduras to Montana to save on shipping costs.
• Animats 12y ago
  Water use in California is mostly agriculture. Almond, rice, and hay production in California is going to stop. Rice and hay can come from elsewhere. Almonds are almost entirely from California, and they come from trees, so no place else can pick up the demand quickly.
• kin 12y ago
  This is an opinion article, but the situation is without a doubt fact. However, next year I feel the only impact on me will be produce cost. Everything in this article tells me this is mostly an agricultural issue. What is rationing going to do when farms are pumping 2/3 of our ground water? It just buys more time for the inevitable unless someone finds a solution.
• rodgerd 12y ago
  Maybe stop growing rice in a desert? Let gasp other parts of the country or double gasp world sell food to Americans?
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
    • angersock 12y ago
      Then we let them suffer. What's the problem here?
      • happyscrappy 12y ago
        The market will decide and it will be more profitable to sell American almonds in the American market.
        • throwaway344 12y ago
          The underlying problem is that the scarcity of water is not being taken account into what farmers pay for it. That underlying discrepancy distorts the market and prevents Ricardo's comparative advantage from being done.
• clientbiller 12y ago
  Instead of an oil pipline, why not a water pipeline?
  • whyaduck 12y ago
    If you look at a map you'll see that there are large mountains and long distances between where the (fresh) water is and California's Central Valley.
  • ars 12y ago
    We use FAR more water than oil. A pipe large enough for oil would not even come close for water.
    • clientbiller 12y ago
      more than 1 pipe?
• sandworm 12y ago
  I blame golf. Really. I learned to play on an OIL course. They mixed oil and sand to create a fairway and we carried around a piece of astroturf to place under the ball (see http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22230833 http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22230833). A grass course in a desert (ie most every course in california) is a totally unnecessary waste of water. When they stop spending water on golf, THEN we can talk about rationing water for household use. (Fyi, the airbase that picture was THE airbase for the first gulf war. The f117s would land there at night. Seeing a black triangle open white landing gear on approach was like something out of the x-files.)
  • bcherry 12y ago
    Golf courses account for probably not more than 0.5% of all human water usage in California annually. Human water usage in CA is about 80% agricultural, 20% "urban". "Urban" covers all residential, (non-agricultural) commericial, landscaping, etc. Of the "Urban" usage, about 60% is residential, with indoor usage as the majority. Residential landscaping (lawns, pools, etc) uses at least 3 times as much as all commercial landscaping (golf courses, parks, etc).
    • sandworm 12y ago
      I made no claim that it was a huge contributor. I use it as an example of needless waste. Only once we are willing to deal with the truly frivolous uses of water (golf, fountains etc) can we hope to deal with more utilitarian uses. And I totally dismiss logic dictating that we must only deal with the largest and most contentious contributors to a problem before all others. That is only a delay tactic.
      • lotsofmangos 12y ago
        And I totally dismiss logic dictating that we must only deal with the largest and most contentious contributors to a problem before all others. That is only a delay tactic. If I have a limited budget and am trying to reduce water use in California, pissing off a load of rich executives, judges and lawyers who can prove, in court, that their contribution to the problem is negligible, would not be my first move. edit - and fountains? Are you the reincarnation of John Calvin?
• Flip-per 12y ago
  Warning: strong language and opinion I'm glad each time climate change consequences hit the US instead of other countries that contributed way less, like Tuvalu. You consider this rude? Fair enough, I consider it rude to destroy the planet we are living on, at least in a way that makes it habitable for humans. Of course other countries are not innocent either, but the (institutions of the) US stand out in many ways. We need as much pressure as possible for the three big climate-relevant conferences in 2015 (Paris et cetera), this will be the best chance we get for the next couple of years. If drinking water or water to grow plants runs out maybe some people start to care finally. We all can be fucking glad if any of the upcoming changes turns out to be reversible. I'm afraid that few will be (keyword tipping points).
  • minikites 12y ago
    I live in rural New York and I have mixed feelings about fracking for similar reasons. Why should we push environmental problems onto other people? We should be the ones to deal with them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Niger_Delta#Oil_spills http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_issues_in_the_Nig... > A UNDP report states that there have been a total of 6,817 oil spills between 1976 and 2001, which account for a loss of three million barrels of oil, of which more than 70% was not recovered.
  • happyscrappy 12y ago
    The sad truth is that the US will be fine. Few countries are as well positioned for rapid change as the US. Sorry.
  • nemothekid 12y ago
    I'm unsure if we can safely assume that California's recent drought troubles are the cause of climate change, and not the fact that California really is a giant desert. If anything human intervention made California livable.
    • dragonwriter 12y ago
      > I'm unsure if we can safely assume that California's recent drought troubles are the cause of climate change, Literally no one has argued that California's recent drought troubles are the cause of climate change. (The result of, OTOH...) > and not the fact that California really is a giant desert. The Central Valley is a giant desert, but California's water problems aren't because the Central Valley is a giant desert, its because the water received by the rest of California have been far below the historical norms for several years. Now, consuming lots of water -- e.g., by shipping lots of water from other places to the desert for agriculture -- makes California more sensitive to droughts than it otherwise would be, to be sure.
• ziyadb 12y ago
  Just to add my 2 cents. I'm based in Saudi Arabia, and considering the deserted climate and environment, there are literally no persistent water sources (aside from a few select wells that are over-exploited by bottled water manufacturers). Desalination is currently (as of 2015) being used to supply 50% of Saudi Arabia's water needs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Saudi_Arabia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_... So yes, it's feasible, and just FYI, it is provided free of cost.
  • Someone1234 12y ago
    Great point. When people talk about California's water problems they make it sound as if there isn't an easy solution, but there is. The real core of this entire issue is not the methods but more the cost, it is ultimately a conversation about saving money NOT about some finite limitation on water in real terms. California could solve this issue with a pen stroke, it just might hurt their farmers, which is really what all the concern is about. If water doubled or more in price (which is realistic), that is expensive for farmers who need a ton of the stuff for their crops. So will supermarkets pay 30% more or will they look abroad? I actually think even with a higher water bill, it will still be cheaper for US retailers to buy US produce. Shipping that stuff by ocean isn't exactly cheap with the price of oil. I think where it would hurt US farms is their exports to Europe in particular, Europe is in a geographical position to buy from either the east or west, both by ocean. So if US/California crops go up in cost they might just buy them from someone else. But let us not pretend that either shipping water in from other states OR just distilling water isn't an option for California, because it is. It just might hurt farmers and make them less internationally competitive.
    • BashiBazouk 12y ago
      This is part of what is needed. Water rights in California are as old as the state and extremely convoluted. Those with the older water rights have a practically guaranteed supply and generally irrigate in remarkably wasteful ways. Breaking the old water rights and increasing the price of water would push farmers to move to Israeli style computer controlled drip irrigation rather than current methods of just spraying tons of water over the field. Gov Brown was talking about bring that technology over and pushing it hard into farming...
• marcusgarvey 12y ago
  How this gets dealt with will be very telling for the larger environmental disaster the world is facing due to prices not reflecting their true costs.
• shit_parade 12y ago
  Agriculture uses the vast majority of water but most farmers pay very little, sometimes nothing, and sometimes they 'own' water rights which can be very valuable and often worth more than any of the land they farm upon. Farmers have been overdrawing from rivers and groundwater for decades and the US government has been very slow to respond. Promises of 'smart meters' or 'water markets' are often delayed with time tables being pushed further and further back. Meanwhile the government also hands out large subsidies to grow a wide variety of crops, most recently the federal government has encouraged corn for biofuel, more corn is being grown for biofuel than is being used for livestock (and effects of carbon usage for biofuel is likely 0 or even negative once you take in effect it's entire life cycle). Typically ever pound of beef takes 7 pounds of corn, pork is 5 to 1, poultry is around 3 to 1. Again, we grow more corn for biofuel than we do for livestock because of government subsidies. If anyone spends anytime at all on this issue they quickly learn that farmers are a powerful lobby, that the agricultural bill is essentially a large handout to a small, tiny, group of people. One reason this occurs is because every state gets two senators, and many middle states are essentially empty but for farmers and their communities. Government has been mismanaging water usage for decades in the US and yet the first thing people suggest is for the government to come in and fix the problems they created, the amount of cognitive dissonance this takes is staggering.
  • shit_parade 12y ago
    I also want to add one more thing, 'farmers' as a category is not your salt of the earth, homespun family anymore. Most crops being grown are actually produced by large multinational conglomerates, the fact that people picture the downtrodden poor of the dust bowl whenever someone uses the word farmer is a triumph of marketing.
• frandroid 12y ago
  " A recent Field Poll showed that 94% of Californians surveyed believe that the drought is serious, and that one-third support mandatory rationing." There is a major problem, and damn if I'm going to make any personal sacrifice to help solve it.
  • coldcode 12y ago
    Rationing for people does nothing since its only 10%. Rationing for ag kills farms and ag products which you then have to get from somewhere else. Unless you are a big farmer there is nothing you can do.
  • masterleep 12y ago
    We can hope that 2/3 of Californians realize that mandatory rationing is a bad idea. A far better idea is to use the price system, as we do for almost all other commodities.
• andlarry 12y ago
  Most of the water is used by agriculture. You can take all the 2 minute showers you want, changing how the megafarms use all that water would have the most impact. Of course, there's this idea that the farms are the historical yeoman-type, so it's rare to see solutions involving agriculture dicussed. http://californiawaterblog.com/2011/05/05/water%E2%80%94who-uses-how-much/ http://californiawaterblog.com/2011/05/05/water%E2%80%94who-... > When you examine water use within the interconnected network of California that feeds farms and cities, use is roughly 52 percent agricultural, 14 percent urban and 33 percent environmental.
• bearclough 12y ago
  Does anyone have any good intel on nuclear powered desalination plants. I know desalinated water is about the most expensive around but for keeping the population with enough drinking and washing water. The agricultural impact is huge and requires more water than the people do. But, I wonder if desalination would help supply water to the populous.
• bearclough 12y ago
  Does anyone have any good intel on nuclear powered desalination plants. I know desalinated water is about the most expensive around but for keeping the population with enough drinking and washing water. The agricultural impact is huge and requires more water than the people do. But, I wonder if desalination would help supply water to the populous.
• Teknoman117 12y ago
  Honestly we should probably start building desalination facilities statewide so that we can begin to supplant the natural supply. The one being built in San Diego is a few months away from coming online and it will be providing 33% of the city's water supply iirc. I know people have talked about it in the past, but usually the response is "but they are an eye sore if I go to the beach." Well, what would you rather do? die of starvation and dehydration or have a desalination plant near your beach?
  • nathanm412 12y ago
    The waste brine water is pretty toxic to the environment. Nobody believes that this will cause people to die of dehydration. Worst case scenario, if you look beyond the severe inconvenience factor of having to regulate when you can water your lawn, or if you can fill your pool, lots of farmers would lose their jobs. Almonds and rice won't be able to continue under these conditions. Beyond that, there is plenty of water to go around to keep people hydrated.
• Teknoman117 12y ago
  Honestly we should probably start building desalination facilities statewide so that we can begin to supplant the natural supply. The one being built in San Diego is a few months away from coming online and it will be providing 33% of the city's water supply iirc. I know people have talked about it in the past, but usually the response is "but they are an eye sore if I go to the beach." Well, what would you rather do? die of starvation and dehydration or have a desalination plant near your beach?
• entwife 12y ago
  Regarding California agriculture, and specifically growing the produce and vegetable crops that California supplies the rest of the country. An excellent model for urban agriculture, Growing Power of Milwaukee and Chicago, provides such vegetables grown in city greenhouses (lettuce, tomatoes, greens, etc.). They do it year-round in Chicago. Some of the heat comes from compost, worm bins, fish tanks. There are several offshoot businesses (e.g. Eco City Farm here in DC) replicating their model. Growing Power offers training several times a year. So hopefully other places - urban brownfields - will take up some of the agriculture production from California in view of the water problem.
• ck2 12y ago
  Burning gasoline produces water (yes, it does). Not suitable for drinking but maybe it could be reclaimed to water crops. Alternately it would be nice if there was a leap in desalination technology where it would take a tenth of the power.
• ryguytilidie 12y ago
  In the Bay Area, things don't seem that bad. However, I drove from LA to SF and holy wow. Everything along I5 is just a dustbowl. Farms are empty with big signs saying that there are no jobs because there is no water. However, its hard not to blame the farmers themselves. We consistently hear that it takes a gallon of water for a single Almond, yet here we are and farmers aren't looking for new crops that use less water, it's simply "give us more water" as if this is realistic...
• gkanapathy 12y ago
  Well, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/science/space/suddenly-it-seems-water-is-everywhere-in-solar-system.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/science/space/suddenly-it-...
• dataker 12y ago
  I must be cursed. I spend my time between San Francisco and Sao Paulo(Brazil). Although Brazil has natural resources, Sao Paulo has been experiencing a severe drought for several months. Many residents only have water between 7am-1pm and it doesn't seem to get any better. Actually, regulators have been trying to come up with water rationing and limit its usage to two days a week. I hope CA doesn't have to go through the same thing. http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/02/no-one-is-quite-sure-how-sao-paulo-will-survive-its-drought/385211/ http://www.citylab.com/weather/2015/02/no-one-is-quite-sure-...
• madaxe_again 12y ago
  Acre-feet? Can someone translate this into furlong-leagues? Or preferably, y'know, an SI fluid measure like litres?
• phkahler 12y ago
  Seems a good time to post this: http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world... It a TED talk about reversing desertification with farming practices. Not applicable to every crop, but here you go.
• rodgerd 12y ago
  Oh happy day! I never expected to see such a staunch defence and enthusiasm for central government command economies here on HN! Who knew that all it took was the idea of buying food from foreigners to bring out HN's closeted Marxists.
• harmmonica 12y ago
  This thread is long so this comment will likely fall pretty quickly, but this page is pretty telling in terms of usage by sector: http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108 http://www.ppic.org/main/publication_show.asp?i=1108 1. Environmental 50% 2. Ag 40% 3. Urban 10% (btw, this is particularly topical when my landlord just informed us he'd be swapping our shower heads for lower-flow ones due to increased costs in Southern Cal (bringing a toothpick to a gun fight?)) The thought process for how to decrease use, though, would be: 1. Can we tap into environmental use and, if so, how much, or is that verboten? 2. If no, which ag can we forgo with the least human/economic impact? 3. If no easy answer looking at both human and economic impact of ag, which ag can we forgo with the least human impact (e.g., if none of us had an almond ever again, would the world be worse off for it? That makes killing almonds purely economic) 4. If there's not enough from 1-3, then we've probably gotten to a life-threatening lack of water and so we get rid of crops that have the least "nutritional" value (i.e., crops that are best at sustaining life are the ones we keep) 5. If we still can't support life, looks like it's time to desalinate, create a pipeline from east or move Of course, even though it's a drop in the bucket, we should just immediately save the 5% that's used for urban and residential landscaping (see article; ~50% of urban use is landscaping) because there's nothing "essential" about that even though there would be an economic impact (and a whole lotta angry golfers).
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• lightblade 12y ago
  What is preventing is from building canals from the Northeast to California? They are having devastating snowstorm s and we having draught. It make sense.
  • danans 12y ago
    The Mississippi River system and the Rocky Mountains?
  • deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
• paulsmith 12y ago
  > the technology and expertise exist to handle this harrowing future. It will require major changes in policy and infrastructure that could take decades to identify and act upon. Today, not tomorrow, is the time to begin. Someone should, I don't know, start a startup or something.
• tracker1 12y ago
  We have oil pipelines stretching thousands of miles... why don't we create a water pipeline, sending fresh water to the southwest? I've never really understood why this wasn't an obvious thing started 80+ years ago. We created roadways, and a fairly complex electricity grid... water transfer has been a critical thing forever, and something we haven't really addressed on a national level. Not only that, but hydrogen as fuel stores would be a very realistic scenario if water wasn't so scarce in locations where solar/wind is so ideal.
  • Domenic_S 12y ago
    They're called aqueducts, and California has quite a few, typically sending water from northern california/the Sierras to Los Angeles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Aqueduct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Aqueduct
    • tracker1 12y ago
      I'm talking about actual pipelines from the midwest/southeast to the southwest U.S. ... much larger scale projects... I know we transport water across states, but I'm talking across the country.
  • Mz 12y ago
    Yeah, California already gets a portion of the Colorado River. http://www.mwdh2o.com/mwdh2o/pages/yourwater/supply/colorado/colorado04.html http://www.mwdh2o.com/mwdh2o/pages/yourwater/supply/colorado... So it's been done. The crux of the problem here is that the history of the state is all about thinking like you do -- "let's just import more water" -- instead of finding ways to live within our means in terms of available water out here. So Californians like to have their own pools and like to plant grass in their yards and like to grow Rice in the freaking desert and then whine when long term drought threatens some "crisis" which is basically artificially created. There are lots of ways improve what we are doing without trying to import yet more water. For long term sustainability, that's what we really need to focus on. My understanding is that the Colorado River is already so chopped up and whored out to the water needs of the west that it is a pathetic trickle, instead of a roaring river, by the time it reaches the ocean (somewhere in Mexico, IIRC). There are real world limits here on "just import more." And that is a big part of the problem here. It's a desert. We need to learn to live like residents of a desert. That's the only long-term, sustainable solution.
• cpursley 12y ago
  If water were priced correctly, this would not be a problem. Charge what it is worth and people will conserver.
• zach 12y ago
  It's fascinating to see the many reservoirs we were supposed to have built by now. The engineers of the 1950s and 1960s had a lot of big plans that were all supposed to be in place decades ago (look at the gray squares on the map): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Water_Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Water_Project A lot of people will say "the environmentalists" stopped them, but really it was that lawmakers gave environmental concerns only one effective tool -- enforcing standards via litigation. The task of resolving environmental concerns was pushed out of the political and economic arena into an adversarial process that takes a huge amount of paperwork, lawyer time and calendar time to resolve. Exactly like the Republicans with Proposition 13 (a California initiative which required supermajority voter approval for taxes), once you take fundamental powers away from the legislative and executive branches, you really limit the potential effectiveness of the government. And now California's infrastructure is a mess.
  • xaqfox 12y ago
    " you really limit the potential effectiveness of the government. And now California's infrastructure is a mess." Following that same point, you also limit the potential ineffectiveness of the government and apparently that is what the people wanted. Your argument also assumes there is not such thing as too much power in the hands of "the legislative and executive".
• mark_l_watson 12y ago
  All water subsidies should be terminated and the cost of food should reflect the amount of water used to grow the food. Too bad our special interest controlled government prevents this.
• beefman 12y ago
  Israel has built its first four desalination plants in the last 10 years. They now provide 40% of the country's potable water. The newest plant (Sorek) is the world's largest, producing over half a million cubic meters a day at a cost of $0.68 per cubic meter. Edits: I'm unable to find data on Israel's net import of calories. I suspect it's substantial, but 85% of their agricultural water supply is treated urban wastewater. I'm part of a family of four living near Berkeley, CA. We'd need 50" of rain a year to be self-sufficient on our 4000 ft^2 property, which is about twice what we get. I have no problem commandeering runoff from some place in the Sierras. But it'll have to be 8,000 ft^2, because what hits this lot (and every other lot in the neighborhood) goes straight into the bay.
• declan 12y ago
  80 percent of the developed water supply in California is used by agriculture. About 6 percent is industrial and commercial. That leaves 7 percent residential landscaping, and 7 percent residential non-landscaping (showers, washing machines, etc.). Source: http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/commentary/where-we-are/in-a-season-of-drought-where-does-the-water-go.html http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/commentary/where-we-... Even if residential landscaping or non-landscaping water usage dropped by a quarter immediately, which seems rather unlikely, that's close to a rounding error compared to the amount of water to turn our near-desert into an agricultural breadbasket. Put another way, more water is used for almond farming alone in California than all residential landscaping or residential non-landscaping: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/05/_10_percent_of_california_s_water_goes_to_almond_farming.html http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/0... The drought is real, but I would take op-eds like these more seriously if they acknowledged the above figures. And the fact that some cities like Sacramento still don't have everyone on metered water -- flat rate! -- and meters won't be fully installed until after 2025. Source: http://portal.cityofsacramento.org/%20Utilities/Conservation/Water-Meters http://portal.cityofsacramento.org/%20Utilities/Conservation...
  • malkia 12y ago
    It looks like it won't help much, but landscaping should stop. Double stop. Triple stop. No need to waste water in there, and comply with neighbor whatever regulations.
    • VanillaCafe 12y ago
      I agree with OP. Solve the big problems first. If at some point landscaping ranks as a top consumer of water, then solve it. Attention and effort is a resource -- spend it where it has the most impact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law
    • the_watcher 12y ago
      There's pretty lucrative incentives for adjusting landscaping to reduce water consumption - I grew up in the Palm Springs area (which, ironically, is one of the few parts of California that can water itself - the golf courses have to buy their water from outside sources, but there is a large aquifer out there), and there's been a major move towards desert landscaping to take advantage of it.
• Mz 12y ago
  There are things that could be done both for residential use and commercial use that could reduce how much water is needed without causing a catastrophe. Many years ago, as a kid, I read an article about experiments in the Middle East to create a small basin for individual plants (like trees) that would be the right size for holding rainwater and keeping it hydrated without risking root-rot. Think about how a shower is slightly slanted such that all the water goes to a drain in the corner. Instead of a drain in the corner, you have a plant in that corner. The basin is just a depression in the soil, with mounded up slow walls made from soil. In the residential sector, you can google "earth ships" for ideas about things currently available that would put less stress on California's water supplies.
• cdnsteve 12y ago
  California agricultural statistics: http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/ http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/ California's top-ten valued commodities for 2013 are: Milk — $7.6 billion Almonds — $5.8 billion Grapes — $5.6 billion Cattle, Calves — $3.05 billion Strawberries — $2.2 billion Walnuts — $1.8 billion Lettuce — $1.7 billion Hay — $1.6 billion Tomatoes — $1.2 billion Nursery plants— $1.2 billion
  • SilasX 12y ago
    Almonds use 10% of the water[1], and we're risking a empty aquifers for them when they're 0.3% of state GDP? [1] My only source on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whyenot https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whyenot [2] 2013 GDP: ~$2 trillion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California
• wavesounds 12y ago
  Why don't we run a water pipeline down from Oregon? In Portland they have so much water that their drinking fountains literally do not have an off switch. We run pipelines for oil all over the country, would it be that hard to run one for water?
  • crpatino 12y ago
    The pipeline is expensive, and can move only so much volume per second. You'd need basically and artificial river. Then, there's landscape constrains. And Oregonians will veto any decision about their water siphoned to California anyways.
• MattHeard 12y ago
  My back-of-the-napkin calculation tells me that watering an acre of alfalfa uses the same amount of water as having a nine-month shower with an inefficient flow. If a Pigovean tax of 1c/gallon was applied to California, an 8-minute shower would cost about 20-40c more while an acre of alfalfa would cost an extra $20,0000.
• ilaksh 12y ago
  Hydroponics?
• aceperry 12y ago
  This is definitely concerning. I used to wash my car and truck about every week or two when they were new. Today, I haven't washed them in over two years. During the last "big" storm in the bay area, I was hoping to go outside and wash my truck during the rain. I was down with the flu and couldn't do it, but didn't miss much. I don't think I could've washed the truck, unlike many years ago when I actually washed my car during a rainstorm. The other day, I rinsed off some bird crap from the side of my truck, it was a huge mess but I used the leftovers from a plastic bottled water. Just trying to conserve water. I feel sorry for Uber/Lyft drivers who have to keep their cars clean.
• openloop 12y ago
  So maybe crops have to change. Surely the epicenter of science and engineering can figure out a responsible way to harness solar desalinization. A bond could be offered with a nominal return to investors.
• Jaymoon85 12y ago
  Not that anyone cares about follow up to obvious click-bait, but the LAT issued an apology admitting the headline was misleading. www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-0320-drought-explainer-20150320-story.html