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California Has Never Experienced A Water Crisis Of This Magnitude – And The Worst Is Yet To Come
End of the American Dream ^ | 06/18/2015 | Michael Snyder

Posted on 06/19/2015 7:57:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis. At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and some communities are not receiving any more water at all. As you read this article, 100 percent of the state is in some stage of drought, and there has been so little precipitation this year that some young children have never actually seen rain. This is already the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state of California, but this may only be just the beginning. Scientists tell us that the amount of rain that California received during the 20th century was highly unusual. In fact, they tell us that it was the wettest century for the state in at least 1000 years. Now that things are returning to “normal”, the state is completely and total unprepared for it. California has never experienced a water crisis of this magnitude, and other states in the western half of the nation are starting to really suffer as well. In the end, we could very well be headed for the worst water crisis this country has ever seen.

When I said that some communities in California are not receiving any more water, I was not exaggerating. Just consider the following excerpt from one recent news report

The community of Mountain House is days away from having no water at all after the state cut off its only water source.

Anthony Gordon saves drinking water just in case, even though he never thought it would come to this.

“My wife thinks I’m nuts. I have like 500 gallons of drinking water stored in my home,” he said.

The upscale community of Mountain House, west of Tracy, is days away from having no water. It’s not just about lawns—there may not be a drop for the 15,000 residents to drink.

So what are those people going to do?

And what is this going to do to the property values in that area?

Who in the world is going to want to buy a home that does not have running water coming to it?

Other communities throughout the state are pumping groundwater like crazy in a desperate attempt to continue with business as usual. In fact, it is being projected that groundwater will account for almost all water used in the entire state by the end of this year

Underground aquifers supply 35 percent of the water used by humans worldwide. Demand is even greater in times of drought. Rain-starved California is currently tapping aquifers for 60 percent of its water use as its rivers and above-ground reservoirs dry up, a steep increase from the usual 40 percent. Some expect water from aquifers will account for virtually every drop of the state’s fresh water supply by year end.

But of course this creates a huge problem. When the groundwater is gone, it is gone for good. Those aquifers took centuries to fill up, and now they are being drained at a staggering rate. In some parts of the state, aquifers are being drained so fast that it is causing thousands of square miles of land to sink

Californians have been draining water so rapidly from underground aquifers that tens of thousands of square miles of land reportedly are sinking — so drastically that the shifting surface is starting to destroy bridges and crack highways across the state, according to a recent report by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

So what is the solution?

Some of my readers have suggested that desalination is the answer. But the truth is that desalination is very expensive and it is really bad for the environment. The following comes from a recent Natural News article

For those who are saying, “There’s no water problem in California! It has the entire Pacific Ocean right next door!”, you need to look into the catastrophic environmental destruction tied to ocean water desalination.

Not only does desalination use fossil fuels which emit the very same carbon emissions that the California government insists caused the drought in the first place, the desalination process itself pollutes the ocean with high concentration salt brine that kills marine ecosystems and destroys ocean life along the California coastline.

And that’s on top of all the Fukushima radiation that’s already causing a marine ecosystem collapse in many areas of the coast. Add more salt brine to the mix and you get a state where rich, self-entitled Hollywood celebrities demand their lush, green lawns at the expense of ocean life, climate change and the global ecosystem. If that happens, California will lose all credibility as a “green” state, and its wealthiest residents will be living an ecological lie.

Others have suggested that California can solve their water problems using “toilet to tap” technology

Potable water reuse – or converting sewage effluent to heavily-treated, purified drinking water – is receiving renewed attention in California in the midst of the state’s four-year drought.

According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, “California water managers and environmentalists” are pushing the idea of recycled sewage water. Yet past efforts in the state to employ similar systems have stalled, as opponents have dubbed the concept “toilet to tap.”

How would you feel about that?

Would you be willing to have your family drink water that came from the toilets of your neighbors?

I don’t think that I could do that.

But something has to be done. It is not just the state of California that is experiencing a major water crisis. All over the world, underground aquifers are being drained rapidly. In fact, according to the Washington Post, 21 out of the 37 largest aquifers in the world “have passed their sustainability tipping points”…

The world’s largest underground aquifers – a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people — are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth’s surface.

Twenty-one of the world’s 37 largest aquifers — in locations from India and China to the United States and France — have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water was removed than replaced during the decade-long study period, researchers announced Tuesday. Thirteen aquifers declined at rates that put them into the most troubled category. The researchers said this indicated a long-term problem that’s likely to worsen as reliance on aquifers grows.

Sadly, this is just the beginning. There is a reason why experts refer to fresh water as “the new oil”. Without fresh water, none of us can survive. But we are very quickly getting to the point where there simply won’t be enough of it for everyone on the planet.

As for the state of California, it was once a desert and now it is turning back into a desert. As I mentioned earlier, the 20th century was the wettest century that part of North America had seen in at least 1000 years. During that time, we built enormous cities all over the Southwest that currently support millions upon millions of people. But now we are learning that those cities are not sustainable.

So what should be done? Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society; Weather
KEYWORDS: california; drought; water; watercrisis
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To: CA Conservative

Same with using ancient TX Cypress: in the 1500s, there was a *hundred* year drought. That was horrible to have in the back of one’s mind during this 5yr drought.


81 posted on 06/19/2015 10:06:44 AM PDT by txhurl
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To: Darksheare

Last winter my company sold over 600 trucks of rock salt throughout the north eastern US. They mine it out of the ground in NY, PQ, OH, NM, UT. It is used also for water treatment both municipally and residentially for water softening(solar salt) and killing bacteria. So, there is money in salt.


82 posted on 06/19/2015 10:10:19 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: SeekAndFind
CA needs to learn a thing or two from Israel!

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/06/14/413981435/israel-bringing-its-years-of-desalination-experience-to-california

83 posted on 06/19/2015 10:12:59 AM PDT by JPG (What's the difference between the Rats and the GOPe? Nothing.)
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To: SW6906

First off, blame the feds for Endangered Species legislation that requires efforts to save the smelt. Second, it looks like the smelt will be extinct within a couple of years anyway. The latest count found exactly one. Third, pumping more water out of the river has the effect of allowing sea water to push inland. The brackish water is already further inland than ever before, and there’s salt buildup in the eastern delta because there’s almost nothing to flush it out to sea.


84 posted on 06/19/2015 10:15:23 AM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("The rat always knows when he's in with weasels."--Tom Waits)
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To: woodbutcher1963

Wood, stop it. Common sense is not allowed today. We need a $50 billion high speed line doncha know


85 posted on 06/19/2015 10:16:57 AM PDT by Undecided 2012
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To: woodbutcher1963
This also goes for Almond and Orange growers. I read that almond groves consume more water than every other crop.

It takes a gallon of water to grow one almond. And we export most of the crop.

86 posted on 06/19/2015 10:18:02 AM PDT by Bubba Ho-Tep ("The rat always knows when he's in with weasels."--Tom Waits)
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

I’m not sure about the almond export. I got this deal going with some Cajuns in the Woodlands (north of Houston) every year I go and clear out their primary AC drain line and the old folks make me a big gumbo to take home and his wife always cooks Praleens (I think that’s how it’s spelled) but it has almonds or pecans or something but is like a sweet candy.


87 posted on 06/19/2015 10:29:55 AM PDT by Undecided 2012
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To: minnesota_bound

Yes, but as I said before, all of that water flowing out through the Golden Gate keeps the Pacific Ocean from poisoning the most productive ag land in the world. Ever wonder why we don’t eat veggies grown in Carthage. Saltwater would do billions of dollars of danger to California’s economy.


88 posted on 06/19/2015 10:33:11 AM PDT by Benito Cereno
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

“And we export most of the crop”

We must need the almonds to help our trade imbalance.
There are probably a bunch of California government folks that own those almond groves, or get big contributions from almond farmers.


89 posted on 06/19/2015 10:36:49 AM PDT by woodbutcher1963
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

How does 1800 gallons for 1 LB of beef sound?


90 posted on 06/19/2015 10:43:03 AM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: Bubba Ho-Tep

I still like my solution.


91 posted on 06/19/2015 10:46:58 AM PDT by x1stcav (Why does Eleanor Clift always look like her private parts are causing her acute pain?)
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To: woodbutcher1963

There was a thread a couple days ago about frackers about to go wild in CA. I love fracking, but it shows how much Sacramento cares for their actual people, except that they show up to vote rat.


92 posted on 06/19/2015 11:11:16 AM PDT by txhurl
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To: txhurl

We never had rain, we did have previous water rights from other states that Brown in the 70s gave back leaving us out of future water in a drought.


93 posted on 06/19/2015 11:21:21 AM PDT by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: woodbutcher1963

California on Cusp of Fracking Boom Bigger than North Dakota

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3301175/posts

California may be on the cusp of an oil fracking boom along its 1,750-square-mile Monterrey Shale Formation, which is potentially the richest shale oil reserve in the United States.

Earthquakes have disturbed the layers of shale rock that run under most of the western state, making fracking more challenging than in a region like North Dakota. But when the next cyclical El Niño brings the huge amounts of water necessary for fracking, California could experience an economic boom similar to North Dakota’s oil rush.


94 posted on 06/19/2015 11:24:15 AM PDT by txhurl
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To: SeekAndFind
And what is this going to do to the property values in that area?

Property in California is absurdly overvalued, and the correction is going to be amazing.

95 posted on 06/19/2015 11:24:37 AM PDT by Jim Noble (If you can't discriminate, you are not free)
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To: Old Sarge

The thought of all those millions of brainwashed Democrats and off the wall radical leftists carrying the mental disease of liberalism to other states in a Dem diaspora is chilling indeed.


96 posted on 06/19/2015 12:16:51 PM PDT by concernedcitizen76 (Term limits. Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments. Sunset bureaucracies.)
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To: RichardW
why don’t we build water pipelines

I was under the impression that Texas and probably Arkansas were under a severe draught before this latest deluge. What good would the pipelines have done then?

Also, in places like the Pacific Northwest (where I live), even residents along the rivers can't generally withdraw water without permitting -- very difficult to get these days. Fat chance of a pipeline to California. Although maybe we could send our sewage there.

97 posted on 06/19/2015 12:23:20 PM PDT by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc OÂ’Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: teppe

Yeah, I’m sure God considers you His chosen people /sarc.


98 posted on 06/19/2015 12:25:20 PM PDT by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc OÂ’Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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To: txhurl

California state was the major producer of crude oil for many years before fracking was even devised. At the start of WWI, California oil was 40% of domestic supply. The oil boom there began in the late 1800’s. Early photographs of Los Angeles show hundreds of oil rigs. Even today, California is the third largest producer of oil and gas among the srates.


99 posted on 06/19/2015 12:25:58 PM PDT by concernedcitizen76 (Term limits. Repeal the 16th and 17th amendments. Sunset bureaucracies.)
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To: WilliamofCarmichael
A single pot plant consumes 6 gallons of water a day

Quite obviously, a single marijuana plant does not uptake six gallons of water a day. It is not a giant Redwood or something. Possibly they are dividing the total amount of water applied by the number of plants. It doesn't all end up in the plants.

100 posted on 06/19/2015 12:28:02 PM PDT by steve86 (Prophecies of Maelmhaedhoc OÂ’Morgair (Latin form: Malachy))
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