Let's say the drought lasts for the next fifty years

[dissentient]

in California...now what?

[yeoman6987]

1. Those who can move out will.

It would be mass exedus if it gets too bad.

[dissentient]

2. That is what is worrying, all those millions are going to have to go somewhere

[yeoman6987]

3. We have 47 states of which quite a few have very little population

Can you imagine a Democratic Wyoming, Montana and Idaho? Sounds good.

[Xithras]

14. I'm sorry to tell you this...

...but it's the Republican majority inland regions of the state that are taking the brunt of the drought. If the inland regions start depopulating eastward, it's not going to help the Democratic party in their destination states.

[yeoman6987]

30. Oh rats! Such possibilities.

[Adsos Letter]

40. I wonder how hard it would be to sell a house at that point.

Talk about a crash.

[panader0]

50. 47 states?

[MissB]

52. Probably discounting Alaska and Hawaii

"The lower 48"

[FSogol]

4. Let's take a page from Putin and annex British Columbia and the Northwest Territories!

They'll never expect it.

[KittyWampus]

16. spit my water out… somehow that really tickled my funnybone.

[guillaumeb]

53. that has been tried before

when the US tried to steal BC from Canada.

[FSogol]

57. If you are referring to the Fenian Brotherhood's plans, that is hardly, the US

trying to steal Canada.

[Cleita]

5. I once lived in the Atacama Desert and it doesn't get drier than that.

Thing was though is that we got our water from the snow from the Andes. I don't know what California will do. the Sierras are as dry as the rest of the state.

[Buzz Clik]

6. Now what? California figures out what to do about decades of uncontrolled growth...

... in the face of inadequate water. The drought merely accelerated the inevitable.

[Warpy]

7. Farmers will have to change their irrigation methods

or California will be a dust bowl. This drought has been going on since about 2002, it has only recently become critical. Farmers need to abandon spray and trench irrigation and go to sub soil drip methods that deliver moisture to crops instead of letting so much of it evaporate into the air.

Agriculture uses most of the fresh water in California. The state has some tough decisions to make about that and about water use in general.

I think there will be an exodus of sorts from California as fire season becomes more interesting every year the drought hangs on.

The people who remain there need to start respecting the fact that they live in a semi desert.

[2naSalit]

64. Late last year

I traveled from the Bay area South to the border and back. It was hot, dry, smoggy... all along the Interstate there were many signs (small billboards) planted in nut groves and other ag-land decrying that they were being robbed of their water and that everyone who voted to cut their water allotments would be sorry.

[nationalize the fed]

8. Maybe sometime before that someone that matters could look around the world and see what others

are doing/have done. America gets a dry spell and people act like it's never happened anywhere else before. It's surreal.

Estimates vary widely between 15,000–20,000 desalination plants around the world producing more than 20,000 m3/day.

Australia: The Millenium Drought (1997–2009) led to a water supply crisis across much of the country. A combination of increased water usage and lower rainfall/drought in Australia caused state governments to turn to desalination. As a result several large-scale desalination plants were constructed (see list).

Israel Desalination Enterprises' Sorek Desalination Plant in Palmachim provides up to 26,000 m³ of potable water per hour (2.300 m³ p.a.). At full capacity, it is the largest desalination plant of its kind in the world.[108][109] Once unthinkable, given Israel's history of drought and lack of available fresh water resource, with desalination, Israel can now actually produce a surplus of fresh water

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation of Saudi Arabia provides 50% of the municipal water in the Kingdom, operates a number of desalination plants, and has contracted $1.892 billion[126] to a Japanese-South Korean consortium to build a new facility capable of producing a billion liters per day, opening at the end of 2013. They currently operate 32 plants in the Kingdom;[127] one example at Shoaiba cost $1.06 billion and produces 450 million liters per day

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

Taking salt out of water isn't rocket science.

And money shouldn't be an object because right now the US is spending almost $20 million dollars PER HOUR on the wars and "homeland security"

Source: http://costofwar.com

[metalbot]

35. Desalinization still has some serious technical issues

The best desalination techniques produce about 50% salt free water, and 50% very salty water. You still have to do something with the salty water. What most desalination plants do is to simply dump it back into the ocean, but whether or not that is the ecologically sound thing to do is still to be seen. While the wiki article you linked to explained some of the ways the salty could be disposed of, but it doesn't actually address the fact that those techniques are not particularly widely used.

Desalination is clearly the way forward to get a predictable water supply, but it's not trivial from an environmental or engineering perspective.

[NYC_SKP]

49. True, and Desalination should only be used as last resort, after ALL other means are employed.

And we aren't there yet, people still have lawns, take long showers, wash their cars.

Some homes and businesses don't even have meters yet.

Better buildings use grey water systems and only use potable water for drinking, cooking, bathing. (not irrigation, carwashing, toilets, etc.)

No, desalination is VERY energy-intensive and costly and harmful to the environment.

People who know about these things know this to be true.

Desal only as a last resort.

[Agnosticsherbet]

9. Agriculture in California, Arizona, New Mexico collapses, and Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas enter a dust

bowl situation.

That is a lot of food that will have to be grown somewhere els
The coast should be fine, but inland california will become a string of ghost towns. Those people will move elsewhere.

California will build a series of desalinization plants to provide the coast with water. The population will drop as Climate change refugees move elsewhere.

For California, 50 years will see roughly 9 billion dollars in coastal property vanish. This will be mirrored in in every sate with a coast line.

[dbackjon]

21. Don't mix Arizona up with California

Arizona uses less total water now than in the 50's
Arizona has long regulated ground water.
Arizona has been pumping excess water (and yes, we still have more water than we can use) back INTO aquifers to be used when needed.
Arizona has strict rules on growth - long term water supplies are required before building is allowed.

[villager]

41. Arizona's issues will have to do with tapping enough power to keep everyone cool in "summer"

...especially since "summer" will soon mean March thru October.

As it is, enough Arizonans are fleeing to San Diego during the current "summer."

When Phoenix grows and demands more air conditioning... that will create some "sustainability" issues.

[dbackjon]

45. Arizona exports electricity to California

Not a problem.

People vacation in San Diego. We get hundreds of thousands of snow birds in winter fleeing the cold. Should you post about lack of sustainability of northern climates?

[villager]

48. Just to be clear: You imagine Arizona is sustainable in the long-term? Phoenix-area growth and all?

How long do you see this growth continuing... unchecked?

[dbackjon]

61. Residential uses far less water than AG

[villager]

65. Which doesn't quite answer the question in terms of overall sustainability

How sustainable do you think Phoenix-style development is right now in the desert?

How long do you think it can continue in its present course?

[dbackjon]

67. Arizona has enough water for a population of 30 million

70% of Arizona water goes to agriculture.

[villager]

70. Indeed. And Colorado river water for the Yuma area may not be infinite.

Meanwhile, some of your fellow Arizonans aren't quite as sanguine as you about water use for future residential development:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10382670

[dbackjon]

71. Here's the thing - Arizona is a big state

And not all areas have access to water like the Phoenix area does.


That development is a horrid idea - the San Pedro is already overdrawn.

[Agnosticsherbet]

56. The entire southwest shares a climate. Arizona is part of the Southwest.

What happens to California, happens in Arizona, and elsewhere.

[dbackjon]

68. That is not really accurate

While it does share some climate with California, Arizona also gets summer moisture from the Gulf of Mexico that California does not get.


Also winter Northwest storms that come inland, east of the Sierra's

And while Arizona is dry, it is nowhere near what California has.

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

[Agnosticsherbet]

69. What we are seeing in California and elsewhere in the West is Human created Climate Change.

This will lead to big changes in rainfall.

[pscot]

60. I'd like to see a link

to back up the assertion that Arizona uses less water now than in 50's. There's been some improvement since 80's, I've read. Are we talking ground water, Colorado River water, surface run-off, per capita, or what.

[dbackjon]

62. I will link in morning

But very easy to google


Total water

[pscot]

63. It is not an easy Google

If it were I would not have asked for a link. There are a lot of glossy presentations and dense PDF's, but so far no chart or table of water use by year since the 50's. Nada.

[dbackjon]

66. Here is an interview

http://kjzz.org/content/80901/arizonas-water-use-has-remained-same-1950s

Here is a report
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fpubs.usgs.gov%2Fsir%2F2004%2F5148%2Fpdf%2Fsir20045148.pdf&ei=Q2wkVev-BoW1oQTf-YD4Bw&usg=AFQjCNFXfR-kP_SiImxTrTg4hvCpwftDKA

[Malraiders]

10. Maybe they could build these giant

baskets:

[Pooka Fey]

12. + Infinity

[Maedhros]

11. Put up lots of these?

http://techland.time.com/2013/03/05/finally-a-billboard-that-creates-drinkable-water-out-of-thin-air/

?w=720&h=480&crop=1

The billboard pictured here is real, it’s located in Lima, Peru, and it produces around 100 liters of water a day (about 26 gallons) from nothing more than humidity, a basic filtration system and a little gravitational ingenuity.

[Politicalboi]

13. No, we prefer to wait thank you

We've waited all this time. Why should we use our wind farms or billboards to create water? If we start doing that, then people may think there's a problem. Drink up California! We don't do "easy" here. USA! USA! USA!

[RKP5637]

54. American Exceptionalism will solve it all!

Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow. Hey, we'll fix it like our infrastructure!

[4139]

15. within 4 years hundreds of small town abandoned as they rely on ground water wells...

Those folks will migrate to the cities that get water from resiviors.

Two years after that all agriculture fail and the cost of food skyrockets...


Another two years and Soylent Green!!!

[KittyWampus]

18. your timeline might be right though. It could go downhill very, very quickly, IMO.

[4139]

27. Timeline: current modest El Niño followed by drought generating La Niña...

... Soylent Green just popped into my head and I couldn't help myself

Adding: 7 of the last 10 El Niños have been shortly followed by La Ninas http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml

[bluedigger]

17. Move, adapt, or die.

It's that simple.

[madville]

19. Nuclear and Solar powered desalination plants

All along the southern coast, hundreds of them. Will generate many good jobs as well. There are literally unlimited amounts of water right there in the Pacific.

[KittyWampus]

20. Yeah, but that's thinking big. I wonder if our government can even do stuff like that anymore.

Unless it's money for military industrial complex.

[madville]

25. Not to mention the environmental hurdles

It would take a decade or so just to get past the environmental red tape, especially in California.

[dbackjon]

22. And the waste from these plants?

takes over 2 gallons of salt water to get one gallon of fresh - the rest is highly saline waste

[KittyWampus]

24. sell it as sea salt?

[madville]

28. Back into the ocean or pipeline

It into the remote Mojave/Nevada desert, create a new manmade salt lake.

The ocean is so vast and deep it's doubtful the more concentrated salt water would equal anything significant on that scale.

[dbackjon]

31. Overall no, but pumping it directly into the sea, especially near shore, would have a devistating

effect on the local ecosystem. Santa Barbara's never used plant was going to discharge 30 miles out, but even that may be too close to shore.


Pumping it would require even more energy, pipelines, etc with all the risks of breaches. Think Keystone XL.

[madville]

34. You have to decide which outcome sucks less.

A dried up and depopulated Southern California or some pipelines into the desert or far out to sea?

It will be expensive as well, desalination on that scale would take massive amounts of energy.

[dbackjon]

37. Desal should be a last resort idea

There is a lot that can be done with conservation.


We SHOULD research better ways to desal, and how to dispose safely the waste.

[Scootaloo]

39. Okay. I need to say something here...

Oceans don't work that way. You can't pipe crap into the Pacific and just expect it to disperse evenly and harmlessly through the whole ocean. That's as dumb as dumping industrial waste in New Jersey and expecting it to harmlessly disperse across the western hemisphere.

Oceans are basically continents that are made of water. They have intricate topography, caused both by the crust at their bottom, and the currents within the oceans themselves. Just as topography and air currents create distinctive and individual regions on land, so they do in the oceans. That is to say, oceans do not homogenize. Not within themselves and certainly not with each other.

So if you take that saline waste and pump it into the coastal waters... it's not going to dilute through the entire ocean. No, you're going to create a highly saline stretch of coastal water. it's going to stay there, for a surprisingly long time. And it's going to be toxic to the marine life there, which as evolved to a specific salinity and is highly sensitive to changes in that.

"Dump it in the ocean" is not a solution. It's simply sweeping it under a rug.

[Politicalboi]

23. I personally don't think the Earth

Will last another 30 years, so 50 years to me is too far. But we are in big trouble here this summer. Fire bugs will have us at their mercy if they start just one fire. How many years have we known this scenario? Decades! And what did we do in the mean time? NOTHING!

EVERY household in Ca should have their own green water source. EVERY new home should have showers that recycle the water you use for that shower, and that water to be used for gray water for laundry, or watering. Rain water run off from your home should fill underground tanks for watering and other gray uses instead of flowing into the streets or flooding your yard. Simple no change methods work best for us dumb humans.

[KittyWampus]

26. I love the idea of homes having two water lines. Such a good idea.

Wonder how hard it is to retrofit.

[Politicalboi]

32. I was thinking the other day in the shower if

They did make recyclable showers, and low and behold they do. This should be MANDATORY in all new homes out here.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/11/tech/innovation/futuristic-water-recycling-shower-orbsys/

And run house gutters to a pipe that leads to a plastic very accessible water tank in your yard. 500 gallon tank in a cement trench with a metal door with a lock.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

29. The damage from climate change will rapidly cause irreversible harm to billions.

California may experience harm sooner than most.

If karma existed those effected first would be only deniers.

But it wont work that way

[Politicalboi]

36. That is too bad about the karma

I don't know why we didn't send out the alert at least a few years back. Every year we get less and less snow and rain. It's too bad there wasn't a way to ship that snow from Massachusetts out here. We have a lot of high pressure that blows the clouds away. I wonder if there is an un found method to curb the high pressure on land.

[Paulie]

38. The Earth has been here -4 Billion years

It will be here for another 4 billion or so until the sun dies.

[Politicalboi]

46. We've never experienced glacier melt

Like we are now. Yes the globe may last, but will we? When the circle of life changes like it's doing now, how long will we last. Or how long will we want to last? The Earth as we've known it is changing rapidly. And if there is no water in the west, we won't have to wait for mother nature to kill us. Our neighbors will.

[Scootaloo]

33. Pipe in water from Oregon to keep the golf courses green, of course

[Travis_0004]

42. Water prices will go up

Farms may not be able to handle a doubling in price but moat households should be able to.

Farms will leave the state but probably not much else. My water bill is 10 dollars a month. I wouldnt really care if prices trippled (I dont live in CA)

[herding cats]

43. The agriculture industry will be forever changed.

Soon they're going to have to change to drip irrigation and start only growing crops which require much less water. If they don't get a break in the drought they'll have to pack it in.

In just a few more years if the drought persists you'll be seeing more urban areas going the way of San Diego and recycling, and yes even drinking, purified waste water. What seems cost prohibitive now won't in another 4 or 5 years.

50 years out, if there were no break in the drought you'd see a different type of population living in California than you do today. Not only due to the strict water regulation, but also due to the increase in wildfires making it impossible to live in some areas.

I also think at some point you'll see the fracking industry using membrane distillation, or something very similar, to reuse the same water they've fracked with before. There's a lot of research on this matter at the moment. Which is in part due to the contamination of drinking water supplies which they're having a more difficult time denying. It's also, of course being fueled by the fact that they know they're also running out of easy fresh water supplies.

[upaloopa]

44. Seems every DUer that doesn't live here

knows all there is to know about how we live and how we use water and what we are going to do next.
We aren't going to move, we aren't going to dry up and blow away.
We will learn how to live with the problem and teach the rest of the country how to do it.

[Politicalboi]

47. I know, I live here

I'm not planning on moving out of Ca anytime soon. A few years back when the solar panel craze was in, they should have included incentives for water recycling for households too. It feels like we don't want to accept the fact that water is scarcer and scarcer.

[PasadenaTrudy]

59. +1

People love to catastrophize.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

51. I'm sure the aliens will invade before then.

[honeylady]

55. I live in San Diego

I have a large piece of property in San Diego which for years has been irrigated and I have a beautiful garden with lots of butterflies and bees. We are in the process of installing a grey water system and a rain barrel system for about $9,000. My husband went from showering everyday to once a week. I've done the same. I don't use my dishwasher anymore and catch all my rinse water in a bucket which I then use to water all my container plants. It takes a while for the water to warm up so I catch the cold water and use that pure water to put in my dog bowels. All my new plants going in are drought tolerant and California natives. We've installed low flush toilets. I don't want to leave San Diego. I love it here. I have friends and family here. We can change the way we do things. We can conserve. We can eat less meat. We can stop fracking and stop selling our water to water companies. Until just recently it was against the law to install a grey water system. Things are changing. My biggest worry are fires.

How about a water pipe line from the east to the west? Just imagine all that excess water coming to California? How could that be achieved?

[PasadenaTrudy]

58. I've been here 51 years now

I plan to stay put.