R.I.P. California (1850-2016): What We’ll Lose And Learn From The World’s First Major Water Collapse

Feelguide.com ^ | 3/22/2015 | FEELGUIDE

[Beave Meister]

Last week when NASA announced that California is on its death bed and has only 12 months of water left, the news hit like a punch to the gut. “Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the snow, river and reservoir water, water in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million acre-feet below normal in 2014. That loss is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir,” writes Jay Famiglietti of NASA.

Famiglietti adds: “Statewide, we’ve been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. But these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year.”

Tensions are high in the state, and small conflicts are breaking out as people are beginning to steal water from others. Caroline Stanley of Refinery 29 writes: “As Tom McKay points out, the water crisis will likely have the biggest impact on the state’s agricultural community — which currently accounts for a whopping 80% of its water usage. (According to Carolee Krieger, president and executive director of the California Water Impact Network, the almond crop alone uses enough water to supply 75 percent of the state’s population.) But, recently, your average citizens are feeling it, too. People in the Bay Area are actually stealing water from their neighbors.”

[ScottinVA]

I’ve come to believe desalination will come when the government develops a way to control and ration the fresh-water product. Never let a good crisis go to waste.

[Gaffer]

California was equally prescient in securing water rights and has been for a long time. You may recall that Mulholland as head of the LA Bureau of Water Works and Supply (preceding today’s agency) locked up the rights to water for LA from all over the state. There are still tales of how badly he scammed the people from whom he got those rights.

Even today, viaducts, aqueducts and pipelines (some transiting water from the Colorado River supply, as well as electricity from Hoover Dam) supply LA and surrounding.

What keeps NYC from suffering the same fate is a far different climate I’d expect. That fact plus the fact of a population the land (that people want to live in) will not sustain.

[PIF]

Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir,” writes Jay Famigliett

Dear Jay,
In case you have not looked at a map lately, I would point to a formation in the upper Midwest, called the Great Lakes - the largest body of fresh water in the world and serves as a reservoir for states and cities dotted along the coast lines; Lake Mead holds only a fraction of the fresh water as compared to the Great Lakes - 35 km3 vs 4920 km3

[ronnie raygun]

We all know the train $$ is a slush fund to aid illegals and other liberal agendas

[Sirius Lee]

Expect your avocados, apricots, walnuts, table grapes, raisins and almonds to be a lot more expensive.

Heck, walnuts are now over a dollar an ounce. A small bag of shelled walnuts are $8.

[central_va]

Maybe this will break CA’s monopoly on fresh fruits and veggies. Big Veggie is not pleased.

[VTenigma]

I’m sure there is enough water for the Delta Smelt though. /semi-sarc. All the greenies get to feel real good about tearing out so many dams for waterway restoration.

[Kozak]

Oh, Yeah?
More likely Texas will be full of Californians.
Then guess what?

[woodbutcher1963]

I think Lake Mead is the largest man made reservoir in the country. Although, is it bigger than Lake Powell?
I guess Lake Powell was there, the dam just made it a lot bigger.

I think Lake Baikal in Siberia is the single largest freshwater lake in the world. Maybe when peoples water bills are more than the rest of their utility bills combined people will stop moving to the desert.

The late comedian Sam Kinisan had a routine where he joked about people dying over in places like Africa because they did not have enough water to grow food. He would yell: “we have deserts, we don’t live in them”. However, I guess we do.

The article states that 80% of the water goes to growing things like almonds, oranges, grapes, etc. Maybe, those crops are better grown in other places in the world. If there are not as many crops to pick in the central valley, maybe some of the illegals will go back to their home countries. I believe there are plans in the works to build multiple desalination plants along the coast. These will supply the metro areas, but they are not big enough to supply the central valley and grow celery, etc. I can live without grapes, almonds, celery, iceberg lettuce, and many other crops grown there.

Lastly, every time I read about California’s water problems, I think about John Huston’s character in the movie Chinatown. “ If we can’t bring the valley to the city, well bring the city to the valley”. If you recall the story was all about water rights, and control of water, power and incest. One of the greatest movies ever made, IMHO. Jake Giddes: “ Mrs Mullray, I G#d d@MN, nearly lost my nose and I like my nose, I like breathing through it.”
Also Faye Dunhaway to Jake: “She’s my sister, she’s my daughter, she’s my sister and my daughter, get it”.

[Carthego delenda est]

There’s some interesting figures and photos of water usage due to marijuana cultivation in California at this link: http://bofdata.fire.ca.gov/board_business/binder_materials/2013/october_2013/marijuana_symposium/sbauer_impactsfrommarijuanacultivationboardofforestry.pdf

[elcid1970]

What the communists did to the Aral Sea is a crime against humanity. They diverted the two rivers that flowed into it for irrigation purposes in Uzbekistan, then did nothing as it began to dry up.

Large steel hulled fishing boats left high & dry in the midst of a chemical soaked desert is all that remains except for a sliver of a lake.

I was deployed there. Scorching hot days & freezing nights that weren’t that way when the Aral Sea acted as a weather moderator.

But this happened under socialism, so...no criticism allowed.

[moovova]

Thank you for the MDH link.

Incredible waste of water.

[huldah1776]

Build a water pipeline./s

[RayChuang88]

By the way, interestingly southern California would fare better because of the fact we're still getting a good amount of snow in the Rocky Mountains, and that means the Colorado River can still provide water needs for southern California, since there are a couple of canals that pump water to southern California.

In short, at the rate things are going, most of California's agriculture could end up being centered around the Imperial Valley.

[Sgt_Schultze]

Comparing California today to the Dusy Bowl is a disingenuous reach. The current crisis is being systematically exacerbated by enemies of water management for human use. Resisting development of reservoirs and diverting water stores to a fish population heighten the effects of poor planning.

[Wuli]

People came to California over the last century thinking it’s climate state was eternal. Historically, over the last 100,000 years, California has waxed and waned between “good” weather and droughts - some lasting 200 years. The current state of affairs, weather wise in California, is not news to the land there.

What is NEW to the land there is:

(1) a massive agriculture industry that is O.K. IF/WHEN the weather/climate stays good, and excessive on water consumption when it’s not [the massive subsidence of the land in the central valley due to how much water is pumped out of the ground there is not new to this period of drought, it has been going on for decades, ever since agriculture became such a big industry there];

and (2) too many concentrations of too many people in the water-poorest parts of the state. If the state were divided in two, the more-water-abundant north, would be charging through the nose for the over-populated water-poor south to get any water from it.

Agriculture also would take some big hits. It is not sustainable at its present levels under present conditions. That’s just the facts, not a judgement on farms or farmers. And to simply grow it huge again “when times get better” would simply mean a repeat of many water crisis again when a drought returns. Better that the industry shrink now, to something more sustainable, and leave it that. Then there will be more left, underground and in reservoirs to tide everyone over when droughts return.

[wintertime]

What about desalinization?

[wintertime]

For the other states it would be like a roach infestation.

[PIF]

Don’t give them ideas ...

[Nuocmam]

Lets see: In the 1930s all kinds of “Oakies” migrated from the Dust Bowl area to California, “the land of the fruits and the nuts” (agricultually and socially). Will there be a great migration of “Calfies” boarding their high speed train to escape the “Beach Dust Bowl”? I think not since the train will run only in California from one area of drought to another. Good luck. Maybe we’ll have to go back to eating what’s grown in season locally. Might do us all some good.