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Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

desertsun.com

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Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#101

Post by deadbolt »

creato wrote: post #99
deadbolt wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is there any region that “lives within its means” for all resources? Why is exporting or importing water so different from electricity, or food, or clothes, or iPhones? Changing the water supply changes the environment of the entire region. It's needed for human survival. Surely you can see how that's different that exporting more or fewer iPhones, right?

That isn’t the argument being made in the comment I replied to.

What exactly is you're comment responding to then? It seems to me it's relating to California's water utilization.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#103

Post by [deleted] »

bee_rider wrote: post #95
kickout wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think CA would still be 5th in GDP without reliable water? Unless desalination becomes more efficient, CA is thirsty.

It looks like agriculture isn't a huge percentage of their economy, so they'd probably still be up there (unless I've misread the chart). https://www.statista.com/statistics/304869/california-real-g...

[deleted]

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#104

Post by colordrops »

kickout wrote: post #72
colordrops wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certain luxury foods or at least less necessary foods take a large percentage of water that could be reallocated to more critical needs. Meat also takes 10x the water needed for many crops. There are many ways to reduce water usage.

This is true. But, some places like native grasslands have no other viable economic use other than raising cattle/beef. These grasslands are fed by rainfall so the displacement cost is zero. Different story when there are competeing interests for the land and inefficient uses (I.e growing alfalfa in a desert) are adapted and cemented into law. It’s complicated no doubt.

Sure, though I believe the vast majority of cattle are not raised on rainfall-fed grassland.

Yes, very complicated. The issue is definitely going to come to a head when the authorities have no option but to start pulling water rights.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#106

Post by _8j50 »

space_fountain wrote: post #89
_8j50 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? You investigate and research! Tunnels, alternate locations,using solar and wind to generate pump power and once operational, using a dam to supplement the pump with hydroelectric power. I mean, this is one challenging area where the best and brightest should be well funded to come up with a solution instead of writing them off. Desalination is not a dream either. People are fine to talk about colonizing other pl…

Bonds are a way of printing money, debt in general is how money is printed weirdly enough. And look, maybe our big ideas could focus on something that isn't solvable by just not trying to grow food in the desert or if we absolutely must doing it in a place that doesn't have plenty of land that isn't desert

The problem is places that aren't deserts are national parks, what you call the deserts are multiple entire states! I keep hearing your argument, what is this place that isn't a desert people should be farming and building on? Any place west if the missisipi that hasn't already been incorporated, what is it?

Why do you insist it isn't solvable?the tech is there, the money is there, the will is there. Do you have a better solution that acheives the dam goal or is your idea "someone else should figure it out?" Not being dismissive, I would like to know what it is. Population will grow and areas that are already occupied will become less and less habitable. Where else should people live in Nevada? In California, it is already filled with people to the brim in and out of the dessert.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#107

Post by snapplebobapple »

Sad that not reading the article before commenting has so obviously come to hacker news. So many comments on here moaning about harming the east to give to a greedy west when what something like this would almost certainly do is help the east flood less while helping the west at least partly solve a water shortage. The concerns about contamination are real but probably manageable though.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#108

Post by Baeocystin »

BooneJS wrote: post #51
jb510 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80% of water in California is used by agriculture, we’ll stop “stealing” water when you all stop “stealing” Cattle and Dairy, Almonds, Grapes, Lettuce, Strawberries, Tomatoes, and more a that we grow with water. Unless you’d rather buy that all shipped in from South America instead….

I think we need a come-to-Jesus talk about almonds. The water required per nut is not sustainable.

The water consumed per calorie of almond is well within the range of other crops. And I do think it's important to measure on a per calorie basis rather than weight, because otherwise all you're doing is proxying water.

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#109

Post by moistly »

oblib wrote: post #92

As someone who moved to LA in the early 70s, and left LA in the late 80s, and spent some time to visit Palm Springs, Phoenix, and Las Vegas, I can say with full confidence that anyone with a lick of sense knew there was not enough water to sustain that growth that started back then, but that didn't stop anyone from building or buying those homes. They all knew it, but didn't care. It was, and still is, plain old stup…

> And there is still a lot of industry that use and dumped used water into it, and farms that have runoff of pesticides all along it and it's tributaries.

Sounds like an opportunity to clean the water and bill the polluters for the cost. If only…

Re: Time for Army Corps of Engineers to investigate moving water West?

#110

Post by rich_sasha »

dsr3 wrote: post #62

As a reference, China has been doing this a similar project to interconnect the North (think Beijing etc) and South (think Shanghai) water system. Heck, they have been doing it since hundreds of year ago [2]. So I guess there is a precedent. Based on this thread, I would guess that a large amount of the problem will not be an engineering one, but political and social one. Constructing such a large mega project to div…

There was also this project in USSR: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

So much water in that lake, right? But it went from 4th largest in the world to no lake.

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