# California Water Shortage and the Ocean. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 3, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745 "2014-08-03T23:27:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/1 "2014-08-03T23:27:37Z")
I have been following the water shortage in California for some time now. And one thing strikes me as odd: Why don’t they just take the water that’s all around them, i.e., in the Pacific Ocean? I know my question may seem incredibly naïve to some. But how hard could it be? Just desalinate the water, right? I know people have been evaporating sea water to make sea salt presumably for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years now. And I know we can make incredibly powerful computers, now, that fit in the palm of your hand–we are clearly very advanced technologically now. So how hard could it be to desalinate the water? I guess then my question is about desalination. But again, I say, how hard could it be? :):)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/2 "2014-08-03T23:30:02Z")
Desalinization takes a tremendous amount of power. Even just pumping seawater to desert desal ponds, such as those Israel uses, would take gigawatts of power that are somewhere between pricey and nonexistent. If you start talking about non-solar heating, it gets insanely expensive at the quantities of product needed. Desal is the only long-term solution, though, which is (as I said in another thread) why one of the first applications of working fusion power plants will be water for California. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/3 "2014-08-03T23:32:48Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > I have been following the water shortage in California for some time now. And one thing strikes me as odd: Why don’t they just take the water that’s all around them, i.e., in the Pacific Ocean? > > I know my question may seem incredibly naïve to some. But how hard could it be? Just desalinate the water, right? I know people have been evaporating sea water to make sea salt presumably for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years now. And I know we can make incredibly powerful computers, now, that fit in the palm of your hand–we are clearly very advanced technologically now. So how hard could it be to desalinate the water? > > I guess then my question is about desalination. But again, I say, how hard could it be? > > :):)🙂 It was done in Israel in the 70’s when I spent 3 years there. I would assume it still is done there. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/4 "2014-08-03T23:50:17Z")
California is already building desalination plants with the help of Israeli businesses. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-13/israel-desalination-shows-california-not-to-fear-drought.html](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-13/israel-desalination-shows-california-not-to-fear-drought.html) > [@](#): > > North of San Diego, Israel’s IDE Technologies Ltd. is helping to build what it says will be the largest seawater desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. The facility, when finished in 2016, will be able to provide 50 million gallons of potable water a day. Three smaller plants already operate in California, and 15 more have been proposed. > > “This is the one supply that San Diego County is investing in that is truly drought-proof,” said Peter MacLaggan, senior vice president of privately held Poseidon Resources Corp., which is developing the $922 million plant with IDE. “It does cost more, but it has some reliability benefits that are very important to the regional economy.” ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/5 "2014-08-03T23:53:47Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > California is already building desalination plants with the help of Israeli businesses. > [Bloomberg - Are you a robot?](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-13/israel-desalination-shows-california-not-to-fear-drought.html) Those dastardly Israelis. They must have some nefarious motive to be doing this. Probably are trying to get more money to use in oppressing the innocent Palestinians. California should boycott them. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2014, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/6 "2014-08-03T23:55:59Z")
"Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot – roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. The cost is about double that of water obtained from building a new reservoir or recycling wastewater, according to a 2013 study from the state Department of Water Resources. And its price tag is at least four times the cost of obtaining “new water” from conservation methods – such as paying farmers to install drip irrigation, or providing rebates for homeowners to rip out lawns or buy water-efficient toilets." > **[Nation’s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego; Future of...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/05/29/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near-san-diego-future-of-the-california-coast/)** > > Nation’s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego; Future of the California coast? It’s just too expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/7 "2014-08-04T00:14:55Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Those dastardly Israelis. They must have some nefarious motive to be doing this. Probably are trying to get more money to use in oppressing the innocent Palestinians. > > California should boycott them. **Moderator Warning** **Terr** , you’ve been here long enough to know that political jabs\* are not permitted in General Questions. This is an official warning. Do not do this again. Colibri General Questions Moderator \*I recognize that this is sarcastic and actually directed against critics of the Israelis. Also, a “But I was only joking” defense is not an excuse. ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/8 "2014-08-04T00:46:55Z")
The problem that California has is that every few years the drought is broken and it gets tons of rain and more importantly, snow in its northern mountains. Its not unusual during rainy years for the reservoirs in the state to be overwhelmed with water. At this point billions of gallons of water is just dumped into the Pacific so the the reservoirs do not exceed their capacity. During these wet years, any talk of desalination is quickly dismissed. And then another period of drought begins. As you can see from this chart, southern CA only as far back as the winter of 2010-2011 had plenty of rain. Los Angeles had over 5 inches of rain above its norm and this was true throughout the entire state. [http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we13.htm](http://www.laalmanac.com/weather/we13.htm) ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/9 "2014-08-04T01:01:40Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > "Desalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot – roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year. The cost is about double that of water obtained from building a new reservoir or recycling wastewater, according to a 2013 study from the state Department of Water Resources. > > And its price tag is at least four times the cost of obtaining “new water” from conservation methods – such as paying farmers to install drip irrigation, or providing rebates for homeowners to rip out lawns or buy water-efficient toilets." > [Nation’s largest ocean desalination plant goes up near San Diego; Future of the California coast? – The Mercury News](http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near) > > It’s just too expensive. This. Also, the high cost of desalination is largely due to the enormous energy input required, which means that (if we expect energy costs to rise, which by and large we do) desalination will become even more expensive, relative to other methods of producing a supply o f fresh water. Communities which rely on desalinated water pay a lot for their water, either directly through water charges or indirectly through taxes to subsidise the water supply system. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/10 "2014-08-04T01:33:22Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Desal is the \*\*only \*\*long-term solution, though, which is (as I said in another thread) why one of the first applications of working fusion power plants will be water for California. A pipeline from the Great Lakes is probably cheaper and easier than fusion… Just saying. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/11 "2014-08-04T02:39:42Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > A pipeline from the Great Lakes is probably cheaper and easier than fusion… Just saying. Do some calculations on flow. The CA aqueduct system is typically 100 feet wide by 20 to 30 feet deep, and barely carries enough to move farm water around. That’s one big mofo pipe you’re proposing - the size of NYC’s 3 conduits, over… 1500 miles? ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/12 "2014-08-04T02:55:26Z")
Sure, but you can rough out a set of plans for a conduit big enough, do all the due diligence over a few years with a few engineering firms, and start pouring concrete. With fusion, you’re talking about taking equipment as advanced as anything humans have ever built, entire buildings full of it, and somehow using it to boil water affordably. Pfffft. Even if you actually had a positive power design, making something that can compete with existing methods of power generation is basically a fantasy. Even in a world where we had true molecular manufacturing and equipment that could magically print out _anything_ we have blueprints for at the touch of a button, fusion would _still_ be too expensive. (the reason is the same magical equipment could probably spam solar panels and energy storage for less resources) Pipeline just costs a lot of money, money the U.S. does in fact have. ---
**Author:** ![SuperAbe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@SuperAbe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperAbe)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/13 "2014-08-04T03:05:06Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > A pipeline from the Great Lakes is probably cheaper and easier than fusion… Just saying. Not going to happen…even if hell froze over: [The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Wisconsin would all have to sign-off on the diversion of any Great lakes water - or even of studying the idea.](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1962d-20) ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/14 "2014-08-04T03:10:13Z")
> [@SuperAbe](#): > > Not going to happen…even if hell froze over: [The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Wisconsin would all have to sign-off on the diversion of any Great lakes water - or even of studying the idea.](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1962d-20) That’s just a Federal Law. It can be repealed at the stroke of a pen. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/15 "2014-08-04T03:18:34Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > That’s just a Federal Law. It can be repealed at the stroke of a pen. Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Wisconsin have 16 senators. California has 2. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/16 "2014-08-04T03:25:39Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > That’s just a Federal Law. It can be repealed at the stroke of a pen. it’s an international treaty. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/17 "2014-08-04T03:29:30Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Sure, but you can rough out a set of plans for a conduit big enough, do all the due diligence over a few years with a few engineering firms, and start pouring concrete. And how, exactly, do you push this large mass of water up and over the Continental Divide, the lowest point of which is greater than 7400 ft AMSL? (Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, the two most westward of the Great Lakes, are both at approximately 600 ft ASML.) Never mind that California has no reason or right to that water to begin with, and if there were any claimants to use that water for agriculture it should be the lower Midwest which will eventually run the Ogallala Aquifer upon which it largely depends dry, rendering the “American Breadbasket” into a desert otherwise. As for desalination, not only does it suffer the same issue (pushing water uphill into the Central Valley or worse yet, over the Sierras to the once fertile Owens Valley), and the enormous energy budget to separate water, but the end result of desalination is having to flush the additional salt back into the ocean. For a small producer of desalinated water such as Israel or Saudi Arabia this isn’t much of a concern, but for broad agricultural use this would mean thousands of tons of high salinity water being driven by the southward current down the entire coast of California which has previously been heavily impacted by pollution, overfishing, and hunting, as a result of which it has a large number of [protected conservation areas and preserves](http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mpa/mpa_summary.asp). “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” – H. L. Mencken Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/18 "2014-08-04T03:39:46Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > A pipeline from the Great Lakes is probably cheaper and easier than fusion… Just saying. That Great Lakes water is doing Toledo a lot of good right now. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Downtown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/19 "2014-08-04T03:48:30Z")
It’s not really a shortage of water _per se,_ as I understand it. It’s the political decisions about who gets the water. Some of the crops (such as cotton) grown in California with lots of cheap water _could_ be grown elsewhere in the country, on land that now mostly lies fallow. But that discussion opens up thorny political questions about Northern California water being sent to Southern California cities, and about the proper price of water from BLM dams. ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2014, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745/20 "2014-08-04T04:26:02Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > As for desalination, not only does it suffer the same issue (pushing water uphill into the Central Valley or worse yet, over the Sierras to the once fertile Owens Valley), and the enormous energy budget to separate water, but the end result of desalination is having to flush the additional salt back into the ocean. For a small producer of desalinated water such as Israel or Saudi Arabia this isn’t much of a concern, but for broad agricultural use this would mean thousands of tons of high salinity water being driven by the southward current down the entire coast of California which has previously been heavily impacted by pollution, overfishing, and hunting, as a result of which it has a large number of [protected conservation areas and preserves](http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/mpa/mpa_summary.asp). I think this is a point that the OP might have missed. Water use in California is directed primarily towards agriculture, by a very wide margin. It’s not the coastal arid cities that need lots of water that a drought doesn’t provide, it’s the mostly interior farmland that would need it. No reason not to pursue desalination as a partial solution for cities that must bring it in from elsewhere anyway, but it’s not something that is terribly efficient for the state as a whole. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/california-water-shortage-and-the-ocean/694745.md?page=2)