I saw this article the other day. Due to its ongoing drought, California is “curtailing” the water rights of 114 communities, mostly in northern California.
Is this really as severe a move as it sounds like? The article creates the impression that the state is shutting off the water to entire communities and basically saying, “Sorry. Sucks to be you.” Is that more or less accurate? How are these communitries supposed to survive with no water? Or are they likely to become ghost towns, as people are forced to flee to less drought-stricken places?
Well, for one thing they could drill wells and use ground water instead of surface water such as reservoirs and rivers. While the water table is dropping, it’s not completely dry at this point.
Been there, done that, pumped enough water that subsidence is causing bridges to crack. California is setting itself to just plain completely run out of water some year soon.
To be fair, lots of places all over the world are doing that. I seriously think that I might see literal water wars (with death, destruction, etc.) within my lifetime.
Water is a much bigger deal than people are willing to admit. Have you ever been without water for a length of time? It is not pleasant, and yes, there is probably going to be violence eventually.
Exactly. The whole “Venice is sinking” problem had to do with the industrial sites in Mestre across the lagoon pumping out groundwater, causing the whole area to subside. Since they put controls in place, apparently Venice is no longer sinking, but it’s still quite a bit lower than it originally was.
See? See? All the doomsayers WERE right. California is going to slide under the ocean waves soon - but from terminal subidence instead of Thuh Big One.
Time for California ag to call it a day, and plant dry-ground crops or nothing.
I don’t think it will completely run out. 80% of California’s water is used by the agricultural business. If you cut that in half then the water problem goes away (for now). There will be fallout from agribusiness but that’s a different problem.
Well, yes, but that fallout would include a major cratering of California’s economy, probably never to recover (at least, not within the forseeable future). That’s why they haven’t done so by now. Many people don’t realize how dependant California’s economy is on agriculture. Of course, much of this agriculture depends on diverting water to irrigate the desert, which they really should have realized could not be maintained long-term. (There’s a reason you don’t normally hear “Arizona” or “New Mexico” in same sentence as “agricultural giant.”)
For comparison, try to convince the leaders of New York City that they need to shut down Wall Street and chase all the firms out of town, and see how receptive they are to that idea.
That is somewhat misleading because cuts in agriculture would have ripple effects into other parts of the economy which are related, such as transportation. Some of that pie slice is undoubtedly tied to moving all those almonds to market. Still, it is true that CA is far less dependent on ag than people assume.
Either depopulate the state or stop growing crops, you pick. I mentioned drilling wells as a temporary stopgap until the drought ends and the rains come back and can recharge the ground water and refill the reservoirs.
They should be cutting back on agricultural water use (which they are) and stop building new housing (which they aren’t) in order to slow down population growth. In time things are bound to improve. Five years from now everyone may be sitting around asking “What drought?”.
Groundwater recharge happens on timescales of decades or centuries, not months or years. California groundwater withdrawals are already well above recharge as it is, and drilling new wells (which is no small undertaking) would just send the water table downward even faster. What you’re suggesting is the hydrologic equivalent of going to a mob loan shark for the money to pay off your car title loan.
100 years ago, San Francisco elected a Socialist government.
In addition to building Golden Gate Park on sand dunes, they bought the valley north of Yosemite, dammed it and built an aqueduct to transport he water (all using gravity - no external power is used).
They also bought the natural springs in San Mateo County.
Meanwhile, Sacramento couldn’t be bothered to even meter water, and there are now about 12 different “Water Companies” operating.
This country needs a Socialist government for a generation or three.
“Total water use in Los Angeles, San Francisco and many other urban areas is now lower than it was in 1980, despite the huge economic growth and population increases.”
It’s 2% of the GDP of the entire state. One of the big tech companies could move out of california and cause a bigger drop in GDP than if all agriculture water was diverted to where it belongs.
It is blindingly obvious to anyone with any sense that the industries in California that produce 98% of the money…should get 98% of the water. Or, alternatively, the people working for those industries.
Government policy has been to subsidize farmers in the USA, partially because there are states with a lot of Senate votes and not much population, and I think because farmers have this wholesome public image.
In reality, family owned farms are almost extinct and the farms are just large corporations like anything else. Giving them special treatment is taking money away from other corporations also producing useful goods. Instead of subsidizing farmers, the government could just subsidize food for the poor and let food prices reflect actual market reality.
CA getting out of the agricultural market would cause world-wide disruption.
Foodstuffs that the US can get for the price of train or truck now requires ships.
The stuff the US now imports takes it off tables elsewhere.
The loss of the harvest deprives large numbers of Spanish-speaking people a huge chunk of their incomes. That ripples directly to Mexico and Central America (money orders are sold just about everywhere in the central and southern valleys).