The article says that farming uses 80% of the water in California, that means that it does need to be discussed.
Posted on 04/05/2015 12:27:56 PM PDT by artichokegrower
As the rest of California comes to grips with the state’s historic new water mandates, there’s an elephant in the room. And it’s wearing a farmer’s hat
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
The thought of government stepping in and telling a farmer what he can or can not plant brings up images of Stalin's collective farms or Zimbabwe's redistribution of ag land. Both projects did not end well.
With any luck, California will chase all of those nasty farmers out of the state.
Water = food.
Gee, I wonder if there’s a reason why we would want the food supply to be steady? Can’t think of one right now. Perhaps in time... /s
>> there’s an elephant in the room. And it’s wearing a farmer’s hat
Unless you have native grasses that don’t require watering, get rid of your lawn before you start putting food-producers out of business...unless you like eating your crop of useless grass.
Governor Moonbeam starting his own terror campaign against California’s kulaks?
They should ban people from filling their swimming pools. And no water for golf courses built in the middle of the desert. Let’s eliminate the frills before we go after core agriculture.
How much water is diverted into the making of fuel for cars? Take the ethanol subsidy away and end the mandate for fuel on cars. The end result is all good, lower taxes, lower food prices, higher MPG’s and less fuel used. Ethanol takes enormous amounts of water, fuel and land than it is worth. Send illegals home, that lessens the burden on water usage in the homes. I would guess that there are several million people in California that use water to cook, flush and drink. Since a toilet uses about 10 gallons a day per person a flush the millions of illegals sent packing would save 20,000,000 gallons a day or more? There, problem well on its way to being solved.
Since our state fish is the Delta Smelt nothing will change
Agriculture irrigation accounted for about 75% of fresh water use in California in 2000. Public water supply accounted for about 18%.
Do the math: 40% of 18% is 4.5%. So, that's the best the governor's order can do.
Yes, the farmers grow lots of food. But, they could use water more efficiently, and save a lot more than installing more low-flow showerheads.
The article says that farming uses 80% of the water in California, that means that it does need to be discussed.
So these food producers who pay billions in taxes and employ tens of thousands who also pay taxes... should pay more taxes because of the liberal’s screwed up policies, all the while they build choo choo trains and trollies to nowhere.
The real problem: moonbeams (plural) in Sacramento. Governor moonbeam is not alone.
Swimming pools only lose water to evaporation, that must be replenished. A similarly sized lawn will lose similar amounts.
The typical pool is 15-20,000 gallons, which is equivalent to a summer water bill for landscape irrigation.
Let’s eliminate the frills before we go after core agriculture.
See my earlier posting. Agricultural irrigation accounted for 75% of freshwater use in California in 2000. You could completely eliminate all other uses of water, and there would only be a 25% reduction.
What government is doing is scary.
/johnny
The C-Free Diet
If we didn’t have California, what would we eat?
Hi Steve in Seattle. It looks from your name like you do not live in CA. So, being a So Cal desert resident, I can tell you that those golf courses are NOT irrigated with potable water. No, here in the Cochella Valley, most all of our golf courses are irrigated with reclaimed water, that means treated sewer water.
Our community with two 18 hole golf courses, uses no potable water for irrigation, and nearly all of our homes use desert landscaping, meaning no grass.
If communities like ours did not use this water, then the water district would have to employ spraying fields in order to rid themselves of their huge supplies of treated sewerage. Plus, they can sell it for a substantial amount of revenue instead of having to dump it for zero revenue.
We also are one of the largest agricultural areas of the US. Our water district has been working for many years now to convert farms from field flooding to drip irrigation systems. This program has been highly successful.
The moral of the story is do not believe all of the baloney being published by the media, and do not believe our idiot governor who has sat on his butt for all these years and done nothing to develop other sources of water, the main one being desalinization of the Pacific Ocean. Mediterranean countries are converting sea water while California sits here praying for rain and snow in a state where the overwhelming majority of the population lives along with coast right next to all of that ocean.
http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-israel-drought-solution.html
Here are the first two paragraphs:
"California, I hear, has a big water problem,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said on Bloomberg Television. “How come we don’t have a water problem? Because we use technology to solve it.”
The technology is Israeli’s four seawater desalination plants. The Middle Eastern nation, which sits on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, is 60 percent desert and has been struggling with drought for most of its existence. But with a fifth desalination plant set to open this year, Israel doesn’t have a water problem anymore. That’s because once the new plant comes online, more than 80 percent of Israel’s water will come from desalination.
The article posits that one reason there aren't more desalination plants is that when drought ends, cheaper sources of water are readily available and the plants shut down. Somehow, I think liberal Californians' attitude toward any kind of industry has a lot more to do with it.
I guess we would rice from elsewhere if water becomes to limited or too expensive to grow rice in California.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.