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The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

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Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#241

Post by lightsandaounds »

dontlaugh wrote: post #210
coryrc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

British paid out slave owners and abolished slavery decades before the USA did and without killing 1.5 million people. Sometimes it is better to pay out an injustice.

The US civil war was primarily over different modes of production, not slavery directly. The British working class was forced to pay the former slavers until a few years ago, while the former slaves got nothing. That was in no way just or good or useful.

Why are you trying to white wash the civil war? It was fought over slavery. That is what the declarations of independence signed by the confederate states actually say. They spell it out.

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#242

Post by anonAndOn »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #213
fmajid wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pistachios are a high-value crop, and other places under drought like the La Mancha region of Spain are also switching from olives and wheat to pistachios. Compare this to alfalfa, an ultra-low-value crop the Saudis are growing in California because they bought senior water rights, then shipping to Saudi to feed cows, essentially laundering water. Agricultural water is heavily subsidized in California, and the absurd…

Compare this to alfalfa, an ultra-low-value crop the Saudis are growing in California because they bought senior water rights, then shipping to Saudi to feed cows, essentially laundering water. Alfalfa is used/needed locally for cattle feed. Unfortunately for all of the noise over growing nuts in the desert nobody's talking about the immense amount of water used to raise cows. https://www.sfgate.com/science/article/C…

Those billboards you see along I-5 opposing water restrictions are largely funded by Stewart Resnick, "the wealthiest farmer in the United States".[0] Cutting off the water would make Stewart less of a billionaire.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Resnick

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#243

Post by specialist »

lazide wrote: post #181
arrosenberg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They barely pay for it. Most of the people holding these rights pay an absurd fraction of what a city-dweller would pay for the same amount. That's the only reason it's profitable for the farmer.

They use different water systems. There is no single ‘water system’ or water source in the state. A senior rights holder has rights on a specific source of water . Water itself is ‘free’ until there is no more - minus the infrastructure costs to get it where you want of course, which can be zero to insanely expensive depending on the source of water. City dwellers are paying for the infrastructure to get clean, drink…

IANAL, so don't know the right words, but water in my jurisdiction has something like opportunity costs. Any water not used for agriculture or humans is available for fisheries, power generation, and habitat.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#244

Post by sodiumlife »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #121
fmajid wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pistachios are a high-value crop, and other places under drought like the La Mancha region of Spain are also switching from olives and wheat to pistachios. Compare this to alfalfa, an ultra-low-value crop the Saudis are growing in California because they bought senior water rights, then shipping to Saudi to feed cows, essentially laundering water. Agricultural water is heavily subsidized in California, and the absurd…

Pistachios grow on saline ground and can be irrigated with high salinity water. And that is precisely where it is (and should be) planted in CA. We are looking at entire valley farms going to have to deal with salt water intrusion. Those farmers are hoping to cash in for housing, but pistachios would probably grow well in Salinas/Monterrey valley region.

I haven't heard of anyone doing pistachios in Salinas Valley, and was always curious why. Seems that it is mostly salad greens and broccoli, with wine grapes quickly taking over.

Does central valley have high salinity water now? It's this becoming a problem in be Salinas Valley?

I have lots of family farming there, but am not directly involved in the farming myself, so could be out of the loop.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#245

Post by beej71 »

RichardCNormos wrote: post #214
hadlock wrote: post #3

In a dry year agriculture uses as much as 50% of all water, urban use ranges between 8-13%. https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/jtf/JTF... Agriculture is effectively unrestricted by law in their water use. I think we may be targeting the wrong group

Quoted post unavailable.

I doubt this is true, but if it is, it will only encourage urbanites to set water policy more against you.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#246

Post by dredmorbius »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20
nathanaldensr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Increasing the price actually pushes toward guaranteeing that water is only for wealthy people or companies and therefore not for the poor.

Increased prices result in water being allocated to the most optimal needs. Marginal water prices mean the price for amount of water needed for a family to bathe and cook and clean costs much less than the amount of water for landscaping around an opulent home. If people are still too poor, then giving them cash (by taking from richer people) is the solution, not pricing water so low that it gets wasted Lack of suffi…

"Optimal" is doing a tremendous amount of lifting in your assertion, particularly in a world of grossly-unequal purchasing power. Much conveyed from birth and circumcstance rather than ability, effort, or social value.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#247

Post by AlotOfReading »

megablast wrote: post #238
hadlock wrote: post #3

In a dry year agriculture uses as much as 50% of all water, urban use ranges between 8-13%. https://www.ppic.org/wp-content/uploads/content/pubs/jtf/JTF... Agriculture is effectively unrestricted by law in their water use. I think we may be targeting the wrong group

We need agriculture. We don’t need lawns and pools.

We've spent decades optimizing urban use and restricting lawns/ pools. We haven't spent decades meaningfully optimizing agricultural water usage, despite it consuming more water all other human usage categories combined.

Now we're facing a shortfalls where eliminating the entirety of residential water usage might not be enough. Maybe it's time to focus the more of our efforts on other categories.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#248

Post by SantalBlush »

LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #212
1_1xdev wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Half measures still do _something_ They did reduce plastic pollution, as you admit. Was it the most effective regulation to pass to reduce plastic pollution by the greatest possible amount? Not at all

They're often counterproductive. People feel accomplished, and finished with the half-measures and they often don't bother investigating the results or the ongoing requirements.

I'm not sure that this is true. Maybe you could give some evidence that this is the most common outcome.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#249

Post by dredmorbius »

userbinator wrote: post #141

I've always wondered why they don't build more pipelines to balance the water supply --- many other states have plenty of water available.

The Los Angeles watershed already extends 1,500 miles eastward, to the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains.

If you look at a population map of the Western US --- generally west of the 100th parallel --- what you're looking at is a political power map represented as the function of urban areas to secure water rights within an otherwise arid landscape.

Cf: Earthlights https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/48/Earthli...>

Denver and the Front Range, Omaha, Salt Lake, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and the California cities along the coast (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco) and central valley (Stockton-Sacramento, Bakersfield, Fresno-Clovis-Visalia, Redding).

Oregon and Washington with the Wilamette and Columbia rivers are the exception.

Re: The fight against drought in California has a new tool: The restrictor

#250

Post by dredmorbius »

bombcar wrote: post #221
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, they don't.

We could divert the Columbia. 265,000 cubic feet per second (7,500 m3/s) just begin to be used.

Resurrect NAWPA, GRAND, and GCNA!!!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recycling_and_Northern_D...>

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