I heard another person saying California needs to cut farming to save water

[ripcord]

California produces almost 70% of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S., the next highest producing state is Washington with 8%, who exactly is going to make up the difference?

[Tree Lady]

1. I have better idea outlaw lawns

And give credits for drought resistant plants to take its place.

[roamer65]

2. +1000

[riverbendviewgal]

3. I agree

I always thought lawns a waste of water.

[roamer65]

5. Even in Michigan, with our abundance of fresh water...

I never water my lawn.

Waste of water and money.

[moonshinegnomie]

8. im looking to xeriscape my yard in texas

i planned to do it this year until i had to replace my AC

[roamer65]

14. Smart move.

A lawn should reflect the climate around it, IMO.

[ProfessorGAC]

25. Same Here

We live in a town with a river running through it and we never water the grass or bushes.
The tomato, pepper plants & herbs, plus some potted flowers on the deck.
The rest we rely on rain.

[Wolf Frankula]

28. Lawns are a waste of water

time, energy and money.

Wolf

[Tree Lady]

72. I said that after I read a flyer

From water company of how much of the bill in summer months is watering the lawn.

We took most of ours out in backyard and have small amount in front. I would like none but hubby does landscaping.

[Mosby]

84. Lawns and vegetation have a cooling effect in neighborhoods.

Thus saving electricity and lowering GG emissions.

[Wolf Frankula]

90. Trees are better.

Wolf

[Mariana]

92. No one suggests doing away with all vegetation.

There are plenty of plants that don't require as much water to stay healthy and look good.

[maveric]

6. And golf courses.

[jimfields33]

11. And get rid of avocados and almonds.

They take too much water and not worth it. We as a society can and should live without them.

[AlexSFCA]

20. we absolutely should not live w/o almonds and avocados

[jimfields33]

57. Sorry. But you are going to have to sacrifice the most environmental destructive

Goodies. Just life.

[Mysterian]

123. Twice as much water is required to produce a pound of beef than a pound of almonds

https://waterfootprint.org/en/water-footprint/product-water-footprint/water-footprint-crop-and-animal-products/

[jimfields33]

10. HOAs need overhaul

There is no way my HOA would allow anything beyond grass. Our grass is always needing water. We can water twice a week.

[Mariana]

98. Once upon a time when I lived in Texas during a bad drought

the municipalities in the area laid down some serious limits on outdoor watering, complete with serious fines. Meanwhile, a bunch of the HOA's were fining people for letting their lawns go dormant and turn brown, because their idiotic rules required that the lawns remain green at all times, with no exceptions for things like, you know, watering restrictions during a severe drought. I believe the state stepped in and made a law to rein in the HOA's.

[LoisB]

19. This. My yard (front and back) is brown and d-e-a-d, there are at least four houses on my block

with pristine, green, well-watered lawns (not fake grass). Some people care, some don't.

[KentuckyWoman]

27. Oh I agree 100%

Not just in the west either. Everywhere. Everyplace has something that will grow well in the native climate to keep soil in place, and certainly out west there are plenty of rocks.

[Takket]

42. absolutely!!!!!!!

I was just watching a sprinkler system dropping water on brown grass that had died in the heat and thinking, WTF is the point of this????????? Other than people thinking a lush green lawn looks nice, it contributes nothing..........

[ChazII]

132. A credit for desert landscaping

would be nice. Most of the homes in my neighborhood have had desert lawns since the 1990's.

[moonshinegnomie]

7. its not so much the farming as it it was they grow

for instance california is one of the largest rice growing states.
rice requires a huge amount of water

[ripcord]

13. So who is going to pickup the production of the 5 billion pounds of rice California produces?

We could very well have another import crisis like during the pandemic, do you want to depend on that supply line to keep the country fed? California produces by far the majority of rice and almost all the sushi rice in the U.S., try talking some of the eastern states with plenty of water into growing 550,000 acres of rice and see how that works out for you.

[Trailrider1951]

24. Actually, Arkansas produces the most rice in the USA

along with Texas (gulf coast near Houston), southwestern Louisiana, southeastern Missouri, and western Mississippi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_production_in_the_United_States#/media/File:2010_US_rice_production.svg

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_production_in_the_United_States

It makes sense to grow it there because of the abundance of fresh water and natural rainfall. It makes no sense to me to grow it in California.

[LeftInTX]

128. But CA is second

From the map, it appears rice is grown in wetlands

In Texas, it is grown in the Colorado River.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

36. Exactly.

Almonds and other crops that require lots of water should be reduced or eliminated in such a climate too.

There's plenty of crops that don't require so much water, including seeds that could replace almonds nutrition-wise.

[sanatanadharma]

9. Cotton and almonds are no longer viable dry clime crops

Water melons are probably not the best fruit choice.
Rice will be reduced.
Mono-cropping hurts communities.

[jimfields33]

12. Don't for get the water sucking evil avocado

Those need dropped today!!!!!

[AlexSFCA]

22. never! avocado haters

[jimfields33]

58. I actually like them but I know they destroy the environment as well.

[AlexSFCA]

82. wrong, people destroy the environment not avocados

[LeftInTX]

129. Avocados need alot of water

[Sympthsical]

66. They may take my life

But they will never take my toast!

[Rstrstx]

85. Avocados can be grown in Florida

The problem is they’re not Hass, they are usually smoother and larger, and everyone and their dog usually want Hass or nothing. Florida and Texas can also pick up the slack on citrus (so can Arizona but they have similar water shortages), they’re not as pretty as the pristine looking navel oranges that come out of CA but they taste fine.

[Lil Liberal Laura]

15. Naw

Just cut Los Angeles! Do it with Phoenix and Vegas too, while you're at it.

[roamer65]

16. With Mead and Powell drying up, life in the Southwest is going get a LOT more "interesting" soon.

…and it won’t involve water diversion from the Great Lakes either.

[SWBTATTReg]

43. Or channeling water from the Mississippi River either. I've heard of such crazy schemes before,

and in a way they sound logical, but extremely pricey, and the upper Missouri already has rather large reservoirs so I'm not really sure what one can do.

Perhaps more reservoirs or giant tank farms to help channel the Spring flood waters into, and then pump to the West, at a premium charge, might as well make some money (the midwestern States) on water, like others selling oil, grains, etc., the Midwest has water.

This would possibly eliminate costly flooding (but still allow some flood as they say that the annual floods do provide some benefits). This would be a major, major effort but we did build the Interstate Highway System across the USA, perhaps doing the same for flood waters could be done. For those that object to the cost, the cost of building all of the flood barriers, the levees, etc. has got to be in the 10s of billions of dollars, the flood control dams on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers also cost billions and billions of dollars.

Ironically, the water is being discharged into the Gulf of Mexico, one could park giant container ships (similar to those carrying oil or other liquids) and then sail to a port on the West Coast, discharge their cargos. You would have to have an awful lot of ships doing this back and forth to probably even make a dent in their water requirements.

A question I have is that with all of the money California has, why don't they have more desalination plants on the West Coast? Perhaps doing this is a huge energy hog and would cost too much.

Even something as simple as just having 100 tanker trucks carrying water from the discharge points of the two rivers may seem workable.

Ha ha heh...I'm sure that many far more compentent people (engineers, etc.) have looked into this issue, and perhaps even in Congress, studies may have been done to analyze options like these.

[roamer65]

46. IMO...California shouldn't decommission Diablo Canyon NPP.

Refurbish it and use its power for desalinization operations.

[Hekate]

95. Do you live close by?

[roamer65]

96. Desalination requires a lot of energy.

How do propose to do it?

[Hekate]

99. How do you propose to pipe the wet stuff from the shore to the mountains? We are a mountainous

… state. Big mountains.

Desal would work for some coastal communities — maybe. But for the whole state, I think geology is against you.

Speaking of geology: what do you propose to do about the earthquake fault lines? Like I said, their are mutiples, not just San Andreas. We haven’t even had The Big One yet.

[ripcord]

116. If Los Angeles could provide enough deslanization

They could stop taking water from the Owens Valley which would open up the farming lost when L.A. hijacked their water. Also they could very well pump desalinized water to farming areas since L.A. already pumps a huge amount of water over the mountains from north of Death Valley for their use we know it can be done.

[hunter]

117. The Los Angeles Aqueduct is a gravity fed system, no pumps.

The water actually generates electricity as it flows from an elevation of 3,760 feet in the Owens Valley to the Los Angeles Basin.

[ripcord]

119. The water is pumped over the Tejon Pass of the San Gabriel Mountains

Regardless it is time for Los Angeles to be responsible for supplying their own water through desalinization rather than taking it from other parts of the state that don't have it to spare. I find it strange that the reason the desalinization plants aren't being built is environmental concerns but there were no such concerns when Owens Lake was drained and at one point was the largest ecological disaster in the country along with the largest source of PM-10 dust.

[hunter]

121. Southern California is supplied by three major aqueducts...

-- the Los Angeles Aqueduct which runs downhill along the Eastern Sierra from the Owens Valley in a manner that wouldn't have been unfamiliar to ancient Roman engineers.

-- the California Aqueduct which runs uphill along the Eastern Coastal range, and is filled with water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

-- the Colorado River Aqueduct which transports water west from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu near the California Arizona border, to water consumers mostly at similar elevations.

The California Aqueduct is pumped up and over the Tejon Pass.

Personally I think the largest ecological catastrophe in California was the draining of Tulare Lake and surrounding land in California's Central Valley. The draining of Lake Owens comes close.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake

I tend to feel for the Native Americans who suffered these displacements and genocides, the survivors witnessing their verdant lands destroyed. I don't have so much sympathy for the ranchers and farmers who came later.

My own ancestors were Wild West ranchers, dairy farmers, and miners who always had a soft spot for the Native Americans and treated them with good Christian charity and employment, but it somehow never occurred to them they could restore and return the land. The reason I'm not a rancher, dairy farmer, or miner is that three of my grandparents didn't much like cows and one didn't much like mining. My parents met as artists with day jobs working in Hollywood. Three out of four of my grandparents loved Hollywood. The other was simply insane but a damned fine welder, a knack she acquired building and repairing ships for the Merchant Marine during World War II.

DU's NNadir has an audacious scheme to restore all of California's lakes and rivers to something resembling a natural state using nuclear powered supercritical water desalinization.

That would be a hell of a thing ― Engineer Fred Kwan, Galaxy Quest

I'm not being sarcastic.

[ripcord]

122. The reason Owens Lakes was one of the worst disasters was that was a saline lake

Now that is has dried up there are all kinds of dust pollutants that enter the air. Until the state forced Los Angeles to remediate a small part of the damage they did the locals were dealing with hacking coughs and bloody noses from the lake bed dust. They had to seal their windows with tape and bring the kids inside for their health when the wind blew because they would get whiteouts of dust mixed with arsenic and cadmium. Some of us always remember that the Los Angeles aqueduct was formed at the cost of an ecological disaster and health emergency for the locals but of course they weren't important.

Communities along the Owens River are considering using imminent domain to take back some of the land and water rights for the good of the area where they originate. This could be very tough on Los Angeles since they import almost 85% of their water.

[hunter]

124. I'm sorry. You can't embrace the "American Dream" and expect your masters won't ask you to relocate.

That's the fundamental problem.

In China when they tell you have to move you move.

We only pretend it's not the same here.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who largely vote against their own self interests.

Republican U.S.A. is nuts. Republican California is even nuttier.

We can have all the water we need if we do the science and engineering.

Praying for rain and living in the past, drowning in grievances, won't accomplish anything.

I want to see Owens Lake full. How do we accomplish that?

[ripcord]

125. Los Angeles builds enough desalanization plants to be self sufficient

Importing 85% of your water with the global warming facing California is a long term recipe for disaster. It would also help if people along the coast learned to conserve water, I live in the high desert and before the illegal pots farms came in and started stealing water we could live off our aquifer and have it refill every year. People along the Southern California Coast seem to think that water will always magically appear out of the taps, in 2021 Los Angles used 25% more water than in 2020, that is just stupidity.

[Chuuku Davis]

131. Nukes

Are the best solution.

[JanMichael]

17. Almonds and pistachios are a problem.

And here are the top ten crops for water usage per acre:

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 fruits (applies, apricots, walnuts, cherries, peaches, nectarines, pears, plums, prunes, figs, kiwis), 3.7 acre feet per acre
Cotton, 3.67 acre feet per acre
Onions and garlic, 2.96 acre feet per acre
Potatoes, 2.9 acre feet per acre
Vineyards (table, raisin and wine grapes), 2.85 acre feet per acre

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/specialsections/these-are-the-california-crops-that-use-the-most-water/#:~:text=Cotton%2C%203.67%20acre%20feet%20per,2.85%20acre%20feet%20per%20acre

Need to move away from almond milk to oat and other options. Also I think hemp is pretty high water intensive growing.

Good article on milk substitutes.

https://thebeet.com/youve-ditched-dairy-but-which-plant-based-milk-is-best-for-the-environment/

[ripcord]

18. Lets face it

The real problem in California is huge cities built and constantly expanding without an adequate water supply.

[JanMichael]

21. That's true as well. It isn't any one thing. And ultimately it may depopulate.

I stopped buying almond milk a while back just to not contribute to the issue.

But there are way too many people there and with climate change who knows what will happen to water and electricity there (and just about everywhere else) in 20-30 years.

My hope is that the AI overlords at least feed us decently in the pods that create for us.

[ripcord]

23. People have been joking about the suggestion of building a pipeline from the Mississippi to Cali

I wonder how silly that suggestion will seem in a decade?

[A HERETIC I AM]

38. A pipeline won't do it.

It would require an aqueduct on the order of the California aqueduct, only larger. And it needs to be pumped over the Continental Divide, not all the way to California. As long as it flows into the Colorado River, the rest of the infrastructure is pretty much there.

We need a comprehensive flood control and water capture system in the east so that excess water can be moved over the Rockies and fill lakes Powell and Mead again.

It can be done and it should be done, or tens of millions of our fellow Americans are going to be water starved.

[hunter]

49. Pumping water thousands of miles and up over 4,000 foot mountains...

... requires huge amounts of energy and materials.

For lower elevations desalinization is the more practical option, even to places like Phoenix or Las Vegas.

Higher elevation places like Salt Lake City are simply out of luck. First the surrounding farms will dry up as water is diverted to the more politically powerful cities, and then the cities themselves will have to implement very stringent water conservation and recycling measures.

[A HERETIC I AM]

64. It does require a lot of energy, but the idea is not insurmountable.

As I indicated in another post, California already pumps water up over a half mile. What’s another 1500 feet?

I agree with you re: SLC, however.

My brother and I have joked in the past that when Brigham Young first saw the Great Salt Lake from atop the Wasatch Range and (probably) told his followers “Eureka! We have found our paradise!” (Or whatever he said) he had no idea the lake was unusable for anything but brine shrimp and table salt. They got all the way down there, tasted the water and said “Shit! I guess we’ll have to rely on those rivers!”

Those rivers are not flowing enough any longer to feed the people AND keep the lake full.

[hunter]

73. California recovers a lot of that energy on the downside.

Water is pumped up the mountains when electricity is inexpensive, and it flows down the other side of the mountain generating electricity when electricity is expensive. This reduces overall energy costs quite considerably. There are several parts of the system that work as pumped storage as well.

The Castaic Power Plant is one example:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castaic_Power_Plant

[roamer65]

50. It isn't coming from the Great Lakes basin.

That I will guarantee you.

I’ll support ANY means to stop it.

[A HERETIC I AM]

59. Money trumps EVERYTHING in this country.

If there is a monetary need large enough to justify such a project, you can bet your ass it will happen.

Whether your “any means to stop it” is effective or not.

Not to mention there is plenty of water elsewhere to capture. But believe this, if there is a need large enough, you would be able to walk from Chicago straight over to Benton Harbor.

[roamer65]

65. Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.

As the old saying goes…

https://www.michiganradio.org/environment-science/2015-04-23/here-are-2-reasons-why-the-drought-in-california-wont-open-the-door-to-great-lakes-water

[A HERETIC I AM]

69. No doubt!

I’ve long thought about this problem, frankly.

Remember just a couple weeks ago the massive flooding in Yellowstone? Fucked up the roads so bad they had to close the Northern entrances? That’s the Yellowstone river, which flows into the Missouri.

Every river and stream floods occasionally. We just have no way to benefit from what are usually tragic events.

What if there were diversionary aqueducts and reservoirs to capture all that extra water and send it where it’s needed?

Flat level aqueducts that could flow either direction, depending on which end the pumps were running could be constructed. The technology exists to bore tubes through mountain ranges large enough to carry an entire rivers worth of water.

I realize I’m talking about what would be one of the, if not THE largest public works projects in history, and getting people on board would be a major issue, but you know who would do it at the drop of a hat?

The Chinese. They have the will and the money and if they needed such a system, they would just fucking build it.

We built the Interstate Highway System. We could build this. But we likely won’t, because Rockwell and General Dynamics and Raytheon and Northrop Grumman and Lockheed have to get theirs first, and the rest of us can go fuck ourselves.

[JanMichael]

75. You are correct about China. They would just build it. Us though? Nope.

Never going to happen the way we are organized as a country now.

[former9thward]

86. The Interstate Highway system was built before the era of environmental permitting.

It could never be built now.

[former9thward]

87. So is food.

You can keep your water and we will keep our food. We will see who wins. I did not look at your link but no one in the SW seriously wants Great Lakes water. Please don't link to crackpot ideas that someone has. But people in the upper Midwest and NE do seriously want our food. Cut them off and problem solved because not as much water will be needed for food production.

[roamer65]

89. We grow food here as well...duh.

And we have the water to do it, soon you won’t.

The ideal climate for growing is shifting northward. Michigan is soon to be very prime agricultural real estate.

We lived without California until 1850 and we could do it now as well.

[former9thward]

94. Fine, eat it.

CA and the SW in general did fine before the U.S. invaded. We can do well now without it. The predictions about running out of water "soon" go back before I was born and still have not come true.

[shrike3]

81. I second that. n/t

[KentuckyWoman]

30. From a dietary standpoint Almond milk is so useful.

I can't do oat milk, too high in carbs. Coconut milk shoots my cholesterol up. Soy milk doesn't agree with me. If I am going to avoid cows and still eat things that need milk - then almond milk is the ticket. It is already getting pretty expensive so soon I'll either just give up anything that likes milk or switch back to skim dairy.

Eventually, we need to get out of factory farming. Eat local. Give up the big lawns and put in food gardens. For those with no time or interest in a backyard garden there are actually people who you can hire to run your garden and it's easier to find them if multiple people in the neighborhood contract together.

[former9thward]

88. The only way to feed 330 million people is "factory farming" as you call it.

It can't be done by amateurs digging up their lawns.

[Pobeka]

61. This is not helpful metric.

The question is really how much production of crop do you get for the water used?

For a simple made up example, If it turns out you can grow 1lb of almonds with 100 lbs of water, but you can grow 2 lbs of pistachioes with 100 lbs of water then you might want to favor pistachio production.

Ultimately, the question wouldn't be lbs of product per lbs of water, but nutrition content perl lb of water.

I couldn't read the original link because it's dead (for me at least), so I don't know if it addressed this important aspect of the problem.

As for the vege-milk substitutes, I read an article a few months ago which pointed out the vege-based milks do not provide the same (or enough) nutrition as true dairy based milk. The article as I recall was written by a dietician. There are more recent articles about malnourished children caused by parents whoe think vege-based milk is a 1-1 substitute for dairy based milk.

[JanMichael]

74. Problem with "milk" is cows and and their crap. Not to mention the trucks that moooove them.

Millions and millions of them for people to use for whatever they think is their gawd given bounty.

But "enough" nutrition? I guess if that is all one consumed, sure. But it typically isn't. We use veggie "milk" to replace "milk" in cooking (sauces), protein shakes, oatmeal and cereals. Like vegan cooking oil as opposed to lard.

[hunter]

78. You are ignoring meat and dairy.

The factory farm meat and dairy industry in California want you to ignore them and will always point to almonds and pistachios first.

Hey, look over there!

Pasture, silage, alfalfa... that's all cows. A gallon of almond milk requires less much less water to produce than a gallon of cows milk, and almond trees cause much less damage to the natural environment.

They dairy industry is terrified people will quit seeing cheap milk and hamburger as necessities.

Many people in my own family already have. I don't even remember the last time I bought a gallon of milk or pound of factory farm cow burger -- it was at least fifteen years ago.

[JanMichael]

80. I agree completely in the aggregate. I am a vegetarian 15 years

For many reasons with the environmental damage of cows being one of them.

That does not diminish the extreme almond issue. I should have said cows and cannabis too though.

Edit - the real answer is that there are too many humans. Ugh so malthusian

[womanofthehills]

118. Both almonds & oats have some of the highest glyphosate levels

Would not suggest those drinks for anyone unless organic esp with the report that just came out saying glyphosate is in most everyone’s urine.

[AKwannabe]

26. People used to grow their own food and preserve

This can happen again.
CA is using too much water.

[Zeitghost]

76. People growing their own food is not an option

We would use more inputs (water, fertilizer, fuel, etc.) and grow less food. For all its faults, industrial agriculture is much more efficient and feeds the world.

[Hekate]

97. Sure. While our landscaping is being allowed to die, & our water usage is being scrutinized...

… by the folks who bill us — absolutely we will all start farming our bits of tract housing.
Riiiiiight.

[niyad]

120. Exactly how do you suggest that people in apartments, condos, urban

centers, do this?

[mopinko]

29. the problem is- use it or loose it. arcane water laws.

here's a great explainer-

[Mr.Bill]

31. When it comes to wasting water, two words:

Las Vegas. And they produce nothing but entertainment. At least california is producing much of the nation's food.

[roamer65]

48. That is 💯 true.

Water and power.

[Mr.Bill]

51. Power that is somewhat reliant on water. n/t

[roamer65]

52. Yes, or on fossil fuels.

[bluecollar2]

111. Actually Las Vegas uses much less

Water than you think. The video in the post above yours is very informative

[Sogo]

32. Nobody on this thread mentioned de-salination?

There's plenty of water in the west; just need to put more desalination technology in place.

[Mr.Bill]

34. Some of that is happening,

but it's incredibly costly and an ecological problem of where to dump the salt that is removed from the water. It will be harmful to marine life if you dump enough of it. There is a huge fishing industry on the west coast that could be damaged. We don't even know enough about it yet.

The other problem is there is a mountain range between the ocean and where the crops are grown and the cost of moving water over a mountain range would be astronomical to construct and operate.

[A HERETIC I AM]

45. California already moves water over mountain ranges.

Where do you think the water used in LA comes from? How about Palm Springs?

I used to live on Palmdale, CA and one branch of the CA Aqueduct flows right through there, 2600’ above sea level. That water comes from the aqueduct that flows down the Central Valley, and the point where it begins to be pumped upward is near Wheeler Ridge, and the elevation there is at 955’

Search Google Images for “California Aqueduct pumped over the grapevine”



It can be done, it has been done and it isn’t “astronomical” in cost.

[Mr.Bill]

47. I'm not saying it's impossible,

but it's a massive project with huge costs.

[A HERETIC I AM]

54. I'm not sure where you live, or if you have ever been to the San Francisco Bay Area...

But I think you are forgetting an important part of California geography;

The Sacramento River.

You said in your post above;

The other problem is there is a mountain range between the ocean and where the crops are grown and the cost of moving water over a mountain range would be astronomical to construct and operate.

That mountain range has a bloody great big hole in it where the Sacramento and the San Joaquin rivers flow into Suisun Bay and then the San Francisco Bay.

So you don’t have to pump it up and over the Coast Ranges. Just through the opening!

[Mr.Bill]

62. I grew up in the SF Bay Area.

That water is flowing the wrong direction to get water from the ocean to the valley. So you are still talking about building massive pipelines through some of the most expensive real estate in the world. And we haven't even begun to talk about environmental considerations.

The Sites Reservoir project I mentioned elsewhere has been at least a decade long battle with enviornmental interests before the first shovel can hit the dirt.

Sometime I think the California Acqueduct, an engineering marvel to be sure, should have never been built. Maybe then tens of millions of people wouldn't have doubled the population of Caifornia in 60 years. But back then the thinking was was if we can build it, then we must. In hindsight, maybe not a good thing.

[Mr.Bill]

53. But that's fresh water.

Not water you had to build plants to desalinate. That's where much of the costs come in.

[ripcord]

35. They recently tried to get a permit to build one in Huntington Beach

It was backed by Governor Newsom but was rejected by the California Coastal Commission. There is one small plant operating on the San Diego coastline.

[Mr.Bill]

39. Yes. I think we need to do more work

on what to do with the salt and what it does to the ocean.

That plant in San Diego cost a billion dollars and is expected to produce 10% of the residential water consumption. Kind of give one a picture of how big of a project it would be to produce enough water to run the crops in the central valley.

Another solution is more water storage, as in reservoirs. They are soon going to build one in Northern California called the Sites Reservoir. Of course, that still requires precipitation to fill it, but when we do have more rainfall some years we could store more of it for the dry years.

Of course, this all means nothing if we go into a 1,000 year drought and not much rain at all falls. And we can read tree rings and tell that has happened before.

[ripcord]

41. It really bothers me to see how much water runs into the ocean from the cement lined rivers in Cali

It would be nice if we had reservoirs along them to save what rain water we do get, because they are lined with cement none of that runoff even percolates into the aquifer.

[Hekate]

105. LA Times periodically gives an update on the project to restore the LA River to an actual habitat

It will take years and years, but the difference in the parts they’ve already done is amazing. The engineering involves treating it as a riparian ecosystem and not a concrete flood control channel racing to the sea. Wildlife returns, water supports wildlife and plants, and some of the water soaks down to become groundwater.

[hunter]

40. Desalinated water is too expensive for farming.

Burning fossil fuels to desalinate water is insane because this will only make global warming worse.

Aggressive renewable energy schemes in places like California, Denmark, and Germany have failed because they are entirely dependent on natural gas for their economic viability. The consequences of this have been especially dire in Germany, which is still dependent on Russian natural gas.

The only feasible fossil fuel free energy source for desalinization is nuclear power.

[AntiFascist]

71. Santa Barbara's desalination plant produces 30% of its water, not all communities can afford this nt

[roamer65]

102. Gas or electric?

[AntiFascist]

115. Apparently electric, it increased the city's electric energy costs 50%...

they are considering building one at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The discharge would have less environmental impact and would be powered directly from the plant.

https://energy.stanford.edu/publications/assessment-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-zero-carbon-electricity-desalination-and

[roamer65]

126. No CO2 emissions from it. Good use for the plant.

[hunter]

33. It's not like we'll have any choice.

Nobody can put snow on the mountains. If there's no water for farms, there's no water.

If I had any influence when it came to cutting back water use I'd start with the factory farm meat and dairy industry.

These industries use huge amounts of water, they are bad for the environment, the working conditions are brutal, and the animals are mistreated.

Cheap hamburger and gallon jugs of milk are not human necessities.

[Mr.Bill]

37. As much as I love red meat and cheese,

you are correct. We are damn lucky that producing food without as much water makes for a healthier diet, not the other way around.

[WarGamer]

44. I;m not going to get into this argument...

As a decades long Cali resident... I know how important ag is to the State.





But I'll drop a fact on y'all.




ONE California almond takes 3.2 gallons of water from growth to harvest.

So that pack of Tabasco Almonds in the gas station? Around 100 gallons of water.

[ripcord]

55. Cannabis plants require one gallon of water a day per pound of useable pot

Legal and illegal farms are greatly increasing in number, growing pot in California is incredibly wasteful.

[Hekate]

106. Hence the raids by the Sheriff in San Bernardino County (or is it Riverside? sorry) on desert grows

The illegal grows in the desert are bad news all around.

[ripcord]

108. There was a murder at one illegal grow last week

Along with a U Haul type truck with the back full of totes caught filling them up from a fire hydrant without a meter or back flow device.

[Hekate]

109. Not surprising, I'm sorry to say. These are dangerous, lawless, people...

When I joined my fellow Californians in voting to legalize pot, I thought the gangsters aka the Mexican Mafia would fade away. I’m sorry I was wrong — I guess there is just way too much money to be made from doing it illegally, and they really don’t give a rip about the damage they do to the desert or the forests.

[Mr.Bill]

56. True. I've heard one gallon, but even that is huge.

It was a bad crop choice for California. And being a tree rather than a crop that goes from seed to edible food in months, like tomatoes, it's a long term investment, and not easily switched. I've driven the length of California's central valley, and I have seen areas where sections of almond orchards have been left to die. This tells me some farmers are making the change, acre by acre.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

60. I have personally stopped buying almond products...

... for a few years now, after realizing they need so much water and they're mostly grown in California.

They need a lot of sunlight too, which is the only good match for California at this point.

[Mr.Bill]

63. I stopped buying them because of the cost. n/t

[roamer65]

68. That is what eventually will stop people from buying them and many other things.

Inflation.

Higher inflation just may save this planet, yet.



🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

[LeftInTX]

130. I never liked them until I had almond milk..LOL

They aren't very flavorful.

I think they can grow in cool climates like Washington just fine

[Sympthsical]

67. Fortunately, Blue Diamond worked hard to ruin theirs

I used to buy their Smokehouse variety occasionally at Costco. So good. Almost addictive.

A few years ago, they suddenly decided to salt the hell out of them. I bought a bag about six months ago just to see how all that was going, and they were worse than ever. It's literally just a mouthful of salt to the point of being inedible. I tried shaking them through a strainer, and it didn't really help.

So they made that whole choice very easy.

Plus they're just expensive anyway. I think I saw $16/bag last grocery shop.

[ripcord]

70. California should just start exporting its excess to other countries rather than the other states

They will get a better price and since the rest of the country doesn't want to help they can find other sources for agriculture or find ways to grow their own.

[Mariana]

77. How is that going to solve the water shortage? nt.

[Hekate]

100. We do. Other countries look on us not as Silicon Valley, but as an agricultural resource...

See what you are learning today?

Last discussion we had here about the Feckless Sins of California, we were told to just stop that exportation nonsense.

[roamer65]

101. In 20 years we will be growing a LOT more in the Great Lakes basin.

Washington State will as well if the water is there.

It’s guaranteed with the coming CO2 levels.

[beaglelover]

79. At least cut out almond farming.

Way too much water required.

[Mosby]

83. Maybe somewhere where it rains more.

Just a thought.

[roamer65]

91. Yeah, in my area of Michigan we had a absolute downpour yesterday in my area.

Ground was dry and absorbed over an inch of rain overnight.

[Hekate]

93. I get sick of this argument. Too many people are blissfully ignorant about what California gives...

… to the rest of the nation, and want to tell us to stop doing whatever it is we are doing because they got a sudden bug in their brain. There’s even someone in this thread insisting we need to keep nuclear reactors going — and I have to ask — haven’t you noticed that the whole damn state is on a myriad of fault lines, just like Fukushima?! That is no accident — both Japan and California are part of what is called the Pacific Ring of Fire.

[hunter]

107. Fukushima was a very expensive accident but not an especially deadly one.

How many people did the tsunami itself kill? Maybe we shouldn't build cities by the ocean.

In any case gas is the energy source that will destroy the natural world as we know it, and likely our civilization as well.

Natural gas is worse than coal in a lot of ways, largely because most people think it's clean and it supports their renewable energy fantasies. It's not any better than coal.

21st century nuclear power plants designs are not comparable to Fukushima, just as Fukushima was not comparable to Chernobyl.

I know California very well. I was born here, I went to school here, and I've lived here for all but five years of my life. (I'm in my sixties) Homes that belonged to my great grandparents, and my great great grandparents still stand in San Francisco.

I've changed my mind about nuclear power, even since I first signed onto DU. I've posted about it in my journal here, for example:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=16322854

I protested the construction of Diablo Canyon. Now I think it's foolish to shut it down. At least half the electricity Diablo Canyon now produces will be replaced with fossil fuel power, no matter how many solar panels or wind turbines we build.

[Hekate]

110. Well, at least you are here and have a nuanced view. Thank you for your input.

[AntiFascist]

127. I also think it should be kept going and we live in one of the PEZ zones of Diablo Canyon...

not one of the closest danger zones but we have a supply of Iodine pills just in case.

[Meowmee]

103. Where we are there is no water shortage, I can only remember one period in many years

But I almost never water the grass anyway. We let it dry out in the summer. It saves a lot of effort and lowers the water bill.

[riverbendviewgal]

104. I bought a freehold townhouse and

Took the front and back yards grass out. I put in the front red landscaping rock with evergreen shrubs that looks like cactus (to me) and it had a maple tree (I'm in Canada). The back was divided in 3s. The walkout deck, then grey pebble and patio stone for the umbrella table and chairs. The back 3rd was all perrenials. I did not water and of course did not mow.

When I moved up north I had 2 acres along a river. The land was like Field. I never watered, just cut the grass on a ride on mower to keep the bugs under control. I had gardens which were hard work. I saved rain water for them. I had a gushing 176 ft well. I was blessed.

[bluecollar2]

112. I'm a farmer and I've been reading this thread with interest

I went to high school and college in San Francisco and spent many years after that living in California before my former career caused me to move out of the state.

Before I lived in California i lived in a town called San Juan on the Peruvian coastline just a little south of Nazca. That town is in the Atacama desert. One of the most arid regions on earth. In my entire time I lived there I do not remember one day of rain...ever, so I know a little about water and lack of it...but I digress.

Lots of interesting perspectives in this thread but nobody who actually farms has responded yet so I think I'll chime in now with my $.02.

I currently live just north of Homestead, Florida so lack of water is not an issue. I have 3 wells on the property...two supply irrigation water to the farm and 1 supplies water to the house.

Because my farm is next to the everglades there is a constant supply of water, do much so that as a grower my concern is water tables that can get too high.

I don't have a California farmers problems but I think there needs to be a radical change in how the water is used out west.

California has some of the most efficient farming practices in the world today. Granted, some crops use more water than others but that's part of the process.

Perhaps one solution is to increase water rates for non essential use....specifically swimming pools, water parks, golf courses etc.

Another might be to lower property taxes on properties that are xeriscaped.

Ban new development that uses grass in its landscaping and require planting of drought tolerant trees and vegetation.

Set up new building codes that separate gray water from sewage.

Yes, growers use a lot of water but refining our approach on how to use it needs to be objectively assesed.

As to the crops...any discussion has to involve s discussion about the most important factor of all...the impact on the honeybee population.

Eliminate almond groves and you're creating a hell of a problem for other crops. Almond trees don't flower year round so the honeybees have to move around.

Most of what you consume is pollinated by honeybees.

As to avocados...don't even think about it....lol.

I

[hunter]

113. A lot of the solutions you discuss for California are already being implemented.

Lawns are rapidly being removed in many places and grants are available to do it. At this point most of my neighbors have quit the traditional "keeping up with the Joneses" lawns.

Since 2009 gray water systems are legal and don't require a permit if they conform to certain regulations that are not especially difficult.

https://greywateraction.org/requirements-for-no-permit-systems-in-california/

Farmers pay significantly less for water than golf courses and other "non-essential" users.

I've used gray water from our washing machine on and off over the years but I don't bother any more. These days the water that goes down our drains goes to a very sophisticated sewage treatment plant that turns it back into potable and near-potable water, true toilet-to-tap water recycling. Recycling sewage requires much less energy than desalinization.

We have to recognize that aside from fossil fuel use agriculture is one of the most environmentally destructive things humans do. Yes, we all have to eat, but we should strive to minimize agriculture's negative impact on the natural environment, doing our best not to kill off beneficial insect populations, not to pollute waterways, not to contaminate groundwater with nitrates, not to destroy salmon runs, etc., etc..

[bullwinkle428]

114. Thank you for proposing a series of potentially viable solutions!

[Hotler]

133. LTE. 1.3 billion pounds of unsold almonds -- that's a lot of water

https://news.yahoo.com/letters-editor-1-3-billion-100057786.html