Could California be facing a water collapse?

[Scuzz]

Seems like quite an omission to not include livestock products. I know CA doesn't produce as much as other parts of the country, but it's still significant.

Saw a piece yesterday that mentioned a bit of Hearst Ranch's costs. Apparently it's cheaper/easier to import grass. They also are building de-sal plants since they are right on the ocean.

With a relentless California drought in its fourth year, he has scaled back his cattle operation by half, and he started paying $80,000 a month to bring in a mixture of grass to feed his remaining cows. When Whole Foods found out about his moves, Hearst said the company president approached him to split the cost.

"They invited a price increase because they understood that everything that they do and what we do has to be sustainable," Hearst said. "What a partner to have to say, 'Look, if it's costing you more, we'll pay more.'"

I assume that means that beef costs at Whole Foods are going to go up.

The city of Cambria, which is just south of Hearst Catle and the ranch just built a desalination plant that will handle the water needs of that area. It is an area that over the last 30 years has probably only allowed new building for maybe 10 of those years, due to lack of water. They also fought the environmentalists to just get this "little" plant built. You see, you have to so something with the waste, I guess you just can't dump it back in the ocean.

[Enough]

The primary difference I see there is that while Colorado ag (the Front Range anyway) draws 20% of the water, it generates 80%+ of the tax revenue. In California, ag uses 80% of the water and generates 2% of the state revenue.

You are misreading the data. Those dollars include the economic activity of every major city in the state (Denver, CO Springs, Boulder, Fort Collins, Greeley, etc). 65% of Front Range water use is for Ag but I know from heavily researching this topic that is produces a fraction of the economic activity/tax revenues that the cities do.

Maybe it would be easier to present just the numbers generated by ag. I just saw "Range" and figured it was ag. I don't know crap about Colorado.

So looking at the last two bullet points, it looks like on the "Front Range" ag is about 1% of the economic production on a "per acre foot of water withdrawal" basis. Which, you're right, is close to California. It's actually worse than California and appears to be the best in the state. So Colorado as a whole is far worse than California.

Agreed it was confusing, sorry about that, it's how they chose to present. Part of the confusion is including Weld County in the Front Range which is the richest agricultural county in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains (moo!). This PDF of the actual report that article was based on breaks it down in a few different ways. It shows that Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting provide 0.6% of state employment. But the report also shows how ag is a "basic or primary" industry, and as such when considered as forecasted household & industrial direct basic employment by sector it goes up to 7%.

[Jeff V]

I say outlaw all the nuts/drupes. Grapes are pretty thirsty too.

But grapes can be converted into wine, which is a fine substitute for water.

[stessier]

They also fought the environmentalists to just get this "little" plant built. You see, you have to so something with the waste, I guess you just can't dump it back in the ocean.

You can, you just can't do it without mixing it with other water to dilute the salt. The irony.

[Alefroth]

They also fought the environmentalists to just get this "little" plant built. You see, you have to so something with the waste, I guess you just can't dump it back in the ocean.

You can, you just can't do it without mixing it with other water to dilute the salt. The irony.

Couldn't it just be diluted with sea water? You wouldn't be able to reduce the salinity to match the surrounding water, but it seems like you could get it low enough.

[stessier]

They also fought the environmentalists to just get this "little" plant built. You see, you have to so something with the waste, I guess you just can't dump it back in the ocean.

You can, you just can't do it without mixing it with other water to dilute the salt. The irony.

Couldn't it just be diluted with sea water? You wouldn't be able to reduce the salinity to match the surrounding water, but it seems like you could get it low enough.

Maybe? The articles I've read mention mixing it with waste water (all the other water we dump to the oceans) at a ratio of at least 5:1.

Reminds me of a plant I visited once in NY. They took water from a river, used it in their process, cleaned it, and then dumped it back to the river cleaner than when it started. They mentioned that it would be technically illegal to pump the water and immediately dump it back to the river because the river was polluted to a level above legal dumping limits.

[Pyperkub]

There is no way California would consider giving up one tiny bit of its agricultural market share, when it can instead force rationing and additional costs on the general public.

Most agriculture in the central valley has received less than 10% of there normal water (water they pay for not getting anyway as that is how dams and water delivery systems are paid for) for the last 2 years. Many areas last year got 0% of their water, as they will this year.

We are entering year 4 and just now the state is going to ask the rest of the state to do something. How much water flows through LA and has water use has not been limited. Or San Diego, or Palm Springs.....

Do you have any links with regards to the central valley agriculture not getting any of their water? Is that Federal or State water deliveries, etc.

I read the Governor's executive order, and the only impacts to Agriculture are that they are to come up with a plan to reduce water usage by 2016:



Which is all I could find in the Executive Order regarding Agriculture's burden here, though the summary has some information:

Agricultural water users - which have borne much of the brunt of the drought to date, with hundreds of thousands of fallowed acres, significantly reduced water allocations and thousands of farmworkers laid off - will be required to report more water use information to state regulators, increasing the state's ability to enforce against illegal diversions and waste and unreasonable use of water under today's order. Additionally, the Governor's action strengthens standards for Agricultural Water Management Plans submitted by large agriculture water districts and requires small agriculture water districts to develop similar plans. These plans will help ensure that agricultural communities are prepared in case the drought extends into 2016.

[LawBeefaroni]

They also fought the environmentalists to just get this "little" plant built. You see, you have to so something with the waste, I guess you just can't dump it back in the ocean.

You can, you just can't do it without mixing it with other water to dilute the salt. The irony.

Couldn't it just be diluted with sea water? You wouldn't be able to reduce the salinity to match the surrounding water, but it seems like you could get it low enough.

Maybe? The articles I've read mention mixing it with waste water (all the other water we dump to the oceans) at a ratio of at least 5:1.

Let it dry in the sun and ship the resulting solid waste here to de-ice our roads during winter! We'll pay you in water even!

Which reminds me, how long until we start requiring de-sal plants for lakes?

[Enough]

Moral of the story? If you live in the West there may be no better investment vehicle than water rights. I know for my dad's farm that he earned far more than the original total farm purchase price by just selling partial rights after modernizing irrigation methods helped conserve water.

[Pyperkub]

Moral of the story? If you live in the West there may be no better investment vehicle than water rights. I know for my dad's farm that he earned far more than the original total farm purchase price by just selling partial rights after modernizing irrigation methods helped conserve water.

In other words, see Chinatown

[LordMortis]

Moral of the story? If you live in the West there may be no better investment vehicle than water rights. I know for my dad's farm that he earned far more than the original total farm purchase price by just selling partial rights after modernizing irrigation methods helped conserve water.

I win

[Scuzz]

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/enviro ... 55200.html
Note the percentages....0%.

http://www.water.ca.gov/swpao/deliveries.cfm
Note the proposed percentages of 10-20%.



I do think the valley (California in general) farmers know they need to save water. probably few American farmers use methods the central valley farmer uses, however, I think eventually the farmers need to understand that high water crops need to be replaced.

However again, perhaps one of the highest water using crops is alfalfa, which is grown and then fed to the states dairy and cattle ranches. So more than just agriculture would be effected by the elimination of alfalfa in the valley.

[LordMortis]

Do frakkers use potable water?

http://wearechange.org/californians-out ... trictions/

[Enough]

Do frakkers use potable water?

http://wearechange.org/californians-out ... trictions/

They sure do in Colorado and they outbid farmers and even cities for it at auction. Though the decreased price of oil should slow that up a bit.

Edit, and in the future if hard rock shale oil ever takes off Chevron controls huge amounts of water rights (like enough for a million people) in Colorado.

[Holman]

Edit, and in the future if hard rock shale oil ever takes off Chevron controls huge amounts of water rights (like enough for a million people) in Colorado.

Thank goodness the citizens of Chevronia will have enough fuel to drive to Ohio for a drink or a shower!

[Anonymous Bosch]

Interesting to read that even George Skelton appears to be looking askance at the wisdom of Governor Brown's notions of water conservation:

Brown stopped by briefly after dining with others and commented about crop regulation without being asked. Then he headed for the door.

Two days earlier, I had written a column suggesting it was time state government consider regulating crops based on their water demands and location — whether grown, for example, on the arid west side of the San Joaquin Valley or up north where it's wetter. This is particularly true for permanent crops — orchards and vineyards — that cannot be fallowed during droughts as vegetables can.

Almonds are especially thirsty in the southern San Joaquin. But there's a lucrative overseas market for them so growers have been planting more and more trees. Basically, one almond requires a gallon of water to produce.

Last week, Brown elaborated on his hands-off-crops position, starting at a Sierra photo op that made newspaper front pages and attracted national TV. Standing on bare ground where there's normally snow, the governor unveiled his new drought-survival plan.

It includes tightening the spigot on lawns, golf courses and cemeteries, even digging up grass and substituting drought-resistant landscaping, letting road median strips go brown and junking old appliances.

"As Californians, we have to pull together and save water in every way we can," the governor declared. "Overall, we're looking for a 25% aggregate reduction....

"People should realize, we're in a new era. The idea of your nice little green grass getting lots of water every day, that's going to be a thing of the past.... In many parts of California, they're living in a desert or semi-arid desert and we have to begin to live in more conformity to what nature makes available."

But wait a second: He wasn't demanding a 25% cut in overall water use. He was seeking 25% of 20% — equal to 5% of the total. His target is only the 20% of developed water that flows to urban use. Agriculture devours the other 80%.

Writing for City Journal, Victor Davis Hanson also provides some great perspective on California's woeful water infrastructure and storage:

Just as California’s freeways were designed to grow to meet increased traffic, the state’s vast water projects were engineered to expand with the population. Many assumed that the state would finish planned additions to the California State Water Project and its ancillaries. But in the 1960s and early 1970s, no one anticipated that the then-nascent environmental movement would one day go to court to stop most new dam construction, including the 14,000-acre Sites Reservoir on the Sacramento River near Maxwell; the Los Banos Grandes facility, along a section of the California Aqueduct in Merced County; and the Temperance Flat Reservoir, above Millerton Lake north of Fresno. Had the gigantic Klamath River diversion project not likewise been canceled in the 1970s, the resulting Aw Paw reservoir would have been the state’s largest man-made reservoir. At two-thirds the size of Lake Mead, it might have stored 15 million acre-feet of water, enough to supply San Francisco for 30 years. California’s water-storage capacity would be nearly double what it is today had these plans come to fruition. It was just as difficult to imagine that environmentalists would try to divert contracted irrigation and municipal water from already-established reservoirs. Yet they did just that, and subsequently moved to freeze California’s water-storage resources at 1970s capacities.

All the while, the Green activists remained blissfully unconcerned about the vast immigration into California from Latin America and Mexico that would help double the state’s population in just four decades, to 40 million. Had population growth remained static, perhaps California could have lived with partially finished water projects. The state might also have been able to restore the flow of scenic rivers from the mountains to the sea, maintained a robust agribusiness sector, and even survived a four- or five-year drought. But if California continues to block new construction of the State Water Project as well as additions to local and federal water-storage infrastructure, officials must halve California’s population, or shut down the 5 million acres of irrigated crops on the Central Valley’s west side, or cut back municipal water usage in a way never before done in the United States.

[Scuzz]

Victor Davis Hanson lives on a a family farm in the San Joaquin Valley.


That 80% figure is being debated. Apparently humans use 20%, 40% goes to ag and 40% is used for "environmental" purposes.

The water problem in California is two fold. First, much of California is natural desert and therefore to sustain what it is, what it has become, requires much more water than what is naturally available in areas. Secondly, the environmental movement has refused to allow the growth/improvement of water supply systems. Some of their objections may be logical, others are merely a smokescreen to prevent development of needed infrastructure. Imagine if they had worked this hard to prevent the construction of the freeway system, or the building of the high speed rail system.

[Enough]

Interesting factoid I read today, horses use 7% of the water in California. Statewide that's more than golf courses use. Within the Palm Springs area golf uses more, but the overall statewide course use is something like 1%.

California already has the largest and most advanced water delivery system the world has ever known. We can blame the enviros for no new water projects, but in reality a very large share of the best dam sites and water projects have been taken long ago. And of course dams naturally silt up. Add in mega droughts that naturally occur in the state and this day of reckoning was completely inescapable for California. I wonder if water will reach a price where making long distance pipelines from the Mississippi, Great Lakes and Canada would be feasible? Desal works great for a small country like Israel, but California's needs are far more vast than desal can ever hope to satisfy alone.

Oh and Victor Davis Hanson is so black and white. For such a well-educated guy one would think he could see the shades of gray. Plus he's a neocon straight out of the Scoop Jackson/Scooter Libby camp that totally thought Iraq Gulf War II was a good idea and wants us to pound Iran into submission. On that note, why are we turning to a military history/classicist professor for water expertise? As a farmer he's certainly got a dog in the fight, but I don't know if that makes him a great expert.

[Enough]

That 80% figure is being debated. Apparently humans use 20%, 40% goes to ag and 40% is used for "environmental" purposes.

I googled for a citation on the 40/40 figure and came up with this. TLDR, it's complicated.

[LawBeefaroni]

I wonder if water will reach a price where making long distance pipelines from the Mississippi, Great Lakes and Canada would be feasible? Desal works great for a small country like Israel, but California's needs are far more vast than desal can ever hope to satisfy alone.

If California tries to stick their straw in the Great Lakes I'm pretty sure they'll face armed resistance.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I'm guessing there will be another civil war before anyone is going to sell and pipe water from any one of those places.

[ImLawBoy]

Yeah, I'm guessing there will be another civil war before anyone is going to sell and pipe water from any one of those places.

Conquering Canada and taking their water wouldn't be civil war, silly.

[Vorret]

Yeah, I'm guessing there will be another civil war before anyone is going to sell and pipe water from any one of those places.

Conquering Canada and taking their water wouldn't be civil war, silly.

We'd run around a bit until you guys tired then we'd ship you back

[Biyobi]

I wonder if water will reach a price where making long distance pipelines from the Mississippi, Great Lakes and Canada would be feasible? Desal works great for a small country like Israel, but California's needs are far more vast than desal can ever hope to satisfy alone.

If California tries to stick their straw in the Great Lakes I'm pretty sure they'll face armed resistance.

We'll send you almonds! For every gallon you send we'll ship you one delicious almond.

[Pyperkub]

Victor Davis Hanson lives on a a family farm in the San Joaquin Valley.


That 80% figure is being debated. Apparently humans use 20%, 40% goes to ag and 40% is used for "environmental" purposes.

The water problem in California is two fold. First, much of California is natural desert and therefore to sustain what it is, what it has become, requires much more water than what is naturally available in areas. Secondly, the environmental movement has refused to allow the growth/improvement of water supply systems. Some of their objections may be logical, others are merely a smokescreen to prevent development of needed infrastructure. Imagine if they had worked this hard to prevent the construction of the freeway system, or the building of the high speed rail system.

Or the landfill in the San Francisco Bay? Oh wait, the enviros did that, and it was a very, very good thing.



As mentioned in the piece linked by Enough, most of the "environmental" water is in the far north, and not very suitable for diversion.

What you are really talking about is raiding the Delta for more water for the San Joaquin Valley - ditto for Hansen, and that would likely have some very long-term consequences to the Delta and the Bay.

Which may be necessary and even doable without significant damage to the ecosystem, but IMHO not until the water prices for farmers in the Valley are fixed to be more market-based and not historically based - which even Brown isn't touching (yet). Continuing to support the existing inefficiencies in water valuations/distributions in the Valley is a huge taxpayer subsidy to the Valley Farmers which needs to be fixed, and taking more water will only push this off until the next drought... by which time we could have rendered the Delta and SF Bay useless for marine life and the ecosystems therein.

If we're going to increase the amount of Welfare for the Valley at great taxpayer expense in both dollars and environmental damage, we need to make sure that this handout is done wisely.

aka, welfare drug testing for water handouts!

[Enough]

I wonder if water will reach a price where making long distance pipelines from the Mississippi, Great Lakes and Canada would be feasible? Desal works great for a small country like Israel, but California's needs are far more vast than desal can ever hope to satisfy alone.

If California tries to stick their straw in the Great Lakes I'm pretty sure they'll face armed resistance.

Oh sure, it's all kosher when Nestle does it.

More seriously Canada at one time was proposing to build a water pipeline for California. And even more seriously, I highly doubt the price of water is anywhere near high enough to sustain a project that likely would cost well north of $100 billion dollars.

Less seriously, wouldn't it just be easier to have Californians resettle the Great Lakes?

[Anonymous Bosch]

Victor Davis Hanson lives on a a family farm in the San Joaquin Valley.


That 80% figure is being debated.

Not by the Governor.

From the transcript of the Governor's recent interview with Martha Raddatz on ABC's This Week

RADDATZ: Governor, one of the criticisms of this executive order has been that you did not make the same demands on the agricultural industry, which certainly has enormous political clout in the state.

Look at a couple of headlines. "Los Angeles Times" -- "Brown's Drought Plan is Light on Growers." "Sacramento Bee," "Growers Largely Spared in New Water Restrictions."

And a few factoids floating out there. Agriculture uses 80 percent of the water, but accounts for less than two percent of the economy. More water is used for almond production than is used by all residents and businesses in San Francisco and Los Angeles combined.

BROWN: I'm glad you used the word factoid, because it certainly has that character.

Look, the farmers have fallowed hundreds of thousands of acres of land. They're pulling up vines and trees. Farmworkers who are at the very low end of the economic scale here are out of work.

There are people in agriculture that are really suffering. We're providing food...

RADDATZ: But we know they're suffering...

BROWN: -- housing units (INAUDIBLE)...

RADDATZ: -- Governor, but let me look at those. Again, 80 percent of the water is used by agriculture, but accounts for less than 2 percent of the economy.

Is that true?

BROWN: Yes, you bet it's true.

[LordMortis]

Oh sure, it's all kosher when Nestle does it.

They are destroying eco-cultures here. I don't understand how my legislature is letting them get away with it. Left, Right it doesn't matter.

[LawBeefaroni]

Oh sure, it's all kosher when Nestle does it.

They are destroying eco-cultures here. I don't understand how my legislature is letting them get away with it. Left, Right it doesn't matter.

It's the "5 gallon" loophole in the Compact. A pipeline wouldn't slip through.

And yes, the loophole is a problem. They need to fix the language.

[Scuzz]

I think if the truth were known Gov. Brown, the state legislature and probably SF and LA would prefer if the central valley were returned to the soil and it's people cast to the wind. I don't think that is a secret to anyone who lives in the state. Central California is merely the area you drive through between SF and LA.

[Pyperkub]

A look at how CA's Water Infrastructure also needs some 21st Century updating:

For starters, California needs to starting collecting and using data about its water in a manner more “pioneering” of the digital 21st century than the industrial 19th.

Consider a fundamental task with which the governor charged the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB): gathering basic information on water usage and actions, in order to help improve conservation efforts by local water utilities throughout the state...

...The board has been collecting urban and agricultural water usage data since late last year; incredibly, most of the conservation actions are recorded in the form of machine illegible text comments, rather than as a detailed categorization of public outreach, water rate changes, and rebates like the $100+ million the Metropolitan Water District is spending to tear out laws in southern California.

The Drought Dashboardis kind of interesting (residential baseline of over 400 Gallons per capita in San Bernadino???

[cheeba]

Less seriously, wouldn't it just be easier to have Californians resettle the Great Lakes?

[theohall]

Does anyone watch movies any more?

There are numerous movies produced over the past 40 years which directly reference water issues in CA with developers building homes in the desert.

Anyway - just hope these guys that supposedly have fusion working actually have fusion working. If it works, it makes desalinization plants feasible.

[Pyperkub]

I think if the truth were known Gov. Brown, the state legislature and probably SF and LA would prefer if the central valley were returned to the soil and it's people cast to the wind. I don't think that is a secret to anyone who lives in the state. Central California is merely the area you drive through between SF and LA.

And the home to a huge part of America's food supply. It's why CA is an Agricultural powerhouse.

[Pyperkub]

Wyoming (and other Western States) next?

The red line is the average from 1972–1999, and the purple from 2000–2013. The purple line is lower, meaning that at the same time of year, there was less snow in the more recent measurements than there used to be. Snow is melting earlier.

That has profound consequences; state agriculture depends on that melt water. If the melt is happening earlier that implies there’s less time for snow to accumulate on the mountains there.

Less snowpack on mountains west of the Continental Divide means less water for the western states, where there is a monumental drought.

[Pyperkub]

Whoops!

The U.S. Forest Service in Southern California just caught wind of the fact Nestlé's permit to pump water out of a national forest expired over 25 years ago.

An investigation by the Desert Sun found that Nestle Waters North America's permit to transport water across the San Bernardino National Forest expired in 1988. The water is piped across the national forest and loaded on trucks to a plant where it is bottled as Arrowhead 100 percent Mountain Spring Water....

...The coalition is protesting Nestlé’s virtually unlimited use of water – up to 80 million gallons a year drawn from local aquifers – ...

...Nestlé pays only 65 cents for each 470 gallons it pumps out of the ground – the same rate as an average residential water user.

What a screw-up!

[LawBeefaroni]

Almonds under fire.

There are a lot of great villains in the story of California’s water woes.

These include Lynda and Stewart Resnick, the Beverly Hills billionaires who control the San Joaquin Valley’s largest groundwater bank and own 125,000 acres of almond and pistachio farms in the region. Southern California cities, where residents used more water than ever this February, as the state rolled into its fourth consecutive drought year. And Governor Jerry Brown, who is either anti-agriculture or anti-urban dweller, depending on who you’re speaking with.

But the biggest villain this year has been the state’s almond growers, accused of gobbling up land and water, replacing more water-efficient crops like lettuce and strawberries with higher value almond crops, and taking more than their fair share of the state’s water.

[Scuzz]

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott ... cks-salmon


Each mature marijuana plant uses 6 gallons of water a day, and there are at least 1,000,000 of them in Mendocino County alone.

[LawBeefaroni]

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott ... cks-salmon


Each mature marijuana plant uses 6 gallons of water a day, and there are at least 1,000,000 of them in Mendocino County alone.

Of all the users of water resources, I would think those using water to grow an illegal/unlicensed crop would be the easiest targets for enforcement.

[Scuzz]

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott ... cks-salmon


Each mature marijuana plant uses 6 gallons of water a day, and there are at least 1,000,000 of them in Mendocino County alone.

Of all the users of water resources, I would think those using water to grow an illegal/unlicensed crop would be the easiest targets for enforcement.

I know the quasi-illegal nature of weed has made cops sort of pick and choose. I think in places where the crop is not harming anyone they may leave it alone. Around here they make big busts in the national parks and anything close to schools. I think in Mendocino they tend to ignore it unless it is just to freakin obvious. It is a huge cash crop up there.