Drought-stricken US warned of looming 'dead pool'

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Drought-stricken US warned of looming 'dead pool'

By Regan Morris and Sophie Long
BBC News, Los Angeles

3 June 2022

-snip-

While the dead bodies are fuelling talk about Las Vegas' mob past, water experts warn of even more worrisome consequences. If the lake keeps receding, it would reach what's known as "dead pool" - a level so low the Hoover Dam would no longer be able to produce hydropower or deliver water downstream.

Californians have been told to conserve water at home or risk mandated water restrictions as a severe drought on the West Coast is expected to get worse during the summer months.

People have been told to limit outdoor watering and take shorter showers. In Los Angeles, many are being asked to cut their water use by 35%. The restrictions come after California recorded the driest start to the year on record.

Nasa, which monitors changing water levels, is warning that the western United States is now entering one of the worst droughts ever seen.

"With climate change, it seems like the dominoes are beginning to fall," Nasa hydrologist JT Reager told the BBC.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61669233

[edhopper]

1. We need to build more golf courses

hotels with large fountains and pools and lots of AC in the desert.

[Traildogbob]

3. When it's brought up for discussion

With our amazing leaders, people like Inhoff will bring in a gallon jug of Florida’s flooding water and say, “See, it’s a liberal hoax, there’s lots of water. The same amount that has been on earth since God created it. No more, no less.” Just let Exxon put in a pipeline from DeSatan’s under water state and send to Cali, and charge more that oil prices. Problem solver here. Stop the gloom. Just don’t ship any of Soros, Gates, and “Democrat” billionaire “Poo water”, MTG unregulated Militias will shoot it.

[leftieNanner]

10. Brilliant!

[calimary]

25. DeSantis's water won't do any good. Ocean salt water.

That won’t help. Except to sink him, hopefully.

[Traildogbob]

29. I sailed

Months at sea with ocean water for everything. Many years ago. We have much more advanced tech now. West coast May have little options but desalinization.

[TeamProg]

51. Gov Newsom tried this year to get a 1.4 billion Desal plant started near Manhattan Beach, CA but

it did not pass the state legis for some reason. Probably inner state Repukes voted against it.

[sdfernando]

54. There is a desalinization plant in north San Diego county

It replaced a decommissioned SDG&E power plant. Took years to build and convert but overall I think a good use swap. Still woefully short on supplying the county water needs though….and it is expensive water.

[Traildogbob]

60. Like elective cars

It will not totally solve all the carbon issues, but we HAVE to have a multi prong solution. Our water IS finite. And like it or not, MYG, we WILL have to use desalinization AND filter and reuse sewer water one day. When water is not available that idiot will drink Poo water and pay for it as well. That cheap Murkkkan beer at Bimbo Boeberts, shit hole bar, uses water. A bigger problem is not the feces water, that can be cleaned, it’s the radioactive water and oil spilled water and pesticide laced water and coal ash water. Like food, ya can’t just go buy it and get and expect it to magically be in the grocery store. Many of us old farts here never dreamed of paying more for bottled water that we do gas, but guess what. When it becomes a monopolized commodity, only source, we will pay damn well whatever they ask for it. Even Poo Water.

[sdfernando]

63. agreed....multi-prong approach is what is needed.

Here we already use “gray water” for civic irrigation. Needs to expand more. More desalination plants too. We have a whole ocean right beside us.

[VGNonly]

68. Todays piss

is tomorrows Bud.

Seriously, I've heard seemingly intelligent people that can't understand the water cycle.

[Traildogbob]

70. Haaaa😂😂

“Some say”…..Bud recycles all the piss from NASCAR track urinals. Gives it that distinct MAGA flavor. I’m not sayin’, it’s all the “somes” that say.

[hunter]

85. The water that goes down my drain is recycled... some of it back to tap water.

This requires considerably less energy than desalinating seawater.

[Traildogbob]

89. Very true. But California may have no choice but using sea water.

Especially for their agriculture that feeds the nation. With little to no ground water, and minimal rain, And the man made lakes drying up. Challenges ahead.

[calimary]

114. Yeah. I think you're right.

Lots of water. But you’re gonna have to take all the salts out of it. Not an easy task, or quick. Or all that affordable.

[Traildogbob]

116. Back in the 1800's when I played football

During summer 2 a days we were given buckets of salt water and salt tablets. In full gear with temps in the 90’s in Early August, we guzzled it up like Natty Lights at a frat party.
But the Navy has been desalinizing sea water for sailors for decades. I was on a 300 sailor Tin Can DDG, but those 3,000 sailor Carriers have to prep tons of water while at Sea for many weeks. It sure seems like something the west coast states need to get on with their droughts and depleted aquifers and loss of snow melt. Nothing about Climate crisis will be cheap or easy. We could have started back in Carter Admin. We need bold intelligent leaders. I may be dust before it really hits the fan, but I do care about people other than myself. Most of em🤨

[catchnrelease]

97. For once it wasn't the repubs

It was the Calif Coastal Commission that rejected the plan. Sounds like it was for good reason and they are not oppose to desalination plants in general. This one was proposed for Huntington Beach.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-regulator-rejects-plan-desalination-plant-2022-05-13/

[not fooled]

13. And subdivisions

gotta keep developing.

[CrispyQ]

65. "Six billion miracles is enough."

That's a bumper sticker I bought around the turn of the century, but no one will talk about this.

[OrangeJoe]

93. Yep

Just about every societal problem would drastically lessen if we had a smaller population.

[niyad]

2. JFC. . .MAYBE face mandated water restrictions???? MAY FACE?? Why in the

Last edited Sat Jun 4, 2022, 11:26 AM - Edit history (1)

F'N HELL are those restrictions not in place right now??? We know that the situation is beyond critical, so why are we pretending otherwise?

[Unwind Your Mind]

9. As someone on the ground on Northern Ca I can tell you a few things about that

We the little people have been conserving for years now, we couldn’t cut back 35% more because we already are.

Meanwhile the local high school overwaters their sports fields and when criticized puts up signs saying they’re using well water so it’s fine (grrr!)

And most often people mention agriculture not having to employ efficiencies they should. Dairy farmers watering their pastures in the hot afternoon sun is one example I see.

It’s not so simple as people might think.

[leftieNanner]

12. And if you threaten people with massive fines

For using too much water, then the obscenely rich people with huge lawns just shrug. They can afford the fines and want their garden to be the way it is.

I used to live in Northern California. Big problem.

Edit to add: There was a woman in Alamo who lived in a subdivision with an HOA. She removed the lawn in front of her house to save water and planted a drought tolerant garden. The HOA sued her because it went against the CC&Rs. I think she won.

[Unwind Your Mind]

19. Yes, no one in my neighborhood has lawns anymore

We sheet mulched ours years ago

But go check out the area around the golf and country club. Every house has large green lawns. And of course golf courses, we have many of those too.

[housecat]

38. Regulate. Override politics and greed.

[Quanto Magnus]

82. same here

my yards are basically a bunch of weeds that I mow every few weeks... Those have no problem growing without water

Planning to cover and do a stone garden or some such....

[housecat]

37. Stop growing cows. It can even help solve the climate crisis and prevent heart disease.

[Unwind Your Mind]

39. Easy to say

[NullTuples]

43. The number of smokers went down so strikingly b/c the price rose too high

Might be a tactic to model after. Of course, then the "free market" will shift to pigs which as just as bad, then chickens, then fish...each of which is it's own eco disaster waiting to happen or already happening.

It's almost like unregulated capitalism doesn't really work for anyone but the capitalists.

[Unwind Your Mind]

47. Your last line is certainly true

Again it’s not so simple. Dairy is a big industry here, not so much beef but dairy.

And the company is actually more responsible than most. They contract with small farmers all over the area, have high standards for their products and are considered a good company to work for.

I just want the farmers to water before dawn, like they should. It seems like that should be an achievable goal, sigh…

[mopinko]

88. it can be done sustainably, just not cheaply.

[hunter]

90. Dairy is beef.

Cows are turned into hamburger when their milk production declines.

My grandma and her sister were born to a California dairy family.

They didn't like cows or dairymen so they ran wild in 1920's Hollywood.

Thanks to family connections they didn't suffer any meat rationing during World War II.

A lot of farmland in California should be returned to something resembling a natural state and protected from further agriculture.

Aside from burning fossil fuels, agriculture is one of the most environmentally destructive things humans do.

Factory farm meat and dairy products are not necessities.

[housecat]

56. Yes cows, pigs, chickens, farmed fish. The air is filled with pain and agony of animal slaughter.

[NullTuples]

69. Plants and fungus are every bit as much "life" as animals, but you don't hear their screams

Plant chlorophyll and mammalian hemoglobin are nearly identical molecules; one uses iron as the central functional atom, the other uses magnesium. One of us found movement via muscles a better route to survive, the other found staying still and using energy from the sun to survive a better route. That there is a balance indicates neither is in any way better.

Going deeper and yet higher in the taxonomic organization structure, meaning even more basic, at the first division of life on Earth:

Archaea, Bacteria, Eukarya - all life on earth uses the same encoding scheme, differing primarily in the ribosomal RNA flavor they use. DNA came from RNA; there's evidence that life on Earth was once RNA based (though considerably simpler than life now), and we eukaryotes keep a reminder of that past inside us with our ribosomal RNA, typically inside mitochondria or plasmids, essentially a symbiotic organism that lives in most of our cells, be we plant or animal. Plants and animals are very nearly the same at this level. Their source code if you will, is written in the same language and simply uses different variations of the details. We simply go about accomplishing the same tasks in slightly different ways.

My point is that life is life. Animals are no more worthy of that designation, nor the reverence it should impart, than plants. Like animals, plants show clear signs of physical distress when harmed and communicate it to each other - but you have to know what to look for, and we are so very human-centric we simply don't notice.

Like plants, we are omnivores (plants need more than just sunlight & water after all, and some of it comes from animal, fungus or bacterial carcasses). We get our nutrition from whatever we can. Does that mean we need to eat meat more than somewhat rarely? No, not at all. In fact we evolved to eat meat - but very little of it. The amount most Americans consume is very bad for both their health and the health of the planet. But we did evolve countless structures to enable us to live off meat and to a lesser degree, plants. Side note, we evolved mechanisms to identify & hopefully eject one way or the other plants we can't live off of, which is most of them. There are comparatively few plants we can live off of. Truth be told, most of our ancestors throughout our history likely ate whatever they could find ranging from foraged plants if they didn't make them sick or die, insects, and scavenged meat. The occasional fresh meat, though it had a large payoff in terms of protein and fats, was also the most dangerous (again, assuming one didn't pick the wrong plants). Our bodies evolved accordingly.

Raising meat under capitalism, where every penny invested must be maximized, is a part of what's killing off our ecosystem. Livestock ranches are akin to small cities of 1000 pound citizens constantly creating methane. Then their excrement creates more methane. The remainder of the excrement tends to contaminate and salt aquifers and waterways, and nitrogen loads rivers leading to unbalanced algae growth (which dies, depletes oxygen & kills off so-called higher life forms like fish & frogs). Methane by the way is 80x - 400x worse of a greenhouse gas than CO2. Then there's the water usage from growing feed to cleaning slaughterhouses; here in the West it's a substantial amount when it's added up, which is why it rarely is added up for people to see.

So yes, eat more plants and less meat. But do it to save all life, please.

[erronis]

76. Brilliant post. I'm stealing your words and will echo them whenever I can (with attribution.)

The human role in the universe is almost infinitesimal. Mammals and other animals and earthly plants only somewhat more so.

The screams of dying stars must be much more awesome - at least as we can guess from many light years away.

I personally hate to harm any living thing. But I do walk on the lawn, do splat my windshield, do enjoy plant and animal tissue - couldn't live without them.

Life is cruel but I wouldn't know it if I couldn't live it.

(I hope you don't mind but I put your post in an original: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216763530)

[housecat]

78. No argument there, NullTuples, and I especially appreciate your last paragraph. Yes, life is life,

but the current crisis is largely caused by farm animals as commodities, not vegetables -- with the exception of oil. Perhaps the main culprit responsible for the destruction of the planet was originally plant life, another commodity, oil. So wow modern cows and ancient plants have both been exploited by greedy low-information humans near a point of no return.

In my opinion, humans would find other ways to consume and destroy this beautiful planet if there weren't cows and oil. Those two commodities just happen to fulfill our need for greed. Deforestation is appalling. Destruction of the Amazon to graze cows and build antique-reproduction houses is stupid beyond comprehension. Forced extinction of thousands, if not millions, of species of plant and animal life precludes the possibility of finding cures for disease and maintaining any natural balance. i need to stop rambling, but thanks for the interesting read.

[Evolve Dammit]

98. You're not rambling. You are speaking truth. That is what DU is about, IMHO.

[NullTuples]

101. On the bright side, our destruction may end up being self-limiting.

And assuming we don't completely turn it into another Venus or Mars, most other life on Earth will bounce back long before we evolve again.

[housecat]

115. Well if we ever have an opportunity to evolve again, we should take our time standing on

two legs to avoid the back problems

[yonder]

81. Excellent post.

[Pobeka]

102. Whatever you do, don't tell them about nematodes.

That'll blow their "I only eat plants" minds.

[NullTuples]

104. *I* feel bad knowing I'm eating nematodes. They're amazing.

c. elegans is my favorite. They have two sexes: hermaphrodite and male. Hermaphrodites, the best studied, have just 302 neurons, but males have 385 neurons. The coolest thing though is that with so few neurons they've been completely mapped. Not just mapped by connection, but also by gene and behaviors. Many of the male-only neurons are for sexual reproduction-based behaviors centered around not wasting resources trying to mate with other egg-deprived individuals, possibly especially/only when resources are scarce.

But then I also feel bad eating wild plants trying to survive. Highly modified ones that won't survive two seasons w/o humans, not quite as much.

Be thankful to the lives you take to survive, they're just trying to do the same.

[Warpy]

62. If you want less of something TAX IT

If you want more of something, subsidize it.

Right now, cigarette taxes are high nearly everywhere, and that's a good thing, it's a horrible addiction.

Beef, on the other hand, is still being subsidized.

QED....

As for unregulated capitalism, even Adam Smith grudgingly admitted that his fairy* couldn't do everything and some regulation was necessary.

*The invisible hand of the free market, what did you think I was talking about?

[housecat]

79. Gas at the pump is taxed.

[Warpy]

86. Every time the price goes up

the crowds at the bus stops here get bigger.

[NullTuples]

105. And gas companies start talking about keeping prices high to make up for lower volume sold

It's like they're showing us they inherently understand the concepts behind runaway global warming, and yet...

[Warpy]

59. Lab grown meats can't come soon enough, IMO

Beef isn't that unhealthy a meat if it's grown on grass. Unfortunately, we make them finish their lives crammed into filthy pens and with nothing to do but eat grains, something they would never eat in the wild, so they will start storing fat in their muscle tissue. It is extremely unhealthy for the cattle and that's what's killing those of us who eat a beef heavy diet.

I don't think grass fed cattle are any worse than the huge bison herds they replaced when it comes to methane farts. The way we're making them live is unhealthy for us and for the planet, as in too many animals on too little land, ignoring the herding behaviors that improve the soil year after year, and making them sick at the end of their lives so their muscles will be full of white fat and tender.

[housecat]

80. All true, but it's also the quantity of meat humans comsume

[niyad]

61. I know that WE are doing all we can. It frustrates me that the government entities seem to be so

frightened of everyone else that they will let them do as they please.

Speaking of agriculture. . .not only watering in the afternoon,but those damned overhead walking sprinklers. I mean, evaporation, people? grrrr.

[CrispyQ]

66. In my area, we have acres & acres of business park lawn that mostly gets watered mid-afternoon.

The grass is saturated & there are often scorched areas of lawn because sprinkler heads are pointed into the street.

Several years ago my city put severe restrictions on outside watering—we were only allowed to water two hours a week. My neighbor was so pissed, that when the restrictions were over, he dug up all his lawn, which looked a little ragged but could have easily been brought back, & he installed sod & watered the fuck out of it for two weeks.

[Warpy]

49. I have cousins in the area who are complaining now

Lawns have been dead in their areas for years and now trees are in trouble. Grey water usage has its own problems, like increased contamination of soil which eventually poisons it. Showers have been cut short and the California culture of showering daily is dead. They are not happy about any of this. California is not going to be the hardest hit area, either.

They'll just scream the loudest.

However, water restrictions have been in place, some for years, and they're getting stricter pretty much by the month.

[womanofthehills]

106. Grey water works if you use natural soaps

I’m out in the country and my kitchen sink water goes to a huge pine, an apple tree and some junipers near my house. My bathroom sink and washing machine also have individual pipes going to trees I use all non toxic products and have had no problems- my trees love it. However, I think greywater is not allowed in more developed areas.

Collecting water off roofs into barrels is a good idea for extra water for yards.

[Warpy]

113. If you live in the typical southwestern house on a small lot

the problems can add up fast, from salt in your food, for instance. The chemistry gets pretty finicky.

Plus around here, we use grond water, a mile or so down. It's has hard as the rocks it comes from, full of calcium, ron, arsenic, and other things that can slowly poison the soil. Without rainfall to dilute the grey water, that stuff add up fast, too.

It doesn't stop me from tossing the occasional dishpan full of water out to the desert plants in my front yard. I just looked into a grey water system and discarded the idea as impractical. Better to ditch the thirsty plants, instead, and plant sage, chamisa, and Spanish broom (all of which I did).

[DownriverDem]

4. Folks need to move

The Great Lakes States have a lot of water. Just don't expect us to sell it to the west. Remember Canada is in the fight with us.

[Delphinus]

17. Glad to

hear you say this! Years ago was the first time I heard someone say let's use the water in the Great Lakes and I was aghast.

[VGNonly]

23. One inch less of water

in the Great Lakes can cost a shipper $60,000. Too much water can cause severe erosion. The Great Lakes Commission with the Canada and US monitor lake levels to maintain consistent lake levels. The idea of diverting the Great Lakes to the Southwestern states is prohibitively expensive and absurd.

[DownriverDem]

84. Through

a pipeline, I bet. No way.

[roamer65]

45. We may have to secede and join with Canada to save the lakes.

Especially Michigan.

[DownriverDem]

83. That would be me.

I live about 10 miles from the Canadian border/Windsor Ontario.

[hunter]

64. The energy cost is too high.

Pumping water long distances and up and over mile high mountain passes requires huge amounts of energy.

Desalinization is less trouble, but too expensive for conventional farming.

Cities like Phoenix won't dry up and blow away. The farms in Arizona and Southern California will.

It's likely desalinated water will eventually reach all areas now dependent on water released from Hoover Dam.

The situation in the Upper Colorado River Basin is just grim. Those farms and ranches will dry up. All exterior water uses in cities will have to be curtailed. Sophisticated sewage treatment plants will have to be built, capable of turning sewage back into potable water. Wells will run dry.

We're already in the first stages of this.

Cities like St. George Utah, which was planning on using 28 billion gallons of water a year from the Colorado River to support their expansion, are going to have to change their plans. Once there are no more water rights to be had from the farmers there's no more water to be had.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

5. Imagine SoCal with all our swimming pools empty.

Truly ominous.

[housecat]

30. With all the nasty chemicals, I imagine pool water has limited use. but it's a start.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

71. Are you saying the water pool water is the same as toilet bowel water?

I hadn't thought about it. I wonder about our outdoor hoses. I'm one of only a few who maintain a garden in our condo complex.

[housecat]

73. I am saying that water in swimming pools is loaded with chemicals

[SleeplessinSoCal]

95. But chemicals are put in after its filled with water.

Empty pools would spare using that water.

[BonnieJW]

6. I don't understand why

we don't build a water pipeline. If an oil pipeline can be built, why not one for water? There would be no more flooding or droughts.

[roamer65]

7. Pipe it from where?

[OMGWTF]

53. I'm in the Seattle area and it's been raining a lot here.

I live across the street from a river that is flowing so deep and fast that it's scary. There's still a fk-ton of snow in the mountains too, which means more water flowing when the temps warm up.

[roamer65]

55. The precipitation is sliding northward, IMO

Wetter and milder here in Michigan generally.

You are probably going to see same as we aren’t far off latitude wise.

[hunter]

91. Once upon a time there was a huge water project proposed...

Last edited Wed Jun 8, 2022, 05:23 PM - Edit history (1)

... that would have linked Alaska to Northern Mexico with a system of huge dams and canals.

These would have been excavated using hydrogen bombs.

Needless to say the environmental impacts would have been unimaginable.

On edit: North American Water and Power Alliance

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

[love_katz]

94. The climate is swinging between greater extremes.

I live in the Pacific Northwest. We have been lucky this year, because our spring has been the 9th wettest on record. I am super grateful for the extra rain and snow up in the mountains. January and February were frightening because it was way too dry. Fortunately, the rest of the season has been very wet and cool. Our land deeply needed the rain and snow. Last summer we had the horrible heat dome which killed a bunch of people and made life miserable. Damage to our iconic evergreen trees was visible everywhere and has been coming on for years.

[Pobeka]

103. How about S. California just starts by capturing more of their annual rainfall?

They just let it mosly run off into the ocean, from what I hear.

[NickB79]

111. Estuaries die without it

And those are the breeding grounds for commercial fish species.

[Gaugamela]

11. That's essentially what the Colorado River and Lake Mead and Lake Powell is, along

with the California Aqueduct. It’s probably one of the largest water management systems in the world.

This is the aqueduct, which brings water from Northern California to LA.
?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1

[2naSalit]

21. +1

[VGNonly]

35. From Duluth MN

Last edited Sat Jun 4, 2022, 02:21 PM - Edit history (1)

to Green River WY is about 1000 miles as the crow flies and over a mile higher. Pumping water upstream is extremely expensive. Desalting water would be somewhat cheaper, but still very expensive. The CAL aqueduct is gravity fed for the most part, but the last hurdle is the area near and around Santa Clarita. Pumping water uphill is a losing battle

[roamer65]

40. That pipeline won't work.

The people of the Great Lakes region will make sure it doesn’t.

Take that to the bank.

[MiHale]

109. Got that right!...

Nestle takes enough.

[roamer65]

117. Too much.

They should be shut down.

[mn9driver]

15. Oil sells for $50-$150 per barrel. A barrel is 42 gallons.

Pipelines are economically feasible at that price.

I have no idea what the economically feasible price for water would have to be in order to transport it from the Great Lakes to California.

I’m guessing that at whatever price that is, it would be cheaper to abandon the land and rebuild closer to an actual water supply.

[housecat]

26. Taking water from the Great Lakes is like Putin stealing countries.

[roamer65]

41. Doesn't matter.

Great Lakes water will not be going west via pipeline.

[housecat]

28. Too costly. Really? Compared to what? Too costly to sustain life?

You'd think if we could land on the moon in 1969, we could already desalinize water half a century later! We have the resources and the brains, so use them.

[housecat]

72. exactly

[HariSeldon]

42. Desalination is energy intensive

If we use existing power supplies, we'll be increasing CO2 output. Building nuclear (fission, still) to power the desalination would probably take 10 years.

Desalination also produces high-saline brine that requires appropriate disposal, though that is a smaller problem.

[roamer65]

46. Diablo Canyon NPP.

Don’t decommission it.

Use it for desalination.

[Wounded Bear]

8. Pretty bad when Great Salt Lake is going dry...

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/3/6/22958445/great-salt-lake-drought-saline-lake-record-low-exposed-lake-bed-dust-utah-economy-pollution-air

Advocates, researchers and others intimately acquainted with the Great Salt Lake have watched with dread over the last two decades as it has steadily dwindled to a trickle of its former self.

Its ailing condition has been as glaring as its receding shorelines — the increases in salinity, the shallow muck-filled marina, the compromised population of birds and other wildlife.

[paleotn]

14. For a glimpse of what we're up against, see the Medieval Warm Period.

It was warm enough for the Norse to colonize Greenland, but not so good in the western half of North America. Civilizations in the Great Basin collapsed. The Sandhills of Nebraska returned to desert conditions, rolling sand dunes.

A swath from Texas to Southern California may become uninhabitable this time around. Dry farming in the high plains may collapse. The implications are staggering.

?h=5933738f&itok=cfgas277

[bronxiteforever]

100. +1 excellent points

[NQAS]

18. New dam projects?

Sounds like socialism to me.

[Pas-de-Calais]

20. Fortunate to see Hoover back in 2001 during

a side trip from a Microsoft conference in Vegas.

I was in awe at the structure, the releasing of water thru the gates, the amount of water being held in place.

Seeing today’s photos of the same place is heart breaking.

[ybbor]

22. I was just in LA for a family get together

They are still all watering their lawns, and there is actual moss growing in the gutters next to the curbs in the streets.

Disgusting

[housecat]

24. California is asking for too little too late.

There should have already been strong restrictions and rationing for a long time. Outdoor watering? Really? Golf courses? Can we at least recycle shower water for all outdoor watering? Like climate change in general, we are late to the party due to too many STUPID people.

[calimary]

31. Denial. That's the problem.

Saying “it’s not just a river in Egypt” is growing more ironic by the day.

[housecat]

33. Yes, denial. Plus politics, greed, and plain stupidity

[Captain Zero]

27. Plenty of H2O in Indiana. Move here. Make us blue.

Vote for McDermott this fall. Get Todd Young out of the US Senate. Enjoy the water. The Seasons. Low (comparatively) property prices.

Ok. I'm doing this best I can....

[housecat]

34. It's a start

[roamer65]

44. Yup to a point yes.

Eventually the Great Lakes region will need to adopt its own immigration policy.

We don’t want right wing Trumpists up here from the South, for instance.

Let them die in the heat down South.

[housecat]

32. And other states are having frequent flooding. Use that water before it hits the salt ocean.

[Ferrets are Cool]

36. 3...2...1 Repugs: THIS IS ALL BIDENS FAULT!!

[SouthernLiberal]

48. I like to take a long shower

But I do not run the water all the time. I get wet, turn off the water while I wash. Turn it back on to rinse. I have done this for years

[hunter]

50. Say goodbye to affordable winter lettuce.

There's always cabbage.

[AZLD4Candidate]

52. We need more water sponges in arid areas: Gold courses, melons, grass, berries, almonds

and cotton.

In Arizona, Big Ag accounts for 7% of the State's GDP and sucks 70% of the water (while getting first dibs at it).

The Colorado Protocol of 1922 needs to be reworked. When it was written, there were 20 million people in the six states using the water (at a time when reserves were super high). Now there are 160 million people using less water in those six states.

[The Jungle 1]

75. The farming must stop.

NOW! It won't happen and the golf courses will continue wasting water.
The farmers are sucking the ground water with no control.
They fiddle while Rome burns.

[CrispyQ]

67. The levels of Lakes Powell & Mead are alarming.

And yet, one entire political party is more concerned about what goes on in my uterus than the fact that the the lights are about to go off & the facets are about to go dry in the southwestern US.

[VGNonly]

74. How much water is 1,600,000 gallons?

That is the water an average vegan saves in 4 years.

[link:

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[czarjak]

77. "Stop Global Whining" bumper stickers come to mind.

[bucolic_frolic]

87. Nuke the jet stream

to divert other storms.

[BigmanPigman]

92. I still see people washing their sidewalks instead of using a broom in CA.

People have been wasting water for years and now it is catching up with them.

[lunatica]

96. Time to cut back on toilet flushing and showers.

It’s automatic activity in California but now that I’m in New Mexico I’ve started doing it again. All the fires don’t make it any easier though!

[cstanleytech]

99. Kind of surprises me though that given the states water situation that there are those that

oppose desalination plants.

[Eugene]

110. Like other water disputes, it's about who gets the water and who shoulders the costs.

Desalination is energy intensive and yields brine that must be disposed of. The latest proposal had the plant dumping the brine in to the ocean in one part of the state to provide water to another part of the state.

Desalting, conservation and taking someone else's water all come with conflicts with somebody.

[cstanleytech]

112. "all come with conflicts with somebody" True but they need to wake up

and bite the bullet and do it soon.

[C Moon]

107. Earth will protect itself, and send us into another Dark Ages weather pattern.

Humans are the bacteria it needs to kill off.

[andricv]

108. The GOP is a threat to our future

They are ignoring global warming.