How much of this "worthless" government land used to be productive, private land?
Most of it needs water for agricultural use.
Much of it lies within active fault zones.
Implicit hidden costs are metals theft, replacement/demolition costs upon obsolescence or system end of life, and system maintenance. These tend to be high costs for these systems which make them viable only if subsidized.
i.e. they are losing projects. The bigger the project, ultimately, the larger the loss.
Imperial Valley: The last cotton gin closed in 2009. Cotton used to be 1/4 of the agriculture in Imperial County but it is water intensive, needing a third of an inch of water a day midseason. Here’s an old Times article:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/us/19cotton.html
The rest was/remains green groceries, hay, dairy and sheep. All dependent on water and low energy costs. 400 of 800 USA species of birds spend time in Imperial Valley at some point during the year. Not a great place for, say, windmills or solar. The Salton Sea is a whole basket of issues.
Riverside County in 1988 was the 4th largest producer of ag in Calif. Dropped out of the top 13 by 2009 when farm income hit it’s lowest level in 14 years - and it hasn’t improved. Some horse and goat farms are hanging on. Causes of decline: overregulation is rocketing energy and water costs. Here’s a Valley News article from 2011: http://www.myvalleynews.com/story/54358/
here’s another story, pointing out that between 2006 and 2008 Calif lost farmland equivalent to the area of New York City, more than a quarter of a million acres, Reason: overregulation of water: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/apr/20/region-report-shows-farmland-declines-in-san/
San Bernadino county accounts for a lot of urban and a lot of high desert but a lot of that desert was productive. Its industry used to be milk/eggs/meat and some vegetables. The Chino Valley held about half a million dairy cows and was “the most intensive milk producing area in the world.” Producing milk is water intensive. Dairies were overregulated out of business. Here’s an article about the county intending to sell to a developer what was trust ag land:
http://sbsentinel.com/2014/08/proposed-county-sale-of-dairy-property-hastening-ag-demise/
Here’s a 2007 crop report showing the SB ag industry was already in it’s 4th year of decline and it was water-driven, including fruit and hay production. Culling of the dairy and meat herds had begun as had water-intensive crops like tomatoes, corn and cucumbers. Poultry fryer/roaster production took the greatest hit, from 617,000 units to 20,000 between 2006 and 2007.
https://cms.sbcounty.gov/Portals/13/CropReports/2007CropReport.pdf