Not One Drop: How Long Will California Survive Life Without Water?

[cali]

TULARE COUNTY, Calif.—The old man knew of the $500-a-day fine for people caught wasting water. He heard the plea for conservation from Governor Jerry Brown. But the water police can’t scare a person whose water isn’t running in the first place.

“Look,” said Carlos Chavez, a retired farm hand in the small town of Seville. He turned the wheel on a big outdoor faucet, the kind of high pressure spigot that’s illegal to operate in California without at least a hose attached to it. Nothing came out except air. It was the same story inside his home, where his plates piled up beneath a kitchen faucet as dry as the shop model.

As the California drought approaches its fourth year, Seville’s well is one of hundreds of private water holes coughing up sand and spitting air in the Central Valley, according to Tulare County officials. As many as 100,000 more wells are at risk around the state if the rains don’t come by October.


In what is still the most productive agricultural county in America, the pantry of brands like Hershey’s and Häagen-Dazs, Sun-Maid and Yoplait, the rising number of completely dry homes here has shocked officials and become a visceral symbol of California’s unending dry spell. Thousands of people—most of them farm workers and their families—find themselves with no running water to wash, drink, flush or cook.

“We’re the epicenter,” said Eric Coyne, a spokesperson for the Tulare County Resource Management Agency. "The need here is dire."

<snip>

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-one-drop-how-long-will-california-survive-life-without-n195976

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. The answer is that it won't, not as we know it

and the current water situation in California only serves to highlight the insanity of massive human settlement in semi-arid climate zones where people are completely dependent on groundwater (which is a limited resource when it's pumped out faster than the aquifer recharges) and water pumped from elsewhere (the Colorado River, which is not only the most-strained basin in the USA, but crucially, water allocations among Colorado basin states are based on river flows that, as it turns out, are 20-25% above long-term historical averages; the 20th century, in the US southwest, was unusually and abnormally wet).

[SomethingFishy]

11. +1 My job takes me to Vegas a couple times a year.

When I fly over the Vegas desert and look down at the lush green golf courses and resorts, I wonder what fucking idiot decided that the desert was a place to build a huge resort city where millions of gallons of water will be used.. per day.

[BrotherIvan]

15. That kid's name was Moe Greene

[awoke_in_2003]

17. Only in the movies. nt

[BrotherIvan]

21. Really?

[awoke_in_2003]

22. Yes, really...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_Greene

[BrotherIvan]

23. Man, I thought the Godfather was a documentary

Thanks for letting me know!

[awoke_in_2003]

25. Okay, I apologize...

I did not catch the fact that you were joking in the first post. Humor and sarcasm are sometimes hard to pick up in type.

[BrotherIvan]

27. No worries

I just couldn't resist the reference. The amazing performance by Lee Strasburg is one of my favorites and I do an impression of it often. It's bad, but it usually cracks people up.

[awoke_in_2003]

28. Yeah, I have references that I can't resist..

too. Enjoy the weekend

[former9thward]

18. Financed by investments from the Teamster Pension Fund.

[DesertFlower]

30. i'm in phoenix and i feel the same way. it's not as bad

as it was -- more people are using desert landscaping but some people still love their grass.

[newfie11]

2. As a kid I remember the orange groves around Tulare

I guess by now many have been replaced by subdivisions. I can't imagine what it must be like out there now without water. I'm really hoping for a wet winter back there.

[mnhtnbb]

39. My mother's family was from Terra Bella.

She grew up on an orange ranch--WW I years--and her sister married
a man with an orange orchard in Delano.

I remember visiting from where we lived in NJ--when I was about 8 (late 1950's)--and my aunt gave me a hard
time about running too much water in the bath tub for a bath!

[FreeJoe]

3. It's a price problem

California uses way too much water inefficiently on agriculture. They need to raise the price of water enough to balance supply and demand. It can be done progressively. Make water bills really, really low for the first 1,000 gallons, reasonable for the next 9,000 gallons, and then expensive after that.

[GummyBearz]

4. We do

It already works like that... at least in orange county. The problem is extreme droughts year after year for as far back as I can remember (not joking, I remember being told how bad the drought was 25 years ago when I was in elementary school). At the end of the day, if there is no water, it doesnt matter how much it costs.

[former9thward]

19. And then you will be complaining when food prices go through the roof.

[nationalize the fed]

5. Off the west coast there is an ocean

How do people think places like Saudi Arabia get water?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Existing_facilities_and_facilities_under_construction

If the US wasn't blowing trillions bombing and invading lands 8000 miles away there would be enough money for all the clean water the people could ever need.

How many desalination plants could be built with the $5 BILLION DOLLARS that Victoria Nuland admitted was poured into the Ukraine?

And to anyone that says it can't be done, oil is pumped from the top of Alaska to the bottom.

[phantom power]

6. it's energetically very very expensive

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Energy_consumption

and CA uses a lot more water than Saudi Arabia

[phantom power]

7. In 2005 California used 45 billion gallons of fresh water per day.

http://water.usgs.gov/edu/wateruse-fresh.html

That's a lot of desalinization.

[phantom power]

8. I wonder what the wattage of their freshwater consumption is

45e9 gallons/day = 170343530 cubic-meters/day = 7097647 cubic meters per hour

I'll be generous and use the theoretic minimum energy input for desalinization: 1 kilowatt-hour per cubic meter.

So, that means california's freshwater consumption rate has an effective wattage of about 7.1 gigawatts (absolute theoretical minimum)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Energy_consumption

That's replacing the entire water supply, which I assume isn't necessary. On the other hand real world desalinization is more like 2-3 kilowatt hours per cubic meter of water.

So I don't know. It doesn't seem ridiculous, but assuming my figures and math are right, it's on the scale of running at least several gigawatt class generation stations dedicated to desalinization, plus actual desalinization plants, plus pipelines, canals, etc.

[OnionPatch]

10. But we only need desalinated water for drinking right?

Couldn't recycled water be used for landscaping? That would cut back on the amount of desalinization plants we would need, wouldn't it? I know it would take a lot of retrofitting. But what's the alternative? Do we all move back east?

[phantom power]

12. In my opinion, millions of southwest climate refugees is completely plausible.

I don't know what's going to happen, but anybody who considers the "climate refugee" scenario to be "unthinkable" isn't paying attention. It's very, very thinkable.

[nationalize the fed]

35. Trillions for bombing and invading lands 8,000 miles away

http://costofwar.com

5 BILLION DOLLARS FOR UKRAINE
http://www.globalresearch.ca/american-conquest-by-subversion-victoria-nulands-admits-washington-has-spent-5-billion-to-subvert-ukraine/5367782

and not a dime for drought stricken CA or TX

50 years ago JFK: To the Moon in a Decade!

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Present: Bomb the Middle East!

"We choose to drone bomb suspects not because it is hard but because it is easy"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_desalination
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar-powered_desalination_unit#ROSI

By the way, what is your source for "CA uses a lot more water than Saudi Arabia"?

Average water footprint of Saudi Arabia:
1849 m³/yr per capita

Average water footprint of United States of America:
2842 m³/yr per capita

http://www.waterfootprint.org/?page=cal/waterfootprintcalculator_national

[phantom power]

37. I'm not talking about use per person, I'm talking about total use.

CA uses more per capita than SA, and also has a larger population, and more industry and more agriculture, which together use much more water than domestic usage.

At any rate, to me the most interesting question was whether it was energetically feasible to replace fresh water with desalinization. At 7 gigawatts (+/-, depending on technology and fraction of water replaced) ... If this were myth-busters, I'd rate the answer as "plausible, but very expensive."

In this social climate, where it is apparently politically impossible to even fund bridge repair and sewer repacement, it's hard for me to envision the project of building the necessary desalinization capacity, and the several gigawatt power plants to run them, and the pipelines to deliver the water.

[Sopkoviak]

29. Can California afford it

Because quite frankly I don't think they'll be able to sell the rest of the country on it.

[nationalize the fed]

36. Can the US afford the trillions spent bombing and invading the ME?

Can California NOT afford to do it?

It's very very sad living in the US these days.

[flying rabbit]

9. Forget it Jake

it's Chinatown

[jakeXT]

13. Some rich people are shipping water from out of town with water trucks

There are rumours of people sending laundry out of town to avoid water fines. Some residents are said to have painted their lawns green.

According to one story a resident's poodle turned green after rolling in the paint.

"We don't like the water trucks because they destroy our roads," one woman complained. "My lawn's brown but we just have to pray for rain."

Meanwhile, a local newspaper advised residents not to waste water taking part in the Ice Bucket Challenge. "Think about how to re-use water," it said. "Take a bucket's worth from the pool and have it dumped on you in the pool."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11094232/Super-rich-make-last-stand-against-California-drought.html

[Kaleva]

16. People talking about brown lawns but also about pools.

"Meanwhile, a local newspaper advised residents not to waste water taking part in the Ice Bucket Challenge. "Think about how to re-use water," it said. "Take a bucket's worth from the pool and have it dumped on you in the pool."
"

The water shortage is so bad but apparently one can still fill a pool.

[jakeXT]

34. Filling it is the worst part

Pools aren't the water wasters some have made them out to be, water districts are learning
Over time, pools often use less water than a lawn of the same size, studies show
At least 2 California water distributors ease water limits after hearing from pool lobby and crunching numbers

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-pool-haters-20140913-story.html

[Spider Jerusalem]

38. That's another thing...

people live in a semiarid climate with less than ten inches of rainfall a year; they shouldn't have lawns or pools. If you want those things, move to a place where it rains.

[Aerows]

26. Painting lawns green isn't new

Then you look at AZ and they are freaking inundated with flooding.

[OxQQme]

20. Sherwood Nation - a novel

by Benjamin Parzybok.

<snip>

In drought-stricken Portland, Oregon, a Robin Hood-esque water thief is caught on camera redistributing an illegal truckload of water to those in need. Nicknamed Maid Marian—real name: Renee, a twenty-something barista and eternal part-time college student—she is an instant folk hero. Renee rides her swelling popularity and the public's disgust at how the city has abandoned its people, raises an army . . . and secedes a quarter of the city.

Even as Maid Marian and her compatriots build their community one neighbor at a time, they are making powerful enemies amongst the city government and the National Guard. Sherwood is an idealistic dream too soon caught in a brutal fight for survival.

Sherwood Nation is the story of the rise and fall of a micronation within a city. It is a love story, a war story, a grand social experiment, a treatise on hacking and remaking government, on freedom and necessity, on individualism and community.

[jen63]

24. It's only going to get worse for the entire country,

with all of the millions of gallons of water that fracking requires. The aquifers will be emptied quicker than they can be replenished. Our dependence on oil and natural gas will be our downfall.

[WinkyDink]

31. Sounds like there's a Fifth Horse.

[CentralMass]

32. MIT and Livermore labs have been doing research on graphene membranes that strip sodium atoms from

water forced through them. The benefit of this type of membrane over traditional reverse osmosis membranes is that they will operate with much lower water pressure making operating costs for desalination plants on par with a normal fresh water treatment plants. If they can develop a reliable manufacturing process for the membranes this could be big.

A link to a related article.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/biomedical/devices/nanoporus-graphene-takes-another-step-toward-filtration-applications

[Uncle Joe]

33. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Eva.

[Trillo]

40. Where's Hatfield the rainmaker?

There's never a rainmaker around when you need one.