Is California ready to desalinate...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

... the Pacific Ocean yet, or do some of their citizens still ponder diverting fresh water from elsewhere?

Photos show the Mississippi River is so low that it's grounding barges, disrupting the supply chain, and revealing a 19th-century shipwreck
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-dry-mississippi-river-waters-ground-barges-reveal-old-shipwreck-2022-10?amp

[TheRealNorth]

1. So much for the idea of pumping water from the Mississippi to the southwest

I mean, I know this is temporary and there will (probably) be plenty of water during the spring thaw.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

2. All I know is that they can't take...

... the water from The Great Lakes.

Kidding about my water greed!

It's not really feasible anyway, not to mention the legal hurdles from every state and Canadian province that formed an alliance to never allow it.

[Xolodno]

11. In California, we actually do "have enough water".

Farms with ridiculous cheap water rates take the lions share of it. I'm going to a family event next week and the place is going to be surrounded...wait for it.....Almond trees. A crop that requires a shit load of water. But they keep growing that because it gives them the most cash. Even after the tree has outlived its usefulness, the wood brings in cash.

Years back on a white water rafting trip in Colorado, someone over heard we were from California and the guy snickered a bit and said we were in a drought. I responded immediately and stated "Yeap, that means your food prices are about to go up". Wiped the smile right of his face.

Farms are shrinking out here, but its still a major economic engine for the state. And many farmers are "stuck in their ways". They think if they don't use all the water they are allocated this year, they will get even less next year, so they don't adopt drip irrigation and other water saving techniques. These guys would be perfectly OK to dam up Yosemite Valley for themselves with out realizing that National Park generates more income for the state than they could ever do. You could point out the fisheries died out because we stopped allowing the rivers to reach the ocean (the Chinook Salmon used to spawn as far south as San Diego)...nope, they don't care.

Meanwhile, to appease them, we build expensive desalinization plants, use recycled water, waterless urinals, etc.

Places like Arizona however, they are fucked. Unless they make a deal with Mexico and dredge out a canal to the Sea of Cortez and create a "sea" (that idea has been discussed to save the Salton Sea, but heard it was shot down, which is weird because there are old dry canals that could be repurposed and even Mexico was on board about doing it as it would also fill one of their dry lake beds).

[former9thward]

16. Your false attacks against farmers are not even close to the truth.

You throw out the smear " These guys would be perfectly OK to dam up Yosemite Valley for themselves with out realizing that National Park generates more income for the state than they could ever do." (Which no one has)

Income from Yosemite: $379 million

https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/news/localbenefits13.htm#:~:text=Yosemite%20National%20Park%20Tourism%20Creates%20Over%20%24379%20Million%20in%20Local%20Economic%20Benefit,-Subscribe%20%7C%20What%20is

Agricultural as part of the CA economy: $51 billion

https://www.cdfa.ca.gov/Statistics/

CA has done very little for water conservation over the years. Toilets are just not going to do it. It needs to build desalination plants -- a few dozen at least. They don't do it because of the "not in my backyard" crowd.

[Xolodno]

17. I have relatives from Bakersfield up to Redding

...to Porterville and they are all farmers. Also all GOP fanatics. I travel the 99 frequently and lost count of the "build more water storage" signs. And I have a good chuckle, "Where?". All other viable sites are Federally protected. The sign that said "Who owns Millerton Lake? The Valley or LA" is finally gone. Sorry, but many farmers up there are not forward thinking, they just want to horde it all, because that's how they have been indoctrinated. Nor do they pay the real cost for that water, no thanks to the Bureau of Reclamation under Floyd Dominy.

Oh and they are hopping mad about letting some water go out to the ocean. I know some were particularly pissed when they dredged out the San Joaquin river because their "grandfather" covered it over for crops (the river stopped flowing in certain areas). Trying to return the third largest Chinook Salmon grounds in California? Restore lakes that were wiped out by damns? Yeah, they don't care.

Good news? Bakersfield, Fresno, Modesto, etc. are all growing and diversifying. So farming is becoming less of an economic engine.

I specialized in Water Resource Economics. I'll keep my own counsel.

[Jack the Greater]

18. Can you back up your claim that Yosemite brings in more income to California than farmers?

I would like to see your numbers.

[Xolodno]

19. Yeah, I didn't address that because its a false comparison.

Is water behind a dam in Yosemite going to help Imperial Valley? Absolutely not. The numbers used are state wide vs. local. And who will benefit, Modesto, Merced, Madera and Fresno and that's pretty much it. And how much will they benefit? Not much. With Bass Lake, Huntington Lake, Hetch Hetchy, etc. they have more than enough sources and the price per acre foot (flooding an acre with one foot of water) is unlikely to come down and if it does, it will be pennies. Furthermore, money generated from Yosemite benefits the immediate communities (Oakhurst, etc.). Farms send a lot of their money to fertilizer, seed, etc. companies that are out of state. So, yes, I'm making and educated guess, but I'm confident I'm right in that guess. Using raw numbers doesn't always reveal what is going on...I didn't become an analytics manager for no reason.

And then you have another economic conundrum. When Los Angeles was about to dry out Mono Lake and ship all that water into the city, they got sued and it was ruled that draining that lake would violate the Public Trust. So how do you place a value on Mono Lake let alone Yosemite. Economic activity alone is not a proper way to place a value. Hence my argument, you can disagree, but from my view, pure numbers don't always reflect "Real Price".

On the other side, was subsidizing farmers with cheap water worth destroying our fisheries? I don't believe a study has been done on that either. I work in the insurance industry now, but keep up on other economic issues that interest me. Who knows, maybe once I retire I may make it a hobby to look at all this and publish something.

[Chainfire]

3. If CA. is not ready for desalinization, they better be soon.

Or they will have to start doing the dishes in beer....

[demosincebirth]

6. We should have started desalinization twenty years ago.

[Gore1FL]

4. I read about a desalinization process that actually creates energy.

It sort of seems like CA could jump on such a process.

This is an old article. I don't know where this is in development, or if it has been terminated. It seems like an interesting pursuit. I don't know the capacity, how it scales, what it may cost, or what revenue it might generate.

https://www.watertechonline.com/process-water/article/15549508/new-desalination-process-can-generate-electricity

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. Thanks for sharing!

I'm rooting for California to LEAD THE WAY toward an innovative solution, like good progressives do.

[DFW]

7. If it's not too late, it should be a huge program as urgent as arming at the onset of World War II

I heard (can't verify accuracy) that Israel was making big advances in this, as they saw early that water would be as valuable as oil some day. Maybe more so, and sooner than anyone thinks, since you can't irrigate your crops with oil.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. If Israel makes major advancements...

... in that regard, then copy what they do on a broader scale.

No need in reinventing the wheel.

[DFW]

9. They realized early on that water was necessary for their survival

We thought ours would last forever. Since all natural resources are finite except the wind and the sun, we should have figured this out and started acting on it as if it were a crisis thirty years ago. Some tried to warn us, and were laughed off as eco-freaks. Now that the western USA is starting to seriously dry up, a lot fewer are laughing at the eco-freaks now. Parched cropland and empty reservoirs tend to focus your attention like that.

[karynnj]

13. Not just Israel all the water in Lanzarote in Spains's canary islands is from desalination

The island gets the Tradewind winds, so is far more windy than Chicago. Wind turbines provide energy at least for the capital's treatment plant.

[Hortensis]

10. CA recently announced a statewide multifaceted approach.

Desalinization is one, but not the biggest. You can read about it, just google.

Note that planners and other experts didn’t just recently notice a problem. It had to advance enough to overcome enormous organized opposition to action. Until the problem itself hurt more feckless idiots.

[NickB79]

12. California has plenty of water for it's cities and towns

What it doesn't have enough water for are it's farms.

And farms largely can't use desalinated water, for the simple fact that desalinated water is so expensive in the vast quantities a farm needs that it would bankrupt them. That, or your head of lettuce will cost you $10, and your gallon of almond milk $20.

So we're stuck between a rock and a hard place: no viable water options to keep California farms running profitably, but a strong demand for fresh produce year-round.

It's getting to the point it will be cheaper to build massive heated greenhouses around the Great Lakes than it will be to keep farming California's deserts in winter.

[Bobstandard]

14. There are 12 desal plants in CA already..

And at least five more under development.

Now, what can be done to reduce drawdown of the Oglala aquifer? In CA we’ve been working on conservation for decades. Are they still watering lawns in the Buckeye state?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

15. I haven't seen anyone watering their lawns...

... for awhile, especially with so much rain. Everyone who's obsessed with their lawns (which is weird to me) have enjoyed very green and thick grass naturally.

It's been a little "dry" for this area the last few weeks, but Winter is around the corner anyway.

The Great Lakes have been at their highest levels in years, such that properties near the lakes have been at risk of having their foundations completely eroded by the rising waters. So it's an opposite problem compared to the West.

[Hekate]

21. What is this "rain" of which you speak?

[Hekate]

20. This is a classic DU divisive topic. Most of us've learned from prior droughts how to live with less

Last edited Sat Oct 22, 2022, 02:53 AM - Edit history (1)

…and then again with less.

A few — a very few — who have great privilege and wealth steal water from the rest of us and hide their lush plantings behind high hedges and walls. They are impervious to shame. Illegal pot growers also steal water in great quantities, so they can sell elsewhere.

For the most part, Californians are very aware of what the future holds for us.

Whenever the topic comes up at DU, it is non-Californians who think water can and should be piped 2,000 miles from the Great Lakes to California. It is non-Californians who think desal plants can produce enough water to go across the whole rugged geology without wrecking the marine ecology of the coastline (and who think we have never thought of it for local, coastal use. We have and in some places we do) It is non-Californians who are unaware of how much of the food they eat comes from California, even as they fixate like hell on almonds and avocados.

I don’t think the mighty Mississippi comes into it at all. You won't have us to blame if it dries all the way up.

The climate-change hammer is coming down. A lot of California’s water gets exported to other countries in the form of agriculture — and won’t it take a federal law to change that? So what are the feds doing? A lot of California’s water is pumped from aquifers and bottled in plastic to be sold all over the country. Won’t that take federal laws to stop that kind of commerce?