Western States Face First Federal Water Cuts (apnews.com) 204
phalse phace shares a report from The Associated Press: U.S. officials on Monday declared the first-ever water shortage from a river that serves 40 million people in the West, triggering cuts to some Arizona farmers next year amid a gripping drought. Water levels at the largest reservoir on the Colorado River -- Lake Mead -- have fallen to record lows, underscoring the acute water challenges for a region facing a growing population and a drought that is being worsened by hotter, drier weather brought on by climate change. Federal officials said Monday's declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than scientists predicted in 2019, when some states in the Colorado River basin agreed to give up shares of water to maintain levels at Lake Mead.
Water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river's two largest reservoirs, have been falling for years and faster than experts predicted. Scorching temperatures and less melting snow in the spring have reduced the amount of water flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the river originates before it snakes 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers) southwest and into the Gulf of California. Water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell is divvied up through legal agreements among the seven Colorado River basin states, the federal government, Mexico and others. The agreements determine how much water each gets, when cuts are triggered and the order in which the parties have to sacrifice some of their supply. Under a 2019 drought contingency plan, Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico agreed to give up shares of their water to maintain water levels at Lake Mead. The voluntary measures weren't enough to prevent the shortage declaration.
Water levels at Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the river's two largest reservoirs, have been falling for years and faster than experts predicted. Scorching temperatures and less melting snow in the spring have reduced the amount of water flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the river originates before it snakes 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers) southwest and into the Gulf of California. Water stored in Lake Mead and Lake Powell is divvied up through legal agreements among the seven Colorado River basin states, the federal government, Mexico and others. The agreements determine how much water each gets, when cuts are triggered and the order in which the parties have to sacrifice some of their supply. Under a 2019 drought contingency plan, Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico agreed to give up shares of their water to maintain water levels at Lake Mead. The voluntary measures weren't enough to prevent the shortage declaration.
The scientists got it wrong... (Score:4, Insightful)
'Federal officials said Monday's declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than scientists predicted'
It's a sad world where such an admission is problematic, but given the propensity of anti-vaxxers to spot anything to prove their scepticism, we have an issue:
How can we train journalists, press release writers and the public to realise that the statement: 'the scientists say' is merely their best guess / belief, and the fact they may be wrong isn't really significant?
Re:The scientists got it wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about simply: 'Federal officials said Monday's declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than predicted"
The problem with the original statement that "Federal Officials" appear to be separated from "scientists". That way they don't take responsibility for anything (it was the "scientists" that were wrong, not us!)
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:2)
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is time to desalinate in a major way.
No it isn't. Desalination is the dumbest possible solution to the problem. A far better solution is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
It costs $2000 to desalinate an acre-foot of water.
Water from Lake Mead is provided to farmers growing subsidized crops for $70 per acre-foot.
Paying $2000 for something you give away at $70 to someone who dumps it on the ground is idiotic.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, it's a demand-side issue, not a supply-side issue.
Re: (Score:2)
No, it isn't. See the drought map:
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
Yes we use more water than we should and plant crops where we shouldn't, but that drought wasn't caused by sucking up too much water for agriculture.
Re: (Score:3)
No, it isn't. See the drought map:
https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu]
Yes we use more water than we should and plant crops where we shouldn't, but that drought wasn't caused by sucking up too much water for agriculture.
I am not sure why you say that this map shows that the water shortage "wasn't caused by sucking up too much water for agriculture." I would have thought if anything it shows the opposite; the epicenter is shown as agriculture-rich California's central valley, with a finger heading east across southern Nevada (a place where the population density is near zero, except for Las Vegas, which is its own problem) and then into Utah, a place where 80% of the diverted water goes to irrigation.
You need to distinguis
Re: (Score:2)
The map shows drought, not water shortage, yes, hence the title drought map. However, water shortages can be caused by drought and a drought of magnitude shown on the map will cause water shortages. The "finger" you see on the map is not caused by water usage. It is caused by drought.
They don't measure the drought by how much people are using. They measure it with rain gauges and soil moisture content. Sucking up underground aquifers won't cause surface moisture content to change unless the underground aqui
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the soil moisture content is affected by agriculture. The water table has dropped so far that some wells have shut down. That affects the soil moisture everywhere plants have deep roots.
OTOH, the drought is, indeed, caused mainly by lack of rain. But the lack of snow-pack is probably more significant, as that's what determines the runoff during the dry season. And THAT is at least half due to the increased temperatures, not just to the lack of snow-fall. Snow is expected to stay in the high mount
Re: (Score:2)
Central Valley uses too much water, yes, but it's not grabbing it from the Colorado River. It has it's own issues to deal with. The Colorado for California water rights are mostly about San Diego and Imperial counties.
GP's point is that we're in a drought (Score:3)
The difference is is that this dr
Re: (Score:2)
But we can help the humans in these areas by growing fewer crops in the desert. Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban. California has asked residents to cut back by 15% - to free up 1.5% of total water use. Should be obvious where we can conserve. Growing crops like alfalfa is just a giant waste. We could make better use of what we have.
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:2)
One of the biggest crops in California is avocados. Not withstanding they arenâ(TM)t naturally grown there, they use tremendous amount of water and are mainly a food for the rich.
Wine grapes are fine in California, but any other crop is a ludicrous waste of water. California also has too much people living there for the supply of water to allow. They simply need to stop dividing the water at the federal level and leave California to figure out how to supply its people with the natural supplies they hav
Re: (Score:2)
Rivers and aquifers cross state lines. So you can't leave it up to individual states to figure out how to supply its' people with a resource that other states rely on - it naturally involves the US government, and in this case the Mexican government as well.
Now if the US courts didn't allow allocating more water than there is, that would he
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:2)
That depends if the food can be grown profitably at 2000$ and to which extent it is needed for food independence goals.
Re: (Score:2)
It is time to desalinate in a major way.
No it isn't. Desalination is the dumbest possible solution to the problem. A far better solution is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
Growing rice is nuts. Or almonds at 1900 Gallons of water per pound. https://www.paesta.psu.edu/pod... [psu.edu]
Re: (Score:3)
How much water should it take to grow food? Your post makes it seem like you don't understand how food works.
Re: (Score:3)
How much water should it take to grow food? Your post makes it seem like you don't understand how food works.
I think you might rephrase your question, because there is no set right amount of water. Different crops use different amounts of water. And that's an important part of how food works.
Pasture (clover, rye, bermuda and other grasses), 4.92 acre feet per acre
Almonds and pistachios, 4.49 acre feet per acre
Alfalfa, 4.48 acre feet per acre
Citrus and subtropical fruits (grapefruit, lemons, oranges, dates, avocados, olives, jojoba), 4.23 acre feet per acre
Sugar beets, 3.89 acre feet per acre
Other deciduous
Re: (Score:2)
Weird that rice isn't on your list.
Re: (Score:2)
Almond growing used to be small but it really took off in the last few decades because the price is very high. It's a luxury food. There was a tiny almond orchard across the street from me growing up, and really it wasn't irrigated much at all, but it also wasn't producing almonds in high numbers either. So I think the water use is really to get the production up.
We used to have cotton growing in my home town also when I was growing up but it vanished. And it vanished because the water cost was too high f
Re: (Score:3)
Almonds have taken off in a big way because of almond milk's popularity.
Alfalfa is being grown in CA and being shipped to Saudi Arabia, because it's cheaper to use CA water AND ship it to Saudi Arabia than it is to use Saudi Arabian water.
Re: (Score:3)
Alfalfa is big. It's a simplistic crop; easy to grow, easy to harvest, easy to ship. It's for cows so it doesn't matter much if the harvested product doesn't meet grocery store visual standards or not.
I see a lot of Vegans are claiming that we need to go vegan because cows suck up a lot of water.
Yeah - that's true. But here on the east coast, water is seldom a problem - The think that's interesting is that some of the more reactionary claim that California is like some tightly controlled socialist state. You would think that they would exercise more control over who grows what. A friend of ours comes from Germany, and apparently they analyze the land use situation, and determine what farmers should pl
Re: (Score:2)
Acre-feet per acre is the wrong measurement.
Acre-feet per dollar of output makes way more sense.
Almonds may use more water than alfalfa, but they are also worth far more.
The best way to conserve water is to raise the price. Then let farmers choose what crops to grow.
Water managment in agriculture (Score:5, Insightful)
We also need to manage our water better and maybe take a few pages from Israel's playbook on this https://scienceinfo.net/israel... [scienceinfo.net] .
Israel is famous for its effective water usage, despite their entire country being a literal desert I found all sorts of Israeli produce in the UK when I was last there a few years ago. Given that 80% of California's water usage is for agriculture https://water.ca.gov/Programs/... [ca.gov] (just one of the effected states but it's probably quite similar in the other states) it seems certain that our best bet for reigning in water usage is to increase efficiency in agriculture.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
We also need to manage our water better and maybe take a few pages from Israel's playbook on this https://scienceinfo.net/israel... [scienceinfo.net] .
Israel is famous for its effective water usage, despite their entire country being a literal desert I found all sorts of Israeli produce in the UK when I was last there a few years ago. Given that 80% of California's water usage is for agriculture https://water.ca.gov/Programs/... [ca.gov] (just one of the effected states but it's probably quite similar in the other states) it seems certain that our best bet for reigning in water usage is to increase efficiency in agriculture.
They siphon it off from the occupied areas: https://www.amnesty.org/en/lat... [amnesty.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, that doesn't change anything in regards to the fact that they have very efficient farms in the context of water use. d
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, Palestinians are all terrorists, huh? Why dont you take a hike bigot.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, that doesn't change anything in regards to the fact that they have very efficient farms in the context of water use.
Re: (Score:2)
Oops, ignore this. Posted in the wrong spot.
Re: Water managment in agriculture (Score:2)
Farmers on the whole are as efficient as is efficient. Change the incentives and the farmers will change with it, though perhaps with some growing pains which are not socially acceptable.
If for instance more expensive and lower yield farming necessitates a large drop in land prices, that could mean in a free market that mass banruptcies and perhaps bank failures would be necessary first before farming could get more water efficient.
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
No it isn't. Desalination is the dumbest possible solution to the problem. A far better solution is to stop growing subsidized rice in the desert.
It costs $2000 to desalinate an acre-foot of water.
Water from Lake Mead is provided to farmers growing subsidized crops for $70 per acre-foot.
Paying $2000 for something you give away at $70 to someone who dumps it on the ground is idiotic.
It's actually more like $900 to desalinate an acre-foot of water. The $2000 figure is probably a little outdated. At the residential prices from the water company where I live, it would be $2631.02 for an acre foot of water at their lowest water rate. Of course, then there would be a corresponding sewer charge of an additional 3,929.11. That's not for desalinated water, just regular reservoir water. The prices go up the more you use, so if you were using more than 15,000 cubic feet (there are 43560 cubic feet in an acre-foot, so you would be) it would be $3162.46 for the water and the sewer charge would be the same. If you were to buy the water in gallon jugs from my local supermarket, an acre-foot would be about $260,000. Delivered by a water truck it would be around $13,577 for an acre-foot of water.
All of this seems to suggest that, for the regular consumer, the cost of desalination would be marginal compared to what they're already paying for water. It seems really high when you look at the prices farmers pay because, as you say, that's obviously heavily subsidized. It does look like we may need to re-examine the farming model being used. Specifically the use of cheap land as farmland. It makes sense as long as water is cheap, but if you have to make the water cheap, then the real price of farming there is obviously being hidden. If we have no choice though, because we developed all of the other land, pushing farming to the fringes, then we need to make the water cheap in order to have food.
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong, cheaper methods of solar desalination exist now.
Were you definitely trying to reply to me? I don't disagree with you. I was saying $900 per acre foot because I found numbers of $2.65 per thousand gallons which would be about $863.51 for an acre-foot, so I just rounded up to $900. My point was just that it's clearly cheaper than the $2000 quoted, which it looks like the poster just got from the top of the the Google test results (why does Google still do that, anyway? The answer is always wrong). I'm quite sure that there are cheaper options and the costs
Re: (Score:2)
And grow it where else precisely? (Score:2)
Yeah we waste a lot of food but not that much. Moreover it's stabilizes our food supply so they're on shortages.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah there's some parts of Arizona possibly New Mexico that have farms that are kind of silly. Arts of California have extremely good land that's only limited by the amount of water.
Many have pointed out that the almonds are a net loss.
More structurally, Californian agriculture is dependent in part on depletion of aquifers. And some of them are nearly fully depleted now, and are not being refilled at any useful rate. So frankly the water problem in California is much worse than it appears. I presume this to be true in much of the world, let alone the nation, but I know it to be true in California.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
The food grown in California and Arizona can be grown in the rest of the U.S. and rest of the world. So in a great many cases it would be better to transfer crops and livestock elsewhere than to massively subsidize water costs for California and Arizona farmers.
Re: (Score:3)
That's not really true. All the good farm land is currently being used as farm land...not just in California, but in the country, and in most of the world. Most of California is really an arid area rather than a desert, but much of the country really IS a desert. The Sierra-Nevadas create a strong rain shadow. As you go farther North, the growing season shortens, not just because of temperature, but also because of day length. Which is most important varies, of course. Plants with a short growing sea
Re:And grow it where else precisely? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, think about all of those "flyover" states and realize that east of the Continental Divide that almost all of that is farmland and you'll realize just how little (relatively speaking) California and Arizona actually contribute to the gross food production in the US. The only reason California seems to produce a large percentage of food to the US is that a lot of that "flyover" farmland is soybeans and feed corn. If all agriculture west of the Continental Divide stopped the farmers in the interior would shift over to human food from soybeans and the US would still be just fine. Food would be more expensive, to be sure - maybe 10% - but we'd be fine.
Re: (Score:2)
At least here in Canada, the prairies are suffering quite the drought as well. Crop failures from Alberta to N. Ontario (actually more west then north), farmers getting rid of their livestock as they can't feed them, price of bread expected to go up quite a bit etc.
The glaciers in the Rockies that feed the rivers are melting fast as well, leading to predictions of more water shortages.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There are highly water intensive crops being farmed in Arizona, and that's a huge problem in itself. You make water cheap and subsidized and then you get that sort of thinking.
Re: (Score:2)
But i've always wondered about piping all the water that is pumped out of New Orleans, out to there. Every day. Dump it into the river that feeds Mead and Powell. Do that as part of an infrastructure bill.
Why don't you do a back of the envelope calculation of the energy cost of pumping water 2000 miles across the Rocky Mountains and get back to us with a proposal.
Re: (Score:2)
As opposed to pumping oil 2000 miles?
Another back-of-the-envelope calculation to do! (Score:2)
Another back-of-the-envelope calculation worth doing!
What is the ratio of the current price of oil to the price of (non-potable) water?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
10,000 lakes, thank you very much. (Although the true number is actually higher than that.) Also, there are problems with pumping the Mississippi outflow into the Colorado, beyond the energy required to pump it across the US:
Re: (Score:2)
Great public works project, and it will allow floods in the East to irrigate the west, https://coyotegulch.blog/2011/... [coyotegulch.blog]
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:2)
Texas will need its own grid, Iâ(TM)m sure. Otherwise the stateâ(TM)s freedom to freeze/starve/boil its citizens might be curtailed.
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:2)
It seems inevitable, the colorado river water shortage will cause trillions worth of damages and cost to adapt to, 23 billion is an accounting error.
It would be better to start sooner, but in this case the liberals who believe everything can be solved politically correct and "green" and the conservatives who don't believe the status quo can change are both on the same wrong side.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but...
Desalinization has it's own problem. It's expensive in one way or another, and dealing with the residual brine is difficult. Ideally one would pump sea water into a nearly closed container in a hot area (say the Mojave desert), collect the evaporated water and sell the salt, but lots of those steps are too expensive to pay, and the desert is already an endangered eco-system due to slow plant growth and lots of idiots* with 4-wheel drive.
*Idiots isn't really fair, but it felt like the best pejor
Re: (Score:2)
Why can't the feds just print more water?
Re:The scientists got it wrong... (Score:5, Informative)
It should be...
'Federal officials said Monday's declaration makes clear that conditions have intensified faster than the most optimistic estimate they had chosen from their forecast from what scientists had offered as one of a number of possible and likely outcomes.'
Re: (Score:2)
"How can we train journalists, press release writers and the public to realise that the statement: 'the scientists say' is merely their best guess / belief, and the fact they may be wrong isn't really significant?"
You think it's the choice of words that would convince those with an IQ of under 85?
The US army has tried for 100 years, since the end of WWI and they gave up, these people are hopeless and untrainable.
IQ 85? (Score:2)
Good to know that some optimists read /.
Re: (Score:2)
How can we train journalists, press release writers and the public to realise that the statement: 'the scientists say' is merely their best guess / belief, and the fact they may be wrong isn't really significant?
That's ass-backwards as well. The fact that they may be wrong really is significant, it's part of science. But what's also significant is that unless you know better than they do, acting like the science people can't science is fucking idiotic.
You can't take the "might be wrong" element out or it isn't science.
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:2)
Re: The scientists got it wrong... (Score:2)
I would draw a distinction between a guess and a methodical process of designing a testable model.
Some places shouldn’t be there. (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel empathy for those impacted by the sweeping changes that are coming, but communities and industry exist at scales that were never sustainable for the regions they occupy. They have been living on an environmental credit card, and it is possible the bank has stopped raising their limit. Time to decide which bills get paid and who goes bankrupt.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe now it's starting to affect Americans there will be more political will to do something about it. There are already domestic climate refugees whose homes were destroyed by fire and who can't rebuild because it will just burn down again.
Once it starts costing people with influence a lot of money they will want the government to fix it for them.
Re: (Score:2)
Even when I was much younger they were talking (warning) about this happening, and that was over twenty years ago. I feel for people as well, but building communities (much less the crops they're trying to farm) in the desert was probably not going to be sustainable long-term. I won't even go into the ranchers raising far too many cattle in deserts, as they're not engaged in a sustainable activity anymore than the farmers.
Turn off the taps to the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But...but...it's OUR [youtu.be] water! We need to TAKE it! ;-)
So when a flood of water refugees (Score:2)
Also as I pointed out we want a need the food grown in California and possi
Re: (Score:2)
What can be sacrificed are crops like almonds and avocados. Having somewhat less choice in the supermarkets is likely easily accepted.
False dichotomy (Score:2)
Also, nice one on the Avacados. They don't use all that much water in light of their caloric density, but it lets you tie into that whole "Avocado Toast" thing. If you're not being paid by Wall Street to push their
Re: (Score:2)
There's lots of crops that can get by on much less water that aren't luxuries. You were talking about the poor rising up from food shortages, I doubt that they'd miss almonds or avocados as long as there are things like tomatoes and bread.
The bigger worry, at least here in Canada is the stables like wheat that are suffering from the drought and causing the price of bread (and beef) to be projected to go way up.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> Why should they be any different than the rest of humanity?
They "shouldn't" but they were for the aforementioned reasons (they could afford to be). What's the point of your post? -1
I'll say it slowly. OP noted that those regions are living on an environmental credit card.
I noted that we all are.
The photos tell the story (Score:5, Informative)
Re: The photos tell the story (Score:2)
Ban golf courses (Score:5, Insightful)
Golf courses use about 130,000 gallons per day per course. They should be among the first to curtail their water usage during drought conditions.
Lawn irrigation a close second, which is already a thing in some places.
=Smidge=
and ban caddie independent contractors (Score:2)
and ban caddies as independent contractors so they can get UA when the golf courses are forced to shut down.
More Than Climate Change (Score:5, Informative)
I understand that it's convenient (especially for California) to blame climate change for the water woes of the West, but the problem has existed for FAR longer than most (especially California) would care to believe. Water Education Colorado [1] has a good article about the 2019 Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan, which includes this "fun" fact (bolding by me):
As Eric Kuhn and John Fleck write in their new book, “Science Be Dammed: How Ignoring Inconvenient Science Drained the Colorado River,” even during compact negotiations in the 1920s, records showed the river’s annual flows were lower than the total 17.5 million acre-feet allocated to the seven states and Mexico. In fact, three different studies during the 1920s estimated natural river flows at Lee Ferry at between 14.3 million acre-feet and 16.1 million acre-feet. Planners chose to ignore that information, Fleck says, and with it, they ignored convincing evidence showing the basin regularly experienced long periods of drought.
In other words, the original compact allocated about 110-120% of the estimated natural river flows at the time... in the 1920s!
Now add in the fact that "in the lower basin, California, Nevada and Arizona have long overused their share of the river," [1] and "for many years, California has depended on surplus water [from Nevada's and Arizona's apportionment] to meet its water needs—and to supplement its basic apportionment of 4.4 million acre-feet per year" [2; from 2001] and you start to question, what exactly did we expect to happen?!
The water allocated exceeded the river flow FROM THE BEGINNING IN THE 1920s! The Lower Basin has overused their water for DECADES! And California has lived on (literally) borrowed water for DECADES! Anybody working with water in the West who didn't foresee what is currently transpiring is blind, incompetent, corrupt... or all three. And that's why they're all pointing the finger at the convenient villain of climate change instead of themselves.
[1] https://www.watereducationcolo... [watereduca...lorado.org]
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
Too hard to change (Score:2)
If you're an official in the water sector, what do you do? The most you can do is whinge at politicians, whose motivation is to keep the show on the road for their constituents. Is a politician going to propose the necessary cuts when there's, very visibly, a whole dam full of water?
It would be nice to identify individuals here to blame. Sadly I don't think we can do so; all we can do is try to make sure the rational changes are implemented going forward.
Perpetual growth is foolish (Score:4, Insightful)
Manage growth or resource constraints will manage it for you.
Arguments... (Score:2)
The arguments surrounding this particular issue are amusing... everyone has a point of view but they are all having the wrong argument.
This issue is macro not micro. Decisions at a state level mean nothing, won't mitigate the problem, and the problem will only get worse even if carbon emissions are cut to zero.
There will be less water in a lot of areas.
The macro solution is to move agriculture out of those states and use the vacant land to gather solar energy. This way the farmers still get an income from t
Re: (Score:2)
nonsense, the problem is only of needing water to keep farming in the dessert. Perfect application for solar desalinization by new low cost methods.
it's all an engineering problem, nothing more.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You should seek to understand the problem before presenting a solution and saying that everyone else is wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless I understand the problem and everybody else IS wrong.
Long past time for nuclear desalination plants (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to start building nuclear fission powered desalination plants. We needed to start decades ago. The problem will only get worse until people wise up to the solution and act on it.
We will build more nuclear power plants in the USA because we ran out of options. It's that or energy poverty, water shortages, food shortages, and generally quality of life taking a dive. That is assuming you survive.
We need to build things. This is a supply problem, not a demand problem.
Re: (Score:2)
The desalinization plant doesn't even need to be fission powered. We have all those spent nuclear fuel rods that are generating a lot of heat due to isotope decay.
If you put the focus on producing just usable water and not electricity the whole game changes. By setting up the right conditions you don't need a high heat differential, you can boil water at room temperature by reducing the air pressure on it. The OTEC [wikipedia.org] system only needs about 20 C to produce fresh water and electricity.
A modified OTEC that
Re: (Score:3)
The desalinization plant doesn't even need to be fission powered.
Yes, they do. Anything else and California will keep having energy shortages, pollution problems, or wildfires which I guess is just repeating the issue of air pollution.
We have all those spent nuclear fuel rods that are generating a lot of heat due to isotope decay.
Those "spent" fuel rods contain a lot of useful fuel yet, and many useful isotopes. We'd be far better of reprocessing the fuel.
Reprocess the spent fuel and concentrate the "waste" isotopes and you could get higher temperatures and thus greater efficiencies.
If you reprocess the fuels to get the isotopes useful for radio-thermal power then you'd be better off putting that into space exploration, military applications, medical devices, and so much more. Using that fo
Water Rights Adjudication coming next (Score:5, Insightful)
In water rights law, the oldest claims are the strongest claims
If I have a claim for 100,000 acre feet of water per year that dates from 1850
and you have a water rights claim for 10,000 acre feet of water from 1949
I get my water before you get yours.
Federal water managers will cut off water to farmers before they cut off water to cities. However, the majority of time, the farmers have the oldest water rights claims. When it goes to court, the farmers win, and the cities lose.
This results in a situation where the cities have to buy out the claims of the farmers.
Almonds == National Security (Score:2)
The subsidized water lets California farmers squeeze Iran out of the world Almond market turning off one of their few non oil sources of hard currency.
So frame the debate as a matter of national security and use the Corps of Engineers and Military budget to create more water transfer systems. The East of the United States has a surplus of water. Heres an idea - a canal from the Missisippi to the Colorado to transfer excess w
Re: (Score:2)
But of course. Restrictions only apply to the plebs, not the kings.
Re: (Score:2)
The amount of water used by bottled water companies is so trivial in comparison to the size of the drought that it is irrelevant. Triple their water use or cut it to zero, it doesn't make a whit of difference.
This is a non-issue suitable for sound bites calculated to fan outrage.
An acre-foot is 330,000 gallons, and the drought is measured in millions of acre feet..
Re: Cuts for everyone except California of course (Score:2)
The compact was written in a retarded way, Arizona gets fucked long before it impacts California.
Re: (Score:2)
The compact was written in a retarded way, Arizona gets fucked long before it impacts California.
The agreements were written in a "first come, first served" way. The areas that were developed later -- after California was already using Colorado river water-- got permission to divert some of the water, but only secondary rights, after the people who had already been using the water for a generation.
Re: (Score:2)
"and god forbid a speck of dust is allowed to remain on the Bentley."
Bentley? You show your age, they drive a Model S nowadays.
Re: (Score:2)
Model S is not a Bentley, it's a luxury wannabe.
Re: (Score:2)
Most Bentley owners have a chauffeur. They ride around in luxury.
Model S is not a Bentley, it's a luxury wannabe.
More like immature luxury. When Model S grows up, it will be a chauffeur.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess I missed something but how exactly is going nuclear going to help with a drought?
I assume that you are trying to reference that nuclear doesn't contribute CO2 to the atmosphere thus helping to limit climate change but I think at this point that is too little too late. Building nuclear power plants now isn't going to miraculously make the Colorado River basin flush with water.