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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

#341

Post by NonNefarious »

Siddarth1977 wrote: post #259
wudangmonk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they have ever added one of these useless restrictions on California yet it's been mostly posturing. They blame the lawn, and you have people peacocking about their dry lawns in an effort to gain social brownie points. I'm surprised they still blame the lawn and havent moved on to pools or something more easily associated with wealth to really try and stir the poor vs rich debate. Meanwhile even if no g…

Agricultural use of water is actually productive though. Most of us prefer having food to starving. Having a lush, green front lawn in the desert however helps no one (and actively harms the natural plants and animals that belong in a given climate). Additionally, while some water issues are over very large areas (eg, piping water from Colorado River to LA) lots of places have far more local water issues, where a giv…

Yes, because children in the inner city are subsisting on ALMONDS.

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

#342

Post by mellavora »

sodiumlife wrote: post #244
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think pistachio needs cold spells to fruit properly.

"Pistachios require long, hot, dry summers and chilling in the winter, but don't tolerate ground that freezes. They require approximately 1,000 accumulative hours of temperature at or below 45° F during dormancy. ... Pistachios have the narrowest environment requirements of any commercially grown nut crop. ...In the United States, that pretty much limits growth to the San Joaquin Valley in California, southeastern Arizona, far west Texas and the high desert of New Mexico."

https://wikifarmer.com/pistachio-tree-growing-conditions/

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

#343

Post by ZeroGravitas »

SantalBlush wrote: post #248
LawTalkingGuy wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's an article of faith for people in the libertarian climate change denial community, because they get funded by the people who sell the natural gas that is used to make them:

https://reason.com/tag/plastic-bags/

https://reason.com/tag/straws/

Just a quick glance at those links shows they are just a little obsessed about this.

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

#344

Post by rendall »

shlurpy wrote: post #115
twblalock wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the sacrifice should be shared by all water users, and homeowners are far from the primary consumers of water. When agriculture uses most of the water, and the most water in agriculture goes to luxury foods like almonds and pistachios, it’s ridiculous to be investigating homeowners while not asking farmers to reduce consumption.

They literally constitutionally cannot ask the farmers, and you need a very mobilized populace to change the constitution. That's only going to happen when people see the consequences of inaction, and its probably better that happen gradually for useless laws then suddenly for all drinking water.

> They literally constitutionally cannot ask the farmers...

The California constitution disallows the government mandating water restrictions for luxury crops?

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

#345

Post by philsnow »

nradov wrote: post #284
kortilla wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't take away rights, I don't even understand how you can tell someone they cannot access water. What’s difficult to understand? Why should society be subsidizing these senior water rights holders? Nobody is saying they can’t access water, they should just fucking pay for it the same way the rest of the world does.

Society isn't paying subsidies to water rights holders. Water rights are property rights. Legally they can't just be taken away. You can complain that it shouldn't be that way, but that is the legal reality.

> Water rights are property rights. Legally they can't just be taken away.

That's precisely eminent domain, "the right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation."

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

#346

Post by UncleEntity »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #329
UncleEntity wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You think someone acting within all legal bounds is immoral because they are using a resource in a manner you disagree with?

Illegal and immoral are entirely two different words. So if you are accused of doing something immoral and your only replay is "but it within legal bounds" my only take away is that you agree that it is immoral as hell, but would rather not talk about it.

Literally no one has given an argument on the morality of using water to grow food, they just assume that their opinion is the correct one and anyone who doesn’t agree is, I don’t know, worthy of ad hominem attacks. I expect a lot more from HN honestly.

I really don’t care about the morality of water usage in California because that’s someone else’s problem, what I do care about is all the talk of using the government to seize private property because they think they both have the right and they can use it better than the rightful owners — this is the kind of moral issue I worry about.

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

#347

Post by juve1996 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #306
juve1996 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a huge percentage. 10%! If that's true then it's a no brainer even if other things are more egregious

Do you not understand that this thought experiment reduced residential usage to ZERO ?

So split it in half.

Imagine living in a world where we say "it's pointless! don't do anything, it's all out of your control." That's what we always say.

Imagine saying to someone losing weight "don't bother, losing 2 lbs this week is meaningless when you're 100 overweight."

Defeatist ideology. I get it, you want to be "right" while the problems continue. A classic problem with engineers - think of everyway it is meaningless or doesn't work, instead of "how can I make this work?" The solutions are not mutually exclusive. If the deficit is 2% then a 2% reduction in household use can be effective. Even if it's 4%.

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

#348

Post by samatman »

gsk22 wrote: post #302
samatman wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever drive through the part of the Imperial Valley which is just artichokes, you'll viscerally get the point I'm about to make: you shouldn't be deciding whether square miles of artichokes are a more productive use of water than someone's lawn. No one is starving without artichokes, lawns make people happy. We solve this kind of problem with markets, or in California's case, we flagrantly ignore the solution a…

Markets solve problems efficiently, but not equitably. In the case of water, an equitable solution is a moral prerogative, no?

California's solution is feudal title to customary water rights, which is neither efficient nor equitable.

Let's try making it efficient first, and then see if we need to add equity. Kraft Dinner is very efficient to make, we add equity with EBT cards.

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

#349

Post by samatman »

cma wrote: post #332
samatman wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ever drive through the part of the Imperial Valley which is just artichokes, you'll viscerally get the point I'm about to make: you shouldn't be deciding whether square miles of artichokes are a more productive use of water than someone's lawn. No one is starving without artichokes, lawns make people happy. We solve this kind of problem with markets, or in California's case, we flagrantly ignore the solution a…

> We solve this kind of problem with markets Aren't you glaringly forgetting diminishing marginal utility of money in personal consumption?

No, I'm pointing out that the artichoke crew don't have to pay for water at anything resembling a market rate.

Californian citizens pay for water. Agriculture doesn't work that way. It should.

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

#350

Post by meltyness »

There are a lot of steps that I've observed in CA that would seem to cause drought rather than prevent it, this is one of them.

- Aggressively irrigating water away from hills / plateaus, presumably to prevent mudslides onto road infrastructure.

- Tree-farms, everywhere throughout Southern California.

- Steps like this that appear to further prevent maintenance of any sort of below-ground aquifer.

And even better,

- Offshore wind farming for the stated benefit of reducing hurricane storm force / total rainfall.

- Building new cross-country infrastructure (CHSP) which will demand more aggressive irrigation to protect.

- Delaying construction of a large water reservoir for financial reasons, and failing to collaborate with neighboring states to fund it effectively.

Moves like this look like 4D-chess rather than any sort of science.

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