20 Signs The Drought In The Western United States Is Starting To Become Apocalyptic

Prophecy Newswatch ^ | July 17, 2014 | Michael Snyder

[Maudeen]

20 Signs The Drought In The Western United States Is Starting To Become Apocalyptic

July 17, 2014 | Michael Snyder

When scientists start using phrases such as "the worst drought" and "as bad as you can imagine" to describe what is going on in the western half of the country, you know that things are bad. Thanks to an epic drought that never seems to end, we are witnessing the beginning of a water crisis that most people never even dreamed was possible in this day and age.

The state of California is getting ready to ban people from watering their lawns and washing their cars, but if this drought persists we will eventually see far more extreme water conservation measures than that. And the fact that nearly half of all of the produce in America comes out of the state of California means that ultimately this drought is going to deeply affect all of us.

Food prices have already been rising at an alarming rate, and the longer this drought goes on the higher they will go. Let us hope and pray that this drought is permanently broken at some point, because otherwise we could very well be entering an era of extreme water rationing, gigantic dust storms and crippling food prices. The following are 20 signs that the epic drought in the western half of the United States is starting to become apocalyptic...

[thackney]

Nation's largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego; Future of the California coast?
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near
05/29/2014

The crews are building what boosters say represents California's best hope for a drought-proof water supply: the largest ocean desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. The $1 billion project will provide 50 million gallons of drinking water a day for San Diego County when it opens in 2016.

Fifteen desalination projects are proposed along the coast from Los Angeles to San Francisco Bay.

To critics, the plant is a costly mistake that will use huge amounts of energy and harm fish and other marine life when it sucks in seawater using the intakes from the aging Encina Power Plant next door.

"This is going to be the pig that will try for years to find the right shade of lipstick," said Marco Gonzalez, an Encinitas attorney who sued on behalf of the Surfrider Foundation and other environmental groups to try to stop construction. "This project will show that the water is just too expensive."

For the plant to be a success and copied in other parts of the state, Poseidon will have to deliver high-quality drinking water at the price promised -- and not cause unexpected impacts to the environment such as fish die-offs.

- - - - - -

My guess is will only continue to operate with tax subsidies.

[thackney]

[GeronL]

They need water from somewhere. I hear the water prices are already quite high.

[Hebrews 11:6]

By way of challenging your proposal with obvious questions:

1. Over the Rocky Mountains is cheaper?

2. Isn't more volume readily available for a longer period from Canadian sources than merely relying on the Mississippi's spring surge?

3. Would downstream Mississippi users object to lower flow, or (as I suspect) would the diversion volumes seem negligible to them?

[morphing libertarian]

Carlsbad CA desal plant will open in two years. Will provide up to 10% of county water. Need to build a couple more and SD county will be well (no pun) positioned.

Could use an aqueduct from the Columbia River. LA tried in the early 80s and WA said no. If we really run out, millions more will move to the northwest to be where the water is.

Either move the water or the people.

Sacramento spending billions on high speed train no one wants.

[thackney]

Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot — roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. The cost is about double that of water obtained from building a new reservoir or recycling wastewater, according to a 2013 study from the state Department of Water Resources.

And its price tag is at least four times the cost of obtaining “new water” from conservation methods — such as paying farmers to install drip irrigation, or providing rebates for homeowners to rip out lawns or buy water-efficient toilets.

[morphing libertarian]

The Carlsbad plant took 12 years to turn the shovel. The environmentalists fought it administratively, locally and with the coastal commission. After they lost everywhere else, they took the project to court to re-fight the same battle.

Most companies and cities would have given up. Kudos to the company and Carlsbad for outfighting and outlasting people who don’t give a damn about human habitation.

[blueplum]

When I look at photos of oil rigs sitting offshore, I see potential desalination plant sites. What if we located desalination plants off shore? Use solar to distill and the steam to electrify, per your idea, or use natural gas tapped by the rig, and pipe or transport by water tenders, the fresh water to the coast.

The trucks coming to and fro collecting desalination waste products (salts, etc) are eliminated, since waste will be dumped back into the sea after separating valuable minerals, which can also be transported back via tenders. Overhead costs could be covered by mining the gold and other minerals drawn up with the seawater.

Oil rig folks are happy, NIMBY people are happy, fish are happy, seagulls not so happy (and the enviroweenies will have one heck of a time convincing people seagulls are endangered since there are zillions of them).

[thackney]

Almost like an oil field development.

[GeronL]

Where will California get the water for a new reservoir?

They have already started withholding water from farmers.

It is getting to the point where nothing is going to work if it does not bring in new water.

[thackney]

after separating valuable minerals

I think you would be spending dollars to collect dimes.

[thackney]

Where will California get the water for a new reservoir?

Does every river run dry before it reaches the ocean?

All that snow melt is already captured?

[blueplum]

To draw on a reality show, there are folks who dive-mine the Bering sea and near-shores of Alaska and find a good amount of gold with relatively simple equipment. I’m not sure if anyone has ever bothered to look at California off-shore since it gets pretty deep pretty quick. There’s an equivalent to the Grand Canyon out there, and we still pull gold out of dry desert placer claims in Arizona, so maybe there’s the equivalent to the gold-bearing hills of California or sands of Alaska, out there, too, just waiting for a deep rig to suck it up? It might be spending dollars for pennies when it does come to the gold extracted but the main purpose of the plant would be water, so any pennies would be a bonus.

[ckilmer]

1. Over the Rocky Mountains is cheaper?
.............
Cheaper than piping the water down from Canada. The distance is shorter. There is a slow flat uplift of the high plains to the south pass of western wyoming —which is a low gradually sloping up and down spot in the rockies that frontier people took traveling west in the first half of the 19th century. Once the water gets to south pass —gravity would take it all the way to the gulf of california. For that matter you could put a hundred miles of generators in the downhill slope of the pipeline and generate most of the electricity to pump the water uphill. If not, there are natural gas fields and coal fields all over the place to provide power for pumps.

2. Isn’t more volume readily available for a longer period from Canadian sources than merely relying on the Mississippi’s spring surge?
........................
This is true but it doesn’t solve the problem of Mississippi flooding which every year costs several billion dollars in army core of engineer and FEMA costs. The perfect solution is to kill two birds with one stone. The perfect solution is to solve the flooding problem and solve the drought problem with the same project. This is actually what Hoover dam in colorado accomplished. It was originally designed to solve the problem of flooding in the lower colorado and only later did it fit into the role of providing power and energy.

3. Would downstream Mississippi users object to lower flow, or (as I suspect) would the diversion volumes seem negligible to them?
...................
We’re only talking about taking water out of the Mississippi during the flood season from March to June. The people along the Mississipi are not going to complain about not being flooded out.

Taking even 10 feet of water off the top of the Mississippi is still an enormous task. That is one gigantic river. That said, there’s also a gigantic number of places out west that could use the extra water.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Thanks very much for taking the time to make your detailed and thoughtful reply. I am in your debt. Your explanation seems convincing--I believe you indicated previously that it has substantial informed support.

Practically:
a) what is the likelihood that this ever gets built?
b) if so, when?

(Actually, I'd really like to siphon the money for Moonbeam's monumentally-absurd choo-choo into any water project, ASAP. His dad oversaw much infrastructure development as governor, so pipsqueak kid wants an enduring legacy, too. "The Moonbeam Express.")

[ckilmer]

Now if you want to argue that the quality of the water up north is better—I would agree.

I was in Ketchikan Alaska last Friday 7/11. That town has the highest rainfall in the USA and delicious water.

I imagined catching rain that filtered through the spruce forests there, bottling it and selling it into San Francisco markets for $5.00@ bottle.

Same would work across the border in Canada. Hundreds of miles to the south—I was chewing on bright green spruce sprigs as I walked around Victoria the next day. Tasty stuff. I was traveling fast.

Today I bought some distilled water Norway. The tap water here in northern Virginia smells of chlorine. I put it through a brita filter and the chlorine smell goes away but the water still tastes harsh. I bought some water from Norway in the store today for $5. It has the same clear clean taste as I recall from Ketchikan.

[Hebrews 11:6]

Water quality is largely irrelevant in the absence of quantity, as you're well aware. Still, that might work as a helpful selling point...

[ckilmer]

There’d have to be a serious energy revolution that collapses the cost of electrical production- before big long distance high volume water transport scenarios like the one you suggest become reasonably cost effective.

I think that’s going to happen. There’s currently a very large race underway among a half dozen companies world wide —including one canadian company to produce the first lftr thorium reactor. The big promise of these reactors is that they will cut the cost of electrical production to 1/4-1/10 current lowest cost coal. These reactors are portable. They can be put on the back of a semi.

The problem here is that these reactors will bring closer the holy grail of the water industry. Desalinized water cheap enough for agriculture. Energy is up to 1/2 the cost of desalination. So if you chop down the price of energy you also chop down the price of desalination. Plus cheap energy would make it cheap to pump water inland.

[Pelham]

“If every house in the southwest saved its rainwater off the roof, this problem would not exist.”

First we need to have rainwater.

We had hardly any rain in SoCal during our rainy season. Don’t expect to see any for months.

[Pelham]

“Have you ever met anyone who actually took a horse and buggy to town on Fridays to buy supplies?”

My dad when he was visiting his grandparents. But then he is 94 and his grandparents were born around the Civil War.