A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return • Hacker News Board

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#81

Post by cobbzilla » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:04 AM UTC

California has codified a water caste system. In 2015 (my last experience with this), citizens were ordered to cut water use 25% while ~400 pre-1914 claimants with magical "senior water rights" took 90% of the water. [1][2]

We conserved, rates still rose, f*ck the poor the most, so that select farmers can use however much water they want. During a drought. As allowed and protected by law.

[1]: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/prog...

[2]: https://archive.gov.ca.gov/archive/gov39/2015/04/01/news1891...

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#82

Post by culi » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:04 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #71

scarmig wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although delicious, alfalfa is not required for life. A lot of it goes to Saudi Arabia, who use it for horses and cattle, as the Saudis banned it domestically for being wasteful for water usage.

> alfalfa is not required for life This quote doesn't do much for me. It is like saying that the insane amounts of corn and soy that US (and Brazil and Canada) farmers produce "is not required for life". If you think a little deeper, it is used to feed livestock, that are used for meat, that are "required for life". (Please don't respond with something dumb like "you can stay alive without meat". Yes, we know that.)…

Japan imports alfalfa because of an expansion of the USJTA in where Japan committed to purchasing $8 billion in US agricultural goods.

South Korea imports alfalfa because of the KORUS FTA removes all duties on forage goods.

China buys alfalfa because of yet another trade deal that was brokered to prevent a trade war from spiraling. Alfalfa hay was explicitly highlighted in the Phase One agreement.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#83

Post by voakbasda » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:05 AM UTC

rho138 wrote: post #24

ColdStream wrote: post #18

There are some reasonable books by William T Volleman called 'Carbon Ideologies' it is all about Nuclear and Coal power. Regardless of that, they are written focusing on the people that would be reading those books in a few hundred years time. The justification being that those that read it today already understand the issues. As such they are focused on a world that is deeply resource depleted and much hotter. But i…

We shouldn’t be thought of kindly. We’re essentially post food scarcity in the US and children are still sent to school starving. Not only did we fail the here and now, but we’ve failed our future brothers and sisters.

The hilarity of being post food scarcity when the quality of food in stores has declined precipitously both in terms of nutrient density and taste. Most of the processed food contains high fructose corn syrup, sketchy preservatives, and worse. Even if people think we “succeeded” on this front, the truth is that we have failed. The ultimate consequences of our failure have yet to play out.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#84

Post by rayiner » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:06 AM UTC

culi wrote: post #70

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody actually cares about water use. It's a totem for other activism efforts. Data-centre protests aren't about water, they're about wealth inequality and Altman, Musk and Zuckerberg being hated men.

They're about the environment. They're about corruption and local city councils being bought out. They're about white collar crime and all the skirting of regulation these developers are getting away with. They're about the affordability crisis. They're about one more tool that promises a massive concentration of wealth. They're about tools of war that have already resulted in the bombing of an elementary school. The…

[flagged]

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#85

Post by messe » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:10 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #77

arjie wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The necessity of alfalfa exports from water-scarce US states is certainly not obvious. Why do you believe this is essential?

> alfalfa exports from water-scarce US states Which states are those?

California for one.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#86

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:10 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #30

Why can't we work up the political outrage over water-wasting agriculture in California that we managed to gin up over data centers: https://finance.biggo.com/news/202508220112_Data_Centers_vs_... > Alfalfa irrigation (Colorado River): 1.6 trillion gallons annually > Google data centers (global): 6.4 billion gallons in 2023 > Thermoelectric power plants: 41% of total US water use EDIT: that page has a correction to s…

Its a fair question, California agriculture tends to use 11 trillion gallons (34e6 acre feet[1][2]) of water annually. (about 1,700 Googles worth). Generally from a market driven standpoint agricultural users are trying to get maximum $/acre out of their land. I'm trying to convince the state legislature to reclassify "solar farms"[3] as agriculture (as opposed to 'industrial' that they are today) which would allow a farm to decide on an acre by acre basis how much to plant and how much to put into solar farming. Presuming batteries were included in that allowance, 350,000 acres of California farmland as solar farms (panels + batteries for 24/7 power) would power the entire state 24/7 with no need for coal, gas, or nuclear power plants. 100% green energy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California

[2] https://www.convertunits.com/from/billion+gallons/to/acre+fo...

[3] "Agrivoltaics as a climate-smart and resilient solution for midday depression in photosynthesis in dryland regions" -- https://www.nature.com/articles/s44264-025-00073-1

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#87

Post by tesnorindian » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #80

tesnorindian wrote: post #64

As the Super El-Nino is at its peak, South India is facing an acute water crisis https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/cauvery-water-managem... #SaveWater #SaveElectricity #SaveFuel Interestingly none of our Govts. or Leaders are talking about conservation yet and the ancient water laws/standards don't take climate change into consideration. For eg. as per BIS IS 1172: 1993 standards an average Indian is entitled to…

The answer is desalination plants. Look at rich water-stressed countries in the Middle East and North Africa. All of them use extensive desalination plants. India has lots of very smart engineers. I am sure you can build them. Another thing: India needs to build the equivalent of the California State Water Project to move water from wet areas to dry areas. (China did the same.)

+1 for moving water from wet areas to dry areas. But desalination plants comes at a huge cost.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#88

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:15 AM UTC

culi wrote: post #70

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody actually cares about water use. It's a totem for other activism efforts. Data-centre protests aren't about water, they're about wealth inequality and Altman, Musk and Zuckerberg being hated men.

They're about the environment. They're about corruption and local city councils being bought out. They're about white collar crime and all the skirting of regulation these developers are getting away with. They're about the affordability crisis. They're about one more tool that promises a massive concentration of wealth. They're about tools of war that have already resulted in the bombing of an elementary school. The…

Right. Big umbrellas seldom achieve policy goals. They’re about mobilising folks for something else. People don’t actually turn out over water. That’s the root of the problem and answer to rayiner’s conundrum.

Farms could double their water usage while datacenters halve theirs; the contours of protest wouldn’t materially change.

If you want to create a political coalition today, and have an AI datacenter being debated near you, rally against it. Like, try to stop it. But if you do doesn’t matter. The coalition is what matters. The datacenter—like the water—isn’t actually what anyone is angry about.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#89

Post by voakbasda » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:16 AM UTC

hnav wrote: post #76

voakbasda wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even worse, my understanding is that much of that alfalfa gets put into shipping containers and sold overseas. The agricultural drain on the aquifers does not even benefit US ranchers.

It benefits whoever has the water rights since they're effectively able to export something that they're not paying the externalities on.

That’s the joke. We are literally letting those growers export our water and put the profit in their own pockets and at the public’s expense.

Re: A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

#90

Post by JumpCrisscross » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:17 AM UTC

Rzor wrote: post #69

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody actually cares about water use. It's a totem for other activism efforts. Data-centre protests aren't about water, they're about wealth inequality and Altman, Musk and Zuckerberg being hated men.

>Data-centre protests aren't about water I suspect the people facing rising electricity cost and air-noise pollution beg to differ.

> suspect the people facing rising electricity cost and air-noise pollution beg to differ

I suspect they’re more concerned about “rising electricity cost[s] and air-noise pollution.”