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How Growers Gamed California’s Drought
- fsk 12y agoMost of the western states have totally messed up "water rights" laws.
- myhf 12y agohttp://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/arithmetic.html http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/arithmetic.html
- aetherson 12y agoThe hair-shirt environmentalism of laws like "restaurants can only serve you water if you ask" is... it's really kind of appalling. It's like if you came into an emergency room with one of your arms literally torn off your body and they wouldn't, you know, triage you, but instead sent you to talk to a doctor about how you're ten pounds overweight and how you really need to lose that weight or else god think of the negative health consequences.
- mhurron 12y agoI liked the example given when cutting PBS out of the national budget was put forward as an idea - "It's like trying to lose weight by cutting your fingernails." Basically you see who has the power around. Clearly water saving needs to occur, but no one is going to suggest that it's the farmers who use the majority of it cut back.
- smokey_the_bear 12y agoIt's beyond ridiculous, are they really wanting us to believe that we are in a position where we should be rationing how much water we drink? If that were the case, I would definitely be moving as soon as possible.
- deserted 12y agoI think the reasoning goes that water is wasted when customers don't really want the restaurant provided water. Whatever is left in the glass gets poured down the drain, then the glasses get washed. Making people actually request water eliminates some waste. But as this article shows, this is inane. The amount of water wasted by customers of all restaurants in California is probably less than the water used to grow a few acres of almonds.
- anigbrowl 12y agoNo, it's a way of saying to the farmers 'look, people in cities are doing their part, now stop trying to deflect responsibility.'
- Crito 12y agoNo, it is a way of telling people in cities "This is all your fault, so stop giving farmers a hard time."
- azakai 12y agoThat isn't instead. It's in addition. Anyone saying that we need to only save water at restaurants is clearly wrong. Anyone saying that we mostly need to save water at restaurants is also wrong. But we could save water at restaurants, as a minor help to the other more major things we could be doing. It's still worth doing.
- stouset 12y agoIt's really probably not, is the thing. "Any little bit helps" just isn't true when you consider the relative scale. One glass of water per resident per day is something like a thousandth of the per-capita water usage state-wide, which itself is dwarfed by agricultural and landscape use. This is utterly pointless.
- azakai 12y agoIt's true that one glass of water for lunch is almost negligible. But residents do account for 20% of total water use, and it's been shown in various countries that residents can reduce their water consumption significantly, by a mixture of efforts. Any reduction in that 20% would help the bottom line, and it would come from a combination of little things, including not wasting water at lunch. I'm not saying we should focus on those things. We as a society should focus on the 80%. But for most of us, we can only directly influence residential water usage, that's why you notice it at restaurants and so forth. You and I wouldn't notice when e.g. a farmer switches to drip irrigation to save water. Again, the 80% matters more than 20%. But cuts in the 20% are a good thing too.
- aetherson 12y agoResidential isn't 20%, it's 14%. 6% is commercial/industrial. And glasses of water in restaurants are probably counted in the 6%, not the 14%. And even of the commercial/industrial usage, how much can glasses of water possibly be? Surely not even 5% of that usage. So if we reduce consumption of glasses of water at restaurants, by, say, 80%, we've done what? Lowered total usage of water by 0.24%? My sense is that that's a hugely optimistic amount.
- SoftwareMaven 12y agoThis is the same reason I have a difficult time really worrying about waste production and energy use in my household[1]. Residential energy use amounts to between 10 and 15% of US energy use[2]; from what I remember, waste is about the same or less. 1. This is not to say I don't practice waste reduction and energy conservation; just that I don't stress if something slips through the cracks. 2. http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/early_consumption.cfm http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/early_consumption.cfm
- SilasX 12y agoThis is actually typical of conservation policies. We freak out over disposable bags and mandate a 10 cent charge for them, even though industrial users could reduce a lot more waste for ten cents. We ban incandescent light bulbs, irrespective of how much additional tax anyone would be willing to pay to buy one. We ban high flow shower heads, while placing no restrictions on how much water you draw for your lawn. It's like one big social experiment to see how inefficient and value destructive the policies can get before people finally balk.
- ghouse 12y agoDisposable bag ban wasn't because of a reduction of waste, but a proliferation of trash. We (pretty much all governments world wide) subsidize electricity, so consumers don't see a complete price signal and thus are less sensitive to less efficient lightbulbs. We subsidize water, and then place restrictions on it's use. Without the subsidy, the restriction wouldn't be necessary -- the market would sort it out.
- SilasX 12y agoThat's exactly what I'm criticizing: these policies get the incentives all wrong and destroy socially beneficial improvements. Why restrict use type X when you're just going let people blow as much as they want on use type Y? (Like restricting showers but not lawns/farms or bags but not candy wrappers.) If you want to subsidize a utility, subsidize the first N units per person and let the rest be full price; then you wouldn't have to play whack-a-mole with every possible wasteful use. And why restrict the use of something (like bulbs) when people are willing to pay more than the magnitude of the externality? While incandescent bulbs may be bad, they're not infinitely bad. This policy destroys all value that could be created by people's willingness to pay net of the environmental cost. Why argue that it makes sense? None of it makes sense, even and especially on environmental grounds.
- mc32 12y agoThat silliness has more to do with raising awareness and being a reminder than actually something which actually conserves water --simply it's symbolic
- aetherson 12y agoBut it's not symbolic, it's distracting. It focuses limited public attention on doing something that's mildly personally inconvenient instead of actually effective.
- baddox 12y agoIt also strongly implies that everyday human water usage is a significant portion of water usage, which it isn't. For people who aren't educated about the California water situation, it's likely "raising awareness" of falsities.
- bduerst 12y agoBut if you get enough public attention it can snowball into actually changing what matters. You tell everyone to think about the almond trees and it's so far disconnected that they tend to forget about it. If it's the third restaurant visit this month they had to ask for water, then they're going to be more accepting of policy to save water with the farmers (i.e. do their part).
- hueving 12y ago>then they're going to be more accepting of policy to save water with the farmers The policies are just saying that normal consumers have to save though. People would be plenty accepting of a policy that just said farmers have to cut back. There is no reason for shared sacrifice here. The small users (normal people) already pay a fair price. The elephants are the ones screwing everyone and we are wasting time discussing how the minority can cut back more. It's stupid.
- SilasX 12y agoI have never seen a notification card for these policies that suggested it was symbolic; they all make it sound like a legit attempt at conserving water. Do you have an example of one consistent with your interpretation of the policy?
- thrownaway2424 12y agoYou don't compare the relative scale of a glass of water and all the almonds in Fresno County because the water isn't fungible. You could stop growing almonds all over California right now and that isn't going to put any more water into Hetch Hetchy for drinking by San Franciscans.
- socialist_coder 12y agoThis article doesn't address why the California government is being so stupid about water rationing. Why isn't it reforming these broken water laws that are mentioned in the article? The CA govt just dodges the question, every time. Why? Are the agriculture lobbyists really that powerful? Or is something else going on here?
- mhurron 12y agoYou really have to ask why a government in the US isn't taking action against a business or industry?
- TulliusCicero 12y agoFarmers are sacred in America. People are terrified of the idea that, "if we cut how much water they get, how will we eat???" Never mind that such thinking is nonsense. What will happen if water becomes more expensive is that farmers will adopt more efficient technology, they will grow somewhat less of the thirstier crops, and those crops will go up in price somewhat. So yes, the downside is that the price of your almonds and alfalfa will be a bit higher; the upside is that people will have enough water for day to day use to live normally.
- WalterSear 12y agoAlso, "if we enforce immigration laws or require farmers to pay a living wage, how will we eat?" It's despicable.
- clamprecht 12y agoAnd I guess 150 years ago, it was "If we can't use slave labor, how can we afford to produce X".
- WalterSear 12y agoHuman psychology and its inherent cognitive dissonance and moral relativism is an absolute bitch.
- jeffdavis 12y ago"the Central Valley, which is, geologically speaking, a desert" Source? It seems contrary to what wikipedia says on the subject: "The northern Central Valley has a hot Mediterranean climate; the more southerly parts in rainshadow zones are dry enough to be Mediterranean steppe or even low-latitude desert." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_%28California%29#Climate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_%28California%29...
- smeyer 12y agoI'm not sure why you're being downvoted. As your wikipedia link explains, calling the Central Valley a desert is not 100% off-base but is definitely an exaggeration to the point of being incorrect. Parts of it are semidesert and parts of it get too much precipitation to even begin to qualify as a desert.
- rconti 12y agoIt's worth clarifying, because every time this comes up, some California-basher says "hurr durr why are these morons trying to farm in the desert" while ignoring the fact that, pre-irrigation, natural runoff from the mountains made many areas in central California swamps/wetlands. It's incredibly fertile land with an absolutely massive water source (in "normal" years). It's the diversion of water that's caused the issues, which have been exacerbated by the drought.
- thrownaway2424 12y agoIndeed, why does anybody talk about "The Central Valley" at all? The northern part is sopping wet at all times, prone to flooding, and the main problem for agriculture in many counties is that the groundwater is only 8 inches under the surface. That's the Sacramento Valley. The southern part has a dramatic gradient from somewhat dry in Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties to extremely dry in Kern County. That's the San Joaquin Valley. It makes as much sense to conflate these areas as it would to talk about El Paso and Austin as being part of the same ecosystem.
- raldi 12y agoIf you live in California, and you're not registered to vote by mail, please do so. It only takes five minutes. Here are step by step instructions: https://www.reddit.com/r/housingforsf/comments/22xoht/help_hfsf_register_to_vote_by_mail_and_tell_us/ https://www.reddit.com/r/housingforsf/comments/22xoht/help_h...
- habith 12y agoI'd like to add that registering to vote is the first step. Researching the propositions (and candidates for that matter) that get put on the ballot yourself (LAO[1], SOS[2], Ballotpedia[3] and Google) and ignoring media coverage/ads can make a huge difference. The Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) is particularly useful. Their analysis of prop 1[4] combined with Ballotpedia's[5] summary was very informative. [1]: http://www.lao.ca.gov/ http://www.lao.ca.gov/ [2]: http://www.sos.ca.gov/ http://www.sos.ca.gov/ [3]: http://ballotpedia.org/ http://ballotpedia.org/ [4]: http://www.lao.ca.gov/ballot/2014/prop-1-110414.aspx http://www.lao.ca.gov/ballot/2014/prop-1-110414.aspx [5]: http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Water_Bond_%282014%29 http://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_1,_Water_Bond_...
- raldi 12y agoIt takes a gallon of water to grow an almond. So eating a single almond, grown in California, is like opening one of these (https://hornstrafarms.com/product_images/large/monadnock_gallon_water.jpg https://hornstrafarms.com/product_images/large/monadnock_gal...) and pouring it down the drain. California grows 99% of the almonds in the United States, and 80% of all the almonds in the world. This is only financially possible because we give almond farmers (and agriculture in general) gigantic subsidies on their water bills. Sources: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-californias-water-going http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-califo... http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/07/almonds-are-sucking-the-life-out-of-california/374373/ http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/07/almonds-are-sucking-...
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- WalterSear 12y agoAlmonds are a drop in the bucket, compared to the sacred cow(s) that is meat. It's just a tad bit more than NPR's 'trying to lose weight by cutting your fingernails'. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-j-rose/how-to-take-long-showers_b_6875644.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-j-rose/how-to-take-long-s... http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-really-using-all-the-water/ http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/californias-drought-whos-... http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/sustain/global/sensem/MeatIndustry.html http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/sustain/global/sensem/MeatIndustry...
- chc 12y agoI think you're exaggerating a little bit, but meat is a huge culprit that people don't talk about much. The meat and dairy industries make up 47% of California's water usage, while other agriculture uses 46%. A large part of the reason is that there is enormous energy loss in the growing-an-animal part of the food chain — every serving of an animal product comes from many servings of plant products given to the animal. Source: http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Fulton%20et%20al%202012.pdf http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Fulton%20et%20al%20201...
- mmanfrin 12y agoBut hey guys, at least we might soon have a law saying restaurants have to be explicitly asked before serving drinking water!
- WaxProlix 12y agoPrevious conversation on this topic [1] yielded about the same results that we've had in the past 30 minutes here. Doesn't seem like anything's going to change; we'll all just continue posting about it to our favorite blogs and meta-blogs, and (almond|alfalfa|whatever) farmers will continue to eat subsidies and turn them into drought. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9175649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9175649
- thaumaturgy 12y agoAt least people are starting to discuss this, which is an important improvement over the past situation. These are the first articles I've seen coming across my news feeds which are daring to bruise the sacred cow of California agriculture -- and I've bumped into a couple of people now who unprompted mentioned the 80% statistic for statewide agricultural water use. So word's getting around.
- jmspring 12y agoCalifornia and water wars go back a long time. Water law is incredibly complicated (grants, rights, etc). It's wikipedia, but still a good read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars
- jchrisa 12y agoThey need to grow something under those trees.
- cpursley 12y agoHere's a novel idea: charge market prices for water based on supply and demand. The problem will sort itself out.
- ianlevesque 12y agoThe problem will also sort itself out when the water is gone.
- jeffdavis 12y agoMarket forces will force us to start conserving and optimizing now; and solving problems sooner is generally better than solving them later.
- Retra 12y agoI'm skeptical that your use of "market forces" is distinguishable from "magic" here.
- Dylan16807 12y agoYou could solve the problem just by making water cost more. Wasteful farming can't take the hit, residential users can. It doesn't take magic. But even simpler than that, if you let people with water rights sell their water, they will be less likely to waste it. Or maybe get rid of water rights...
- WillPostForFood 12y agoAs opposed to the awesome planning California has done so far? Could it be much worse? For all the crisis talk, we water our lawn without restriction. Prices haven't changed, rules haven't changed, and we are years into the drought. The restaurant water rule is the first apparent effect for most California city dwellers.
- SilasX 12y agoMarket forces have a long track record of ensuring that scarce goods are economized on when property rights in their factors are well-defined and transferable. Magic doesn't.
- jstalin 12y agoIssues like this aren't resolved until enough people are personally effected. When a community or two wakes up and turns on their faucet and nothing comes out, then there will be change.
- mondo_negro 12y agoMore and more the US is starting to look like one of those countries full of corrupt and incompetent politicians and their cronies who enrich themselves from the sweat of the general population and are untouchable.
- olefoo 12y agoSo, reversion to the mean.
- hyperbovine 12y agoFortunately we in California have a well-established means of circumventing partisan bickering and political gridlock. Granted it usually ends in disaster, but I am counting the minutes until one or more water-rights related voter initiatives show up on the ballot. Considering how the numbers stack up, I would be very weary indeed if I were a Central Valley farmer.
- wdr1 12y agoThings I don't understand as a California: - Why we continue to sell (nationally) bottled water from California - Why public golf courses are green - Why my public officials nag us not to water our lawns as often, when that's not the problem. (FWIW, yes, I replaced my own lawn with drought resistant plants a few years ago.)
- STRiDEX 12y agoBecause why have a golf course at all if there's no grass? How many golfers do you see practicing their chip shots on asphalt? Golf courses aren't the issue, as they pay the market price for water and often have very maintained irrigation systems as they have to keep their water bill low enough to remain profitable.
- salem 12y agoCharge market prices for water, and let the tech industry help with efficiency. That's how Australia did it: http://irrigation.org.au/documents/publications-resources/conference_papers_2008/200508_Stream1_RMaskey1.pdf http://irrigation.org.au/documents/publications-resources/co...
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- techbio 12y agoHow many raindrops are there?
- techbio 12y agoHow many raindrops are there left?
- davidf18 12y agoIsrael is/will be producing one-third of its water from desalinization. The largest plant produces 165 million gallons per day. The firm that runs that plant is building a plant in Carlsbad, CA which in 2016 will produce about 50 million gallons per day. Other plants will be built. http://www.haaretz.com/business/1.575985 http://www.haaretz.com/business/1.575985