If the state would stop letting the oil industry use one million gallons of water a day for fracking, there might be more available for everybody to use.
All Gore’s fault for inventing global warming!
While that idea has been thoroughly squelched, Robert Glennon in Unquenchable discusses (now former) S. Nevada water authority head Pat Mulroy’s proposal to pump water from the Mississippi River. I have not completed even the rudimentary arithmetic to estimate the energy requirements or costs, so it would be improper to advance this as a solution in this forum. While costs and energy will be similar to a pipe from the Lakes, I haven’t yet identified analogous legal hurdles.
The NRDC discusses existing, planned, and proposed pipeline projects in this PDF report: http://www.nrdc.org/water/management/files/water-pipelines-report.pdf
If by “the state” we’re still talking about California, you might want to check your numbers. After that, I suggest comparing it to the total amount used by the state and letting us know how much more water would be available for everybody to use. Let us know if you still think it’s significant. Also a fun exercise is comparing the economic output per acre foot used for fracking to other uses, like growing alfalfa in the dessert.
Gross.
:smack:
It does ok in a smoothie.
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The local problem is the problem. While it can be reduced (not eliminated), dilution and distribution means more cap/opex.
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No, the real problem would be building the massive number of nuclear power plants (or natural gas fired or coal fired) that you’d need to do this on any sort of scale that would make a difference. What you do with the brine left over is going to be lost in the error figures for the cost, and it’s only engineering and regulation…making that number of new power plants in California is going to be a huge political fight, and one I have serious doubts anyone could untangle enough to push it forward (from a cost perspective if nothing else, but you can bet there are groups in California that would fight lots of new nuclear, coal or natural gas plants).
Has anyone mentioned realistic pricing yet? This is Econ 101. When you have a shortage, you raise the price. End of problem. So when I hear “California water crisis” it sounds exactly like old people complaining about the price of movie tickets these days. “But I want to watch 4 hours worth of features and shorts for a nickel! $8.50 is too expensive!” Only in California, the old people get to vote on movie prices, and are genuinely shocked that the theater might have to close after they mandated 5¢ shows for everyone.
Here’s the thing: a lot of people are saying the sky will fall (or that the U.S. will face a dire produce shortage) if we impose water restrictions on California agriculture.
But almonds and walnuts and pistachios are, quite simply, things we can do without. In a severe water crisis like this one, they should be the first things tossed overboard. They’re tasty treats (especially pistachios, IMHO), but if they suddenly didn’t exist, life would go on.
That’s a lot less true of green vegetables, but as DSeid noted, the exact opposite is happening: farmers are abandoning their lettuce crops in favor of their tree crops, including the nuts.
So we will have more expensive lettuce and broccoli, not because there wasn’t enough water, but because the economics are screwy. What we have here is a market failure, a situation where the state government needs to step in and force the farmers to abandon the least necessary crops first, rather than to do what’s in their short-term economic interest.
If I am very much mistaken, it takes a lot of water to grow most kinds of truck, probably as much as or more than most boutique nuts.
But the trees draw water throughout the year, including winter. Lettuce, not so much.
Minimally those who really want them can manage to pay more if supply goes significantly down.
But part of the complexity RTF is that planting a grove is a long term investment. Farmers who invested in getting trees to maturity are not so eager to let those trees die. That said they made a poor investment decision, choosing to invest long term in a water intense crop. Not sure how much they should be protected from the consequences of that bad choice.
But. Another issue - agriculture in CA may provide only 2% of the economy but it provides many more of the jobs. They may be low paying jobs and in terms of total economy way offset by the income of the 1%ers (and even the 5%ers) in the tech and entertainment industries, but there are a lot of them, barely hanging on with those incomes.
A large number of those marginally employed workers becoming unemployed would be a very significant issue.
Probably the industry is “too big to fail” but that does not preclude developing a longer term plan that literally weans the industry off the spigot.
Pretty much this.
What do you mean, you were kidding?
If I plant a small sedan, can I grow a big truck? 
Is “truck” a word for annual human-food crops or something?
For vegetables grown (ETA: for market I guess) as one of the definitions. Not sure if this was a whoosh but figured I’d answer. ‘Truck’ has a bunch of odd definitions.
ETA: From here.
It lacks finesse. We’d prefer to do some strategic targeting, rather than just “soak the poor.” The cumbersome system of subsidies requires adjustment, no doubt upon it, but just throwing away all subsidies and shouting, “Do I hear fifty, fifty, do I hear fifty-five…” is a shitten pseudo-solution. The “invisible hand” has no fine dexterity.
Golf course green fees: nine holes, a thousand bucks. Lush, thick lawn, one hundred grand a week. A fountain in front of your hotel, spewing water into misty humidity: a testicle. Yours.
That’s short for “truck farming”, a type of small scale farming known by a variety of names. I think the notion is that the output is small enough to put in a truck and drive to market or buyers, rather than needing huge silos or railroad cars. Or something. It’s one of those terms with murky origins.
Not so sure the poor can afford to soaked right now. Water costs too much.