Its because so many of the people who keep truckin’ on down the line are vegetarians.
No, they agree with me just fine. I was responding to the hypothetical “…unless Wisconsin or Michigan decide to let them build a pipeline from the Great Lakes”. Neither state has the jurisdiction to ram through a water pipeline just because the water is lapping on their shoreline. Neither could all Great Lakes states together, because it’s subject to an international agreement. It’s everybody’s water, and “having a say” is not the same as “jurisdiction”.
You may not have been serious, but potentially disastrous water-theft schemes are proposed from time to time by those who are. I occasionally have trouble seeing implied smiley-faces. 
Got bad news and good news. Bad news is that next year, we start drinking sewer water. Good news is, there’s not enough to go around.
Having spent time growing up in El Paso, thank you for reminding me of the beautiful Rio Grande.
Looking at how dubiously sustainable the development of North America has turned out, no wonder Americans love their apocalyptic fantasies.
“Truck” appears repeatedly throughout Huckleberry Finn to mean “stuff”. I suspect it is the origin of the vehicle name (as in, a car for hauling truck).
Hell, spent many an hour by the picturesque Brazos “River”. Wasn’t there the day that the snap turtles and catfish dragged themselves out and walked to Louisiana…
What about giving all households 100 gallons/day* of free (or cheap) water and then letting the rest go where ever the money is? I could even imagine a poor family “selling” some of its allotment for the going rate.
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- Or whatever is deemed reasonable. It would probably be based on per-person/household.
That’s a good start. I don’t think it goes far enough. I’d like to see quite a bit more targeted regulations. But a base support level for personal use is a very, very good starting point.
Environmental groups could buy water and not use it. Maybe the Colorado would actually run to the sea.
I understand that Coors uses a lot of water for their, ah, product. Couldn’t that be better used bathing shelter pets?
no sympathy here. in 2008-2010, when the CDO/MBS shenanigans helped kneecap the US auto industry, I read a bunch of shit which boiled down to “Fuck Detroit.” Well, you know what? Right now I’m saying “Fuck California,” and I mean it.
Turnabout is fair play.
Market pricing? Don’t be ridiculous. This is water we’re discussing: different rules apply.
Apply scarcity pricing and California rice farmers will have to do something else. The number one water crop in California is alfalfa - we export the stuff to China. That’s 15% of the state’s water usage there. Are you suggesting that the California milk industry buy alfalfa from out of state? That’s like saying that US farmers are skilled businessfolk who actually pretty adept at responding to input and output price fluctuations.
Desalinization is fine and well but yeah what we really need is market pricing. Adjustment can occur through crop switching, drip irrigation and greater use of grey water. Energy is conserved when its price rises. The same should be true of water.
Ag share of CA economy:
42.6/2050 = 2.1%.
“Grey water”? Dare I ask?
See post #103.
More seriously, Greywater - Wikipedia
It’s different from blackwater. You don’t drink it (yet! bwhahahaaha). It’s used for irrigation and in toilets in Europe, Australia and other places that have adopted the International Plumbing Code.
ETA: That said, in Orange County they go full circle: Sewage in O.C. goes full circle
Unless it gets dumped into a river, where the next city pulls it out. El Paso has been drinking Albuquerque’s sewage for decades.
Dude, you don’t even have to raise prices on residential usage. Bathtubs and drinking water aren’t the problem. Agriculture is pretty much the entire problem. If farmers had to pay market prices for water, they wouldn’t be flooding the desert to grow rice.
Regarding market pricing …
Water is a bit different than many other products such that you cannot price it such that the poor cannot afford it.
For the cautionary tale look at what happened when Detroit tried to shut off water to those who were not paying their bills for it.
The pricing level that would provoke major agricultural shifts away from high profit water intense crops is likely high enough to impact the poor disproportionately. Those with mansions and pools on the other hand can likely pay the premium. I’ll still buy my almonds at a buck or two more a bag.
When dealing with items like clean air and access to water a pure market system runs up against what many would consider human rights.
The solution needs to protect those who are living on the margins, both in terms of cost of the water they need to live, and in terms of employment.
Market pricing needs to be part of the solution but it needs to be finessed so that the harms do not include pricing the poor out of access to water or causing the loss of many jobs as a consequence. Not exactly sure what that should look like though.
Can someone explain water pricing in California to me? It seems like there is market pricing and farmers are paying more.
Again though, the result of higher prices is to use what they can get and afford to buy to protect the highest value investments - the nut trees. A long switch to drought tolerant almond root stock, for example, or to a greater number of olive trees, does not happen in volatile pricing environment.
Noted though that residential access can be protected while increasing agriculture costs … but you still need to keep the industry alive (and employing) while motivating long term changes.