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Considering the environmental impact of desalination and the power requirements, it doesn't seem like a proper way to end the drought. The answer is always goin

• cwp 11y ago
  Considering the environmental impact of diverting whole watersheds to Southern California and the the power requirements of pumping it over mountain ranges, this seems like a great way to end the drought. The only reason it hasn't been done before is that SoCal has successfully externalized the cost of water. So, yes, it costs more to the residents of San Diego, but it's not a bad option when you consider all the people and wildlife that could be using the Colorado river. And by the way, the "irresponsible usage of water" by the people of California is largely growing food for the rest of the continent. You may live near the great lakes, but you undoubtedly consume water from California. It's just packaged inside fruit and vegetables.
  • xigency 11y ago
    The network effects of the whole water system of California are definitely something I hadn't taken into account, and I think local water storage / production is the way to go. And certainly a number of foods could be produced elsewhere in the country or imported. If I ate a lot of almonds I might feel indebted but really I eat a whole lot more of foods that aren't plums, grapes, lettuce, artichokes, etc. Talking about the agriculture aspect always takes me by surprise because the state represents a large percentage of the country's population but a smaller percent of its land area. Given that most areas of the country could be used for producing something, its not as if all food production could be removed from the state. And I also think about Japan, because, even though it has a smaller land area, the climate allows the country to produce enormous amounts in agriculture, mainly rice, but other products, too. So obviously it depends on the land. It's also something where, the farmland in Japan is beautiful, while the farms on the West Coast don't really seem to be (subjective). It's also really amazing to see this article slip off the frontpage, and I noticed this with attitudes while I was in the state, but it just seems like people don't care. So maybe it has something to do with people's attitudes, too. Dealing with big issues takes a bigger attention span.
    • mentat 11y ago
      California is the 3rd largest state by area, not sure how that's "small".
      • xigency 11y ago
        It represents 12% of the population but only 4% of the land, not all of which is arable or habitable.
      • sib 11y ago
        I think that grandparent meant that CA represents a "smaller" fraction of the area of the US (~4.3%) than it does of the population (~12.1%).
• DanBC 11y ago
  > This also isn't the first time there has been a drought in any part of this country, obviously, and looking at weather in Texas recently, for example, you can see how rain will come and go. There are large numbers of people in California. I'm sure that some of them must be smart enough to figure this out. Otherwise, we're looking at the beginning of another dustbowl. A twenty year drought is at the less severe end of what's possible. California has had several 30 year droughts. It had one drought that lasted at least 180 years, and another drought that lasted over 220 years.
• thaumaturgy 11y ago
  The water management situation in California is very complex. It really bugs me that desal is the most popular drum to beat, along with "California is a desert" and "California is irresponsible". California's per capita water usage is roughly in the neighborhood of other western states (http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/10/differences_in_water_use_across_states http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/10/di..., scroll down), and although there's certainly room for improvement, it's really not bad considering the massive amount of agriculture in California. Not mentioned in the article -- unless I missed it -- is that the Carlsbad plant is being built at a cost of around $950 million, and I wouldn't be surprised if it crossed the magic $1 billion line by the time it was operational. That's a huge amount of money for just one plant; it could take around 50 plants of that size to completely offset the effects of an extended drought, and there would still be significant costs in then moving all of that water into the central valley areas where it's needed for agriculture. Everything that I've read recently is suggesting that what we're experiencing now is likely to be the new normal for California. This is because the Sierra snowpack has become nearly nonexistent in recent years, and it previously accounted for around 30 percent of California's total water storage, and it provided that water year-round. That's a 30 percent haircut right off the top. Even when we get wet seasons, it's not expected that they will be cold wet seasons, which means we'll see less snow in the mountains. And, since most of the rain that falls west of Sacramento gets funneled directly to the Bay, wet seasons won't even be helpful in the long term. So what's happening is California is experiencing some of the effects of climate change. (I know HN at large doesn't believe AGW is real, but that's not really what this comment is about.) That means there's going to have to be a lot of adaptation, and not just in one area. California's environmentalists -- and I usually count myself among them -- are going to have to get used to the idea of more dams and more reservoirs. California needs to make up for that missing 30% somehow. It also needs to start adopting water conservation the way that energy conservation has been seeing adoption; we should be seeing affordable greywater systems that move water from your bathroom sink into your toilet tank, for example, and residential water storage systems for landscape use should become more common. We're going to have to figure out how to handle the agricultural industry. They're adapting too. They should get more help and encouragement, with access to more resources for water conservation. California is one of the most technologically advanced states in the US; it should be possible to dedicate some of that technological expertise to new forms of irrigation. Storm runoff has to be handled better. It should be captured and treated and stored, diverted into marshes and other wetland areas. Of all of these various things that need to be done, desalination is one of the most expensive per-gallon solutions.
• jseliger 11y ago
  The answer is always going to be adequate planning and conservation, as well as improved infrastructure with higher-level planning Sort of—the real answer is to let markets set prices: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the-california-water-shortage-again.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the... . People, including farmers, are quite good at figuring out how much of a given good or service they really need if the good or service is priced appropriately.