Could California be facing a water collapse?

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 1:38 pm

Scuzz wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote:
Scuzz wrote: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.

It is also pretty cost - ineffective to get water from Mendocino to the areas which are struggling. Currently.

Biyobi · Post by **Biyobi** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:08 pm

At this stage of non-information, I'm willing to believe that the illegal growers may be diverting up to six gallons per day per plant, but I have serious doubts that each plant is actually taking in that amount of water. If that were true, police would have a far easier time finding illegal indoor grow houses. A hundred plant grow house (small operation) would soak up 600 gallons per day. Water companies in the state will send out attack dogs for doing a one-time fill of a swimming pool. Six gallons per day, per plant for the 5 month growing cycle is going to get noticed faster than the large amounts of electricity used for the grow lights, which is usually how they find them.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:28 pm

Biyobi wrote:At this stage of non-information, I'm willing to believe that the illegal growers may be diverting up to six gallons per day per plant, but I have serious doubts that each plant is actually taking in that amount of water. If that were true, police would have a far easier time finding illegal indoor grow houses. A hundred plant grow house (small operation) would soak up 600 gallons per day. Water companies in the state will send out attack dogs for doing a one-time fill of a swimming pool. Six gallons per day, per plant for the 5 month growing cycle is going to get noticed faster than the large amounts of electricity used for the grow lights, which is usually how they find them.

Indoor grows supposedly only require 3 gallons per plant from what I have read.

The growers in Mendocino may be tapping the rivers as that is the true wet forest area of California.

My office had it's electric meter stolen during the new Years holidays. The PG&E guy who replaced it (and installed a locking device) said guys use them to power up empty houses so that they can grow weed or make meth.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:30 pm

Biyobi wrote:At this stage of non-information, I'm willing to believe that the illegal growers may be diverting up to six gallons per day per plant, but I have serious doubts that each plant is actually taking in that amount of water. If that were true, police would have a far easier time finding illegal indoor grow houses. A hundred plant grow house (small operation) would soak up 600 gallons per day. Water companies in the state will send out attack dogs for doing a one-time fill of a swimming pool. Six gallons per day, per plant for the 5 month growing cycle is going to get noticed faster than the large amounts of electricity used for the grow lights, which is usually how they find them.

Water requirements can partially be met using recycled bong water and beer filtered through the grower's kidneys.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Wed Apr 15, 2015 5:40 pm

Or maybe it will be Florida next:

They did a hell of a job. A watershed built for 2 million people now supports nearly 8 million, and another 50 million tourists each year.

After a century of development, half the Everglades is dead and the other half is on life support.

This is a problem, not just for the gators and snakes.

It is a problem for the eagles, panthers, snails, dolphins, hawks, manatees, flamingos, vase sponges, black bears and ghost orchids that make up the most unique, diverse wetlands in the world.

And most of all, it is a problem for people.

Because most of the drinking water in South Florida comes from the aquifers beneath the Everglades

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Tue May 12, 2015 2:53 pm

Arizona?

Last week, Lake Mead, which sits on the border of Nevada and Arizona, set a new record low—the first time since the construction of the Hoover Dam in the 1930s that the lake’s surface has dipped below 1,080 feet above sea level. The West’s drought is so bad that official plans for water rationing have now begun—with Arizona’s farmers first on the chopping block. Yes, despite the drought’s epicenter in California, it’s Arizona that will bear the brunt of the West’s epic dry spell.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Thu May 14, 2015 3:20 pm

A very good look at the Geography of Agriculture in the Valley(s), and things which rationally will happen if the drought continues:

Too often we try to wrap it all into convenient, simple packages — Central Valley and nut orchards — when more specificity is required to grasp the nub of the problem.

What part of the vast Central Valley? How dry is it and what's being grown there?

Let's begin with the basics. The Central Valley stretches 450 miles from Bakersfield north to Redding and is divided into significantly different hydrology regions that affect crop growing. Actually, they should affect it more, but farmers are free to plant whatever they want.

The long valley essentially is divided into two valleys — the San Joaquin and the Sacramento. It's the much drier San Joaquin that usually is referred to casually as the Central Valley — and sometimes a looming dust bowl...

...The importance in all this is that it's much drier — and more water-gulping for crops — in the southern Central Valley than in the north.

Look how the average annual rainfall increases from south to north: 6.5 inches in Bakersfield, 11.5 in Fresno, 18.5 in Sacramento, 26.7 in Chico, 34.6 in Redding. That's a 28-inch spread from very dry to very wet...

...Numbers have been compiled by Josue Medellin-Azuara, senior researcher at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. He figures it takes 4 acre-feet of irrigation water to grow an acre of almonds or pistachios in the Tulare Basin, where nut orchards have expanded the most in the last decade.

In the rest of the San Joaquin Valley, it requires 3.4 acre-feet. But in the Sacramento Valley, these nuts need only 2.4 acre-feet. That's a difference of roughly one acre-foot, or nearly 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two households for a year.

There are 916,000 acres of almond and pistachio trees in the semi-arid San Joaquin, Medellin-Azuara says, but only 162,000 acres in the wetter Sacramento Valley.

The Sacramento used to be the main producer of these nuts, but when the federal and state water projects brought irrigation to the San Joaquin, the increasingly profitable and exported crops took off there.

Stone fruit — apricots, peaches, cherries — also require more irrigation in the south than in the north, 3.8 acre-feet compared with 2.8. Same with alfalfa, nearly 5 acre-feet contrasted with 4.

Enough · Post by **Enough** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 4:00 pm

Nobody actually knows how much water farmers in California use.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:42 pm

Just saw the first thing on this the other day. Starting to look liek a MAd MAx world in CA.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:13 pm

Enough wrote:Nobody actually knows how much water farmers in California use.

I hate when they use that 80% figure as it is not accurate, or I guess I should say that without explanation it shows a bias. According to stats 20% of California water is used by "man", 40% by ag and 40% flows to the ocean or is used in an environmental way.

Nice to see David Zoldoske's name in the article. I have known him since Boy Scouts.

I think the real concern is the groundwater problem.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 4:20 pm

It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/rich-c ... ar-BBl6vyY

Let them eat cake!

Sometimes I wonder exactly how close we are to rioting in the streets. And while I hate my lawn, I love the rain that makes it grow. The only time I have ever watered my mess of a yard is when I use weed killer that requires a hose... I made the mistake of using a hose based Weed and Feed once... Once...

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 4:40 pm

My observations after being in LA for 8 days last week...

If you ever wonder if LA is doing their part on water conservation I'm here to report they are not.
After spending a week vacationing around Disneyland I've witnessed people spraying down their yard, parks being watered nightly. The place we stayed had their sprinklers on every morning.
Meanwhile we are on tight restrictions and we are shipping Northern California's water supply to them while they waste it.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 6:17 pm

LordMortis wrote:It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/rich-c ... ar-BBl6vyY

Let them eat cake!

Sometimes I wonder exactly how close we are to rioting in the streets. And while I hate my lawn, I love the rain that makes it grow. The only time I have ever watered my mess of a yard is when I use weed killer that requires a hose... I made the mistake of using a hose based Weed and Feed once... Once...

Yeah - definitely unclear on the concept of shared sacrifice and rationing. Not unsurprising, given the attitudes of (many of) the rich (I should be able to buy anything/anyone I want, and anyone who isn't as rich as me is lazy and undeserving and beneath me).

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 6:24 pm

Saw this one recently too -a literal collapse due to the drought - not a figurative one:

California is sinking – and fast.

While the state’s drought-induced sinking is well known, new details highlight just how severe it has become and how little the government has done to monitor it.

Last summer, scientists recorded the worst sinking in at least 50 years. This summer, all-time records are expected across the state as thousands of miles of land in the Central Valley and elsewhere sink. ...

...The cause is known: People are pulling unsustainable amounts of water out of underground aquifers, primarily for food production. With the water sucked out to irrigate crops, a practice that has accelerated during the drought, tens of thousands of square miles are deflating like a leaky air mattress, inch by inch.

This has happened before:

Some places in the state are sinking more than a foot per year. The last time it was this bad, it cost the state more than a billion dollars to fix...

...The sinking, which peaked in the late 1960s, wreaked havoc on the state’s rapidly expanding infrastructure, damaging highways, bridges and irrigation canals. One estimate by the California Water Foundation put the price tag at $1.3 billion for just some of the repairs during that time.

The sinking did not slow until the 1970s, after California had completed its massive canal system – the most expensive public works project in state history. It delivered water from wetter parts of the state to farmers in the Central Valley and elsewhere, relieving their reliance on groundwater. The problem was fixed – at least for a while...

...Last year, the state passed its first law attempting to regulate groundwater, but farmers won’t be required to meet goals until 2040 at the earliest. And the information on who is pumping what will be kept private.

“A doomsayer would say we will run out of water,” said Matt Hurley, general manager of the Angiola Water District, near Bakersfield. “But I don’t believe we’re heading there. We’ve been given a good opportunity with the sustainability law.”

But Devin Galloway, a scientist with the geological survey, sees devastation of a historic proportion returning to California. He says that even if farmers stopped pumping groundwater immediately, the damage already done to aquifers now drained to record-low levels will trigger sinking that will last for years, even decades.

“This could be a very long process. Even if the water levels recover, things could continue to subside,” he said. “This is a consequence of the overuse of groundwater.”

Kraken · Post by **Kraken** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 6:44 pm

Last winter's record snowfall left New England's reservoirs brimming, and it's a good thing: May was the second-driest on record and June hasn't been much better; year-to-date rainfall is 5" below normal...which is rather a lot, really. My lawn never really greened up this spring and is already going dormant, a month ahead of normal. It seems like we lurch from one extreme to another.

OK, it's not a California-scale disaster and I'd enjoy a cool, dry summer if I weren't a gardener. The weather's been pleasant but I've had to water the garden every other day, and I'm going to be facing some record water bills unless this pattern changes.

Forecast says 100% chance of rain tomorrow. We'll see.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 7:46 pm

I went and looked at a lot of info and pics of this. The pics of the sprinklers full on and it running down the road pissed me off and I dont live there. Why dont they have workers out marking these homes and businesses wasting water when told not to and shut their watre off for a week as punishment? They'd learn.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 9:26 pm

Daehawk wrote:I went and looked at a lot of info and pics of this. The pics of the sprinklers full on and it running down the road pissed me off and I dont live there. Why dont they have workers out marking these homes and businesses wasting water when told not to and shut their watre off for a week as punishment? They'd learn.

Just wait until you see someone washing off their driveway with a hose instead of a broom.

rshetts2 · Post by **rshetts2** » Sun Jun 14, 2015 10:53 pm

I saw this on Facebook. I havent done any checking on its numbers or accuracy but it does give one cause for thought.

If true, thats a lot of water to be spending on what is already a questioned practice.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 2:22 am

Tax fracking to build desalination plants.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 1:20 pm

Daehawk wrote:I went and looked at a lot of info and pics of this. The pics of the sprinklers full on and it running down the road pissed me off and I dont live there. Why dont they have workers out marking these homes and businesses wasting water when told not to and shut their watre off for a week as punishment? They'd learn.

The state has mandated cities cut back water use by a certain percentage based on info i don't remember or understand. My city in the Central Valley has been told to reduce water use by over 30%. The city is in the process of capping thousands of sprinklers. Homeowners have been told to cut use or prepare to be fined. Both my lawns are dead or are very close to death. Probably 25% of the lawns in my neighborhood are that way.

For some reason commercial is different and that is voluntary, for now. But here I am seeing commercial properties with dying lawns.

The state has also changed state law so that homeowners associations can not fine members for brown or fake lawns.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 1:47 pm

I guess I don't get the entitlement of the wealthy from when they are on public utilities, especially when there is a rebellion against paying higher taxes to support the infrastructure but now I've gone all R&P. Perhaps it's because I live on a power grid that has two circuits to most homes that and that they power company will brown out the less essential circuit when power general consumption is too high for the grid's expected usage. That's the price I pay for being "wealthy enough" to have central air. Maybe the truly wealthy have ways around over consumption residential brown outs. I dunno.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 3:35 pm

rshetts2 wrote:I saw this on Facebook. I havent done any checking on its numbers or accuracy but it does give one cause for thought.

If true, thats a lot of water to be spending on what is already a questioned practice.

Need more detail. How much of that 80B gallons is salt water or other non-usable water, including recycled fracking water? Not that pumping saltwater oil slicks into the ground is great for freshwater reserves but would have to see the real numbers to get a feel for the true impact.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 3:51 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote:Not that pumping saltwater oil slicks into the ground is great for freshwater reserves but would have to see the real numbers to get a feel for the true impact.

That's been one of two big problems I've heard of with communities around fracking. They don't use potable water and the fracking water waste is seeping into surrounding water supplies. The other is that fracking is causing increased seismic activity.

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 4:17 pm

Also, the last report on wells said that the US was capping wells, not opening new ones and it has been that way since around March.

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Mon Jun 15, 2015 4:41 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote:
rshetts2 wrote:I saw this on Facebook. I havent done any checking on its numbers or accuracy but it does give one cause for thought.

If true, thats a lot of water to be spending on what is already a questioned practice.
Need more detail. How much of that 80B gallons is salt water or other non-usable water, including recycled fracking water? Not that pumping saltwater oil slicks into the ground is great for freshwater reserves but would have to see the real numbers to get a feel for the true impact.

Here you go - it's pretty much FUD leveraging fracking fears:

Reuters recently reported that, according to California officials, oil and gas operations used 214 acre-feet of water in the process of hydraulic fracturing. That’s the equivalent of 70 million gallons, or what 514 California households need for a year.

However, there are some things to be careful of with fracking - which is why I do feel that any fracking needs to also be paying for studies with regards to waste and groundwater, as well as any seismic effects -

Investigations about how state regulators are overseeing the disposal of that wastewater (and admissions by the regulators themselves) have revealed problems with the state’s oversight of this water.

Last fall, the EPA issued emergency closure orders for 11 injection wells, most of which were illegally dumping wastewater in groundwater aquifers meant to be protected.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 12:10 pm

I also would like to know where those 2 million people are without water. I do know a couple small towns in the valley have water problems, and at least half of one city (Porterville) went without plumbed water last year but I believe that has been resolved now.

2 million people is a very large number and nothing like that has been in the news.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 12:31 pm

Scuzz wrote:I also would like to know where those 2 million people are without water. I do know a couple small towns in the valley have water problems, and at least half of one city (Porterville) went without plumbed water last year but I believe that has been resolved now.

2 million people is a very large number and nothing like that has been in the news.

How many homeless do you think there are in the state? I imagine a lot of the migrant population doesn't have reliable access to water either. I think you get to two million pretty quickly.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:29 pm

Alefroth wrote:
Scuzz wrote:I also would like to know where those 2 million people are without water. I do know a couple small towns in the valley have water problems, and at least half of one city (Porterville) went without plumbed water last year but I believe that has been resolved now.

2 million people is a very large number and nothing like that has been in the news.
How many homeless do you think there are in the state? I imagine a lot of the migrant population doesn't have reliable access to water either. I think you get to two million pretty quickly.

But the implication is that these are people who lack water do to either the oil industry or the drought. The migrant population or homeless would be in the same situation without that.

Regardless that number is large. It is 5% of the general population. It is not like water spigots all over the state have just been turned off.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:37 pm

California Assemblywoman: Drought Represents God’s Wrath Over Abortion

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 2:39 pm

Moliere wrote:California Assemblywoman: Drought Represents God’s Wrath Over Abortion

My local state rep, a republican, recently compared vaccine laws with concentration camps. Valley GOP reps tend to be bible toting right wingers. My fed rep, a republican, isn't nearly so crazy. Heck, he thinks Cruz is crazy.

Alefroth · Post by **Alefroth** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 3:07 pm

Scuzz wrote:
Alefroth wrote:
Scuzz wrote:I also would like to know where those 2 million people are without water. I do know a couple small towns in the valley have water problems, and at least half of one city (Porterville) went without plumbed water last year but I believe that has been resolved now.

2 million people is a very large number and nothing like that has been in the news.
How many homeless do you think there are in the state? I imagine a lot of the migrant population doesn't have reliable access to water either. I think you get to two million pretty quickly.
But the implication is that these are people who lack water do to either the oil industry or the drought. The migrant population or homeless would be in the same situation without that.

Regardless that number is large. It is 5% of the general population. It is not like water spigots all over the state have just been turned off.

Hmm... I didn't think that was the implication.

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 3:51 pm

Alefroth wrote: Hmm... I didn't think that was the implication.

Right -- granolaheads reprocessing their own waste water in Dune-like stillsuits or people subsisting entirely on wine and craft beer easily accounts for 2% of California's population.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:09 pm

Alefroth wrote:
Scuzz wrote: But the implication is that these are people who lack water do to either the oil industry or the drought. The migrant population or homeless would be in the same situation without that.

Regardless that number is large. It is 5% of the general population. It is not like water spigots all over the state have just been turned off.
Hmm... I didn't think that was the implication.

The implication was that fracking has caused people who would otherwise have had water to not have it now. Not to mention the icon representing those 2 million was a family of 4, not your typical homeless person or migrant worker.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 4:16 pm

I thought that implication was "How can we legally allow Big Oil to waste water when so many can't get it." Starving children in Ethiopia while you throw away your crusts and all that.

I still think the implication is wrong because as far as I know fracking doesn't use potable water.

I could easily be wrong on both counts but that's the way I read it.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:09 pm

LordMortis wrote: I still think the implication is wrong because as far as I know fracking doesn't use potable water.

It can. It doesn't have to, but it can.

They'll prefer to use what ever is cheapest.

However, even if fracking doesn't use drinking water, it can damage drinking water supplies. There are enough problems with fracking without having to resort to all the FUD in that infographic.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 6:11 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote:it can damage drinking water supplies

This is the single largest complaint I've heard about fracking.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 7:51 pm

The next town over is being sued by the state over their municipal fracking ban. The outcome of this will resonate across the nation.

Scuzz · Post by **Scuzz** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 7:55 pm

LordMortis wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote:it can damage drinking water supplies

This is the single largest complaint I've heard about fracking.

In the Bakersfield area of California that is a particular concern as apparently the state has been allowing the oil companies to illegally "store" their waste from fracking and allowing it to enter the water table.

The Meal · Post by **The Meal** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 8:00 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:The next town over is being sued by the state over their municipal fracking ban. The outcome of this will resonate across the nation.

NYT - Longmont, CO

Pyperkub · Post by **Pyperkub** » Tue Jun 16, 2015 8:24 pm

LordMortis wrote:
LawBeefaroni wrote:it can damage drinking water supplies

This is the single largest complaint I've heard about fracking.

There is a lot of evidence supporting the notion that fracking can increase earthquakes too.

Both that and the Water issues are very important (especially in CA), and the thing which really galls me are the laws being pushed by the usual suspects which ban the study of the effects of fracking on water supplies, etc.