Posted on 04/04/2015 5:55:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Market Solution: California is so dry that Gov. Jerry Brown has instituted water-use restrictions for the first time in the state's history. The problem, though, is not a shortage of water. It's a shortage of thinking.
The Parched State — once known as the Golden State — is so dry that Brown said it "demands unprecedented action." "We have to pull together and save water in every way we can," Brown said Wednesday from Echo Summit in the Sierra Nevada, where, AP reports, "state water officials found no snow on the ground for the first time in their April manual survey of the snowpack."
"Were in a new era," said Brown. "The idea of your nice little green grass getting water every day, that's going to be a thing of the past."
Using an executive order, the Democratic governor, according to an official statement, "directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions in cities and towns across California to reduce water usage by 25%."
Brown is also requiring "campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to make significant cuts in water use" while prohibiting "new homes and developments from irrigating with potable water unless water-efficient drip irrigation systems are used," and has banned the "watering of ornamental grass on public street medians."
No, this is not a new era. It's still the era of limited thinking. It's the Soviet way of dealing with scarcity. What California needs is more water, not more government mandates. Water is a commodity just like any other, and its allocation should not be left to governments.
If it were bought and sold in an open market, there would be a strong incentive to move water to where demand is high and supply is low — such as California.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Yes their politicians are idiots but much of California is arid in the best of times.
Instead of investing over a hundred billion on the high speed rail which is guaranteed to lose money, California should be investing in DESALINATION PLANTS.
One large nuclear power plant could produce more desalinated water in a year than is pumped out by all groundwater wells in the entire state. Comfortably more. But, nukes are bad, m’kay, and don’t put any desalination plants in MY back yard. Oh - and let’s spend tens of billions of dollars of money we don’t have for a TRAIN. Because there’s no good way to get from point A to point B in California already, but clean water just falls out of the sky. (Until it doesn’t.)
I agree build desalination plants, send some of the more water intensive crops to more appropriate places, and get rid of several million illegals.
RE: One large nuclear power plant could produce more desalinated water in a year than is pumped out by all groundwater wells in the entire state.
I agree, but the challenge will be to protect it from a Fukushima type disaster. California is in the EARTHQUAKE BELT.
Free markets work every time.
The Price machine will establish accurate value.
Get the Goober-mint out of the way and watch the grass grow again.
Yes, SoCal is a desert, but it IS surrounded by water.
Kick out all the illegals
Build dozens of nuke plants and massive desalination plants.
Problem solved.
California is bordered by hundreds of miles of, wait for it, an ocean coastline. The ocean is made up of WATER. All it takes to make that water potable is ENERGY. We have the technology to turn a few tons of uranium into an enormous amout of energy.
No offense to you, but, if a couple of guys like us can figure this out what is the problem?
I have no sympathy for these weak minded greenies. Maybe they will die of thirst while riding on their new train to nowhere.
I was told in many parts of CA it has become illegal to collect water off your own roof for use in the back yard garden...
...if that is true then you deserve a prolonged drought.
Just don’t get your sh!t bird, greedy, socialist eyes on our Great Lakes.
No one has a fresh water problem like Israel - but they have solved it and turned fresh water into an abundant resource. They lead the world in desalination plants. California shares on resource with Israel - plenty of salt water. I agree, the problem is political, and always will be.
What you need is another study to determine why government is incapable of hiring people who can think ahead :)
A few years ago the IDIOTS in Sacramento passed a law protecting little fish in the Delta. This diverted a lot of water that was going south to the farms (hello, FOOD!!) and kept the Delta water high. The farms started drying up down in the southern part of the state. We have the Sierras, lots of water coming from there, even in dry years, but the FISH get it. The IDIOTS also talked about destroying dams that had been built when Common Sense ruled - I don’t know how far that went. These are the (un?)intended consequences of an Idiocracy - government run by idiots.
The high speed rail is his way of paying back the unions for all the votes now I wonder what jobs he will create with the water problem developing?.
Fukushima’s problem was that the tsunami destroyed the backup generators.
That could have been easily prevented by putting them in a waterproof/quakeproof structure with a large “snorkel”.
RE: The high speed rail is his way of paying back the unions for all the votes now
In future, Citizens of California will be paying through their teeth just to keep this boondoggle above water when it starts running.
Heck, like Amtrak, the rest of the United States might have to pay for this rail to be financially viable.
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