California's Next Megadrought Has Already Begun

BI - Slate ^ | 3-22-2015 | Eric Holthaus

[blam]

Eric Holthaus
March 22, 2015

As California limps through another nearly rain-free rainy season, the state is taking increasingly bold action to save water.

On Tuesday, the California state government imposed new mandatory restrictions on lawn watering and incentives to limit water use in hotels and restaurants as part of its latest emergency drought regulations. On Thursday, California Gov. Jerry Brown announced a $1 billion plan to support water projects statewide and speed aid to hard-hit communities already dealing with shortages.

Last month federal water managers announced a "zero allocation" of agricultural water to a key state canal system for the second year in a row, essentially transforming thousands of acres of California farmland into dust.

This week's moves come after the state has fallen behind targets to increase water efficiency in 2015 amid the state's worst drought in 1,200 years.

(snip)

[SMARTY]

If so many tens of thousands of extra consumers are getting access to water, over and above the census figure... how can anyone be certain HOW much water they are consuming.

[Covenantor]

So into which of those three categories do the 1,140 golf courses fall?

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

If so many tens of thousands of extra consumers are getting access to water, over and above the census figure... how can anyone be certain HOW much water they are consuming.

Because they're still getting their water through pipes that are owned by water companies or agencies, who have a pretty good idea of how much water they're sending down those pipes. The Los Angeles DWP, for example, sends 200 million gallons a year to L.A..

[morphing libertarian]

Carlsbad desalt opening in 1 year.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

So into which of those three categories do the 1,140 golf courses fall?

As far as I can tell, it comes out of the residential number and accounts for 17% of the residential total.

[Wallace T.]

The world can do without California produce. Its elimination would help to revive fruit and vegetable production in other states. Before the development of refrigerated trains and trucks, areas surrounding the large cities had extensive truck farming operations. Many areas where subsistence farming once existed have reverted to pasture or second growth forest. There is no reason that pastures and forests in downstate Illinois, East Texas, and upstate New York, for example, could not intensify their fruit and vegetable production. Also, foreign imports would increase. A large percentage of fruits and vegetables are coming from Latin America, especially Mexico and Chile.

[familyop]

"incentives to limit water use in hotels"

So that's where the EPA talk about monitoring hotel showers came from.

[blam]

"Is there anything even heroic that could be done... like shipping trainloads of snow down from the north next winter?"

Not such a far-fetched idea.

In 1851, Dr Gorrie , a doctor in Northwest Florida, was hosting a dinner party that included the French Ambassador and was deluded with questions when he explained that he had made the ice that was in their drinks.
Everyone was truly baffled because the arrival of the 'ice ships' in Southern ports in the heat of summer was a big event...everyone knew when the 'ice ship' came. The 'ice ship' hadn't been in port at all.

Doctor Gorrie had invented refrigeration.

"Dr. Gorrie became convinced that cold was the healer. He noted that "Nature would terminate the fevers by changing the seasons." Ice, cut in the winter in northern lakes, stored in underground ice houses, and shipped, packed in sawdust, around the Florida Keys by sailing vessel, in mid-summer could be purchased dockside on the Gulf Coast. In 1844, he began to write a series of articles in Apalachicola's "Commercial Advertiser" newspaper, entitled, "On the prevention of Malarial Diseases". "

I didn't know about the ice ships until I read about Dr Gorrie.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Price pressures would make such farms attractive.

[familyop]

"The Israelis are just now ramping up the world’s largest seawater desalination plant to full capacity. It produces clean water from the sea cheaply and at a scale never before achieved."

There's more already in progress. Fresh water is going into the Dead Sea. In regards to the Dead Sea,...

Ezekiel 47, starting with verse 8.

Zechariah 14, starting with 8.

"Arabah" was a later name, not in the original text. Here's the deal. Destination after the plain (sea of Tiberias): Dead Sea (sea of Sodom), which will eventually be freshwater, and to the ocean.

[Disambiguator]

There are few options and Brown and others should have been planning for the water future of California 50 Years ago and didn’t.

I always say that people don't take droughts seriously until they open a tap in their house and nothing comes out. Then it's game on!

[Mrs. Don-o]

Fascinating.

[familyop]

Nearly all of Missouri and several other states would be good for large scale vegetable production. Northern Missouri is exceptionally good for orchards.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

I didn't know about the ice ships until I read about Dr Gorrie.

One of the ships fired on by South Carolinians in Charleston Bay during the run up to Ft. Sumter was an ice schooner out of Boston named the Rhoda H. Shannon.

[Spartan79]

Nearly all of Missouri and several other states would be good for large scale vegetable production. Northern Missouri is exceptionally good for orchards.

Missouri was also the nation's top grape and wine producing state until the late nineteenth century, and when prohibition hit it was still second behind California. If could once again rise if water for California grape growing is substantially curtailed.

[familyop]

Thanks. I didn’t know that. There were some juice grape vineyards in the Ozarks during the ‘70s. Don’t know whether or not those are maintained now, or if any were progressed to wine production.

[blam]

AYE.

Thanks.

[blam]

The Unhappy Story of the Rhoda H. Shannon

[Spartan79]

Along I-40 in Arkansas, in Altus (west of Clarksville) you’ll find several wineries, including two - Post Familie Vinyards and Wiederkehr - which market their wine throughout the state.

In Missouri, their are clusters of vineyards and wineries southwest of St. Louis, in the St. James area along I-44, and a cluster of wineries along the Missouri river near Hermann, south of I-70 between St. Louis and Columbia.

If you’re into sampling wines, most of the wineries in Missouri, and some in Arkansas, produce an good, very dry red wine from the Norton grape (usually called Cynthiana in Arkansas). Give it a try. Outside of Arkansas and Missouri, you’ll seldom find Norton wine except in Virginia and some wineries in southern Illinois and in Virginia.

[Spartan79]

Along I-40 in Arkansas, in Altus (west of Clarksville) you’ll find several wineries, including two - Post Familie Vinyards and Wiederkehr - which market their wine throughout the state.

In Missouri, their are clusters of vineyards and wineries southwest of St. Louis, in the St. James area along I-44, and a cluster of wineries along the Missouri river near Hermann, south of I-70 between St. Louis and Columbia.

If you’re into sampling wines, most of the wineries in Missouri, and some in Arkansas, produce an good, very dry red wine from the Norton grape (usually called Cynthiana in Arkansas). Give it a try. Outside of Arkansas and Missouri, you’ll seldom find Norton wine except in Virginia and some wineries in southern Illinois and in Virginia.