# Submarine pipeline from \[the\] Columbia \[River\] to California **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 16, 2015, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-pipeline-from-the-columbia-river-to-california/722650 "2015-06-16T03:47:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-pipeline-from-the-columbia-river-to-california/722650/41 "2015-06-18T02:58:53Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > No one is growing many fruits and vegetables in the desert. Its the valley areas that grow much of our food. > > [What areas in the US have the most fertile land? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=247266) > > If California really cut back on agriculture the result would be devastating and the price of food would skyrocket. California has some of the best farming land in the world. meh Much of California has an excellent climate, (when it rains), to grow a number of popular crops. If much of the California agriculture that requires more than available water were to fail, consumers would either switch to the same crops imported from Mexico or Peru (as they do, now), at somewhat higher prices, or they would switch back to the crops that were available before refrigeration and artificially depressed water costs created the current California agriculture. However, even the current drought is only a heads up warning for the eventual collapse of most California agriculture. Unlike the regions east of the Rockies and north of the Red River that are primarily supported by rainfall, California has always been reliant on irrigation. Irrigation has a long and notorious record of destroying the soil in which it is employed due to mineral deposits, primarily salt and selenium. Mesopotamia, Western Levant, and Egypt were the cradles of civilization because irrigation allowed agriculture to develop. Much of that “fertile” crescent is now the deserts that appear on the nightly news. (Irrigation continues to support agriculture in a reduced region nearest the rivers, but there have been a number of periods where civil disruption interrupted the irrigation and allowed the lands harmed by salinization to recover. It is likely that salinization utterly destroyed Sumeria and the salt swamps at the southern end of Mesopotamia still do not support crops.) Unless we are planning to abandon agriculture in the Central, Imperial, and San Joaquin Valleys for a few decades, (or science comes up with a miraculous solution), California’s current crop load is heading toward a crash. This will not occur in the next couple of years, (unless the drought exacerbates it), but it is already a source of concern. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-pipeline-from-the-columbia-river-to-california/722650/42 "2015-06-18T04:24:51Z")
Couldnt there be some chemical technology that could bind or neutralize these minerals and wash them away? ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-pipeline-from-the-columbia-river-to-california/722650/43 "2015-06-18T06:11:30Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > [El Nino](http://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/may-2015-enso-forecast-will-el-ni%C3%B1o-be-overachiever-or-peaked-high-school) should break the drought. Why should this one? The last one took one look at the weather system over CA and turned tail and ran. Even a massive El Nino system wouldn’t do much at this time - it would come down as water - we need snowpack in the Sierras to melt slowly and continuously. The flooding in Texas didn’t break its drought - heavy rain will fill lakes, but not refresh aquifers. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2015, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-pipeline-from-the-columbia-river-to-california/722650/44 "2015-06-18T22:42:05Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Couldnt there be some chemical technology that could bind or neutralize these minerals and wash them away? That would be the point of science coming up with “a miraculous solution.” There are (not very efficient) ways to remove salt, but they tend to leave higher concentrations of the selenium. There are certainly people looking for solutions–and I hope they find them. However, currently there is no way to avoid the problem aside from switching to crops that are more tolerant of salt and surrendering the land to desert when the salinization builds up too high. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/submarine-pipeline-from-the-columbia-river-to-california/722650.md?page=2)