[HomerBohn]

How much longer will it take to realize that the government is California's enemy? Further, California's government and the central socialist government is the enemy of all American people.

[grania]

Why not desalination? There’s an ocean out there.

[Steven Tyler]

Do not worry about the delta smelt, they will be fine.

Put the dams back online and let the Farmers use the available water INSTEAD OF allowing the water to flow into the sea

[baltimorepoet]

I have dozens of asparagus plants in my perennial garden, growing about 20 perennial climbing spinach plants under grow lights, I have 3 dwarf peach trees, MANY strawberries, and 2 plum trees.

Carrots, bell peppers , cauliflower, broccoli, celery, leaf lettuce, Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and artichokes are not hard to grow.

I don’t do much with lemons or avocados.

Give California back to Mexico, and build a huge fence around it (as much to keep the liberal moonbats in as the illegals)

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Perhaps you don’t care about what happens to California.

Until it stops being a communist state, I don't!

Well, of course I do.

[marktwain]

Any article that says “all the models agree” has lost all credibility with me.

This is another “crisis” to be exploited.

It is true that we have been “mining” water. But food in the United States costs less than half it does in Europe. The extreme crisis will occur in the marginal populations, like in Africa and Bangladesh, that will not be able to afford increases in food prices.

[cripplecreek]

Over reliance on California is foolish in the best of times. Its an arid state with a potential for serious drought always looming.

Crops should be regionally diversified. 2012 is a perfect example. The midwest apple crop was virtually non existent but the northwest apple crop boomed. Root crops and leafy green vegetables also do very well in those regions.

That said, abundance is a good thing. If we grow more than we need we will never have a shortage.

[5thGenTexan]

So the desert conditions are the “historical norm”? Who let the little nugget of truth out? I keep hearing the drought is caused by man made image change...

[raybbr]

What are they all going to do when the water is gone?

They will be free, per Obama's edict, to invade other parts of the country.

[bert]

California is now and always has been a desert. There was never a time when California was not a desert.

The coming of too many people to overuse the supply of imported water has created unsustainable urban sprawl. The weather of sunshine and no rain is the reason there is desert. Sunshine and no rain produces desert. Desert with mega population is doomed

[central_va]

Maybe if CA dries up the fruit and vegetable monopoly will end. Other states can start growing fresh fruit and veggies and it can be picked by Americans. Not with the indentured slave CA model uses.

[piasa]

Florida had a warm, unusually wet winter...

[broken_clock]

I’ll say it again. The Govt here in Cali will let me know there really is a water crisis when I hear there’s a moratorium on the thousands of new building permits currently being rubber stamped by every city in the state.

[Joe 6-pack]

Sounds like we may be on the verge of a solution to mud slides.

[Thermalseeker]

Without the agricultural production of the state of California, we are in a massive amount of trouble.

No, some people are in a massive amount of trouble. This is fantastic news for the strawberry growers in Florida, and the peach growers in Georgia and South Carolina, among others. For those of us who grow our own produce I doubt 'we' will even notice. There are reasons why you don't put all your eggs in one basket......and this is one of them.

[Jim Noble]

God is not mocked.

There’s no guarantee he’s going to do an earthquake this time. He likes to mix it up.

Frogs? Dated. Locusts? Too many seagulls around.

Drought? Hmm, let’s see. The last generation of the people I gave this land to have killed 50 million babies. You could say California is suffering from a reproductive drought. What if I...

[Pearls Before Swine]

It sounds like a new version of the 1930’s dust-bowl, but in California.

[hlmencken3]

Article claims the world as a whole is running out of fresh water and consuming more food than produced. Anyone who believes that should immediately commit suicide. They are obviously too stupid to live.

[Marko413]

They are building a desalinization plant in Carlsbad CA (http://carlsbaddesal.com/) Assuming it completes on time (I know, big assumption), they say they will be getting water by late 2015.

[BwanaNdege]

1) Go to the Israelis and politely ask, “Please help us grow more vegetables with less water.”

2) Forget the Delta Smelt. Form a STATE “PPA” - People Protection Agency to override the EPA whenever EPA regulations are detrimental to PEOPLE!

3) Fast track Thorium reactors, first for desalination, then for general power. Many small-medium sized to make project costs reasonable, attract competition in design and business models. Require certification of the design, not every single instance. Nuclear power plants could be build for the cost of one to three Boeing 747s.

4) Buy US Navy nuclear powered ships scheduled for decommissioning. Use these as relocatable power plants. Order additional shipboard reactors from their manufacturers as stopgap desalination power plants.

http://depletedcranium.com/hope-this-works/
“What does it cost to build a nuclear plant?
What could it cost?”

*************************************************************
A typical aircraft carrier in the US military uses nuclear power to desalinate 400,000 US gallons (1,500,000 l; 330,000 imp gal) of water per day.

The single largest desalination project is Ras Al Khair in Saudi Arabia, which produces 1,025,000 cubic meters per day in 2014[4] The largest percent of desalinated water used in any country is in Israel, which produces 40% of its domestic water use from seawater desalination.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination

Finally, start and X-Prize for the team that makes a desalination plant producing X-gallons/day at Y dollars cost. Invite Bill Gates, Apple, Google, Elon Musk, and all the little guys. THe prise if the Big Guys win is a bronze statue on the Capitol lawn in Sacramento. For the little buys, make the prize a ton of money, or royalties for 50 years.

[SampleMan]

In the long term, I'm not worried about the food production issue.

So many vegetables are grown in California, not because it is the most fertile area. They are grown there because of easy access to cheap illegal labor.

Vegetables used to be grown commercially up north, inlcluding Maine, Michigan, etc. Teenagers did the work of harvesting, and the product was canned. And some foods were truly seasonal.

The ground water in the American Southwest was primarily ancient groundwater, left behind when the glaciers melted. Using it has always been a finite proposition.

California WILL NOT continue to be a large agricultural procuder, it can't. So what comes next? There is a lot of productive acreage in the U.S. that can produce vegetables. Florida already produces a lot of vegetables, and although irrigation is used, average rainfall is quite high: