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California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

drought.ca.gov

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Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#121

Post by gruez »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #44
jillesvangurp wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either way, Californians should stop pretending water is cheap, plentiful or sourced in a sustainable way. It simply isn't. Instead of pointing fingers at each other, the best way is to price it accordingly. The root problem is that this is not the case and it's too cheap. And it's only cheap because it comes from non renewable sources that are getting scarcer. Everybody feels entitled to the cheap water and then end…

This seems to be a carefully-considered market-based solution to a complex problem, but there are a few details I'm struggling with. Significantly increasing the price of a natural resource would have severe impacts on impoverished communities while having no effect at all on wealthy people and companies; is this intentional? Around 45% of households in California are rentals. Renters are often restricted by their re…

>Should renters be stuck with extremely high water bills when their landlords require a green lawn? Or should landlords not be able to require certain landscape features?

Isn't the landlord responsible for maintaining the property, not the renter?

>And the toilets, should the renters living paycheck-to-paycheck be the ones replacing these units?

In theory that's what building codes/rental regulations are supposed to solve (ie. a law that says rentals must provide low flush toilets).

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#122

Post by tzs »

scruple wrote: post #105
kolanos wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we know the cause is agriculture and blaming grass lawns and car washing can easily be disproven Agriculture is where your food comes from. Unless you're eating your lawn? 40% of the water going to food production is precisely where it should go. Mass starvation is bad.

It's frankly insulting that people still push this line of thought. No, we will not starve to death if California stops growing almonds and pistachios. We will it run out of livestock feed if we stop growing alfalfa and other hay grass in California that is then exported overseas.

How is alfalfa being exported relevant? Only 0.005% of the water used to grow alfalfa ends up in the alfalfa itself. Almost all of the water used for growing alfalfa ends up in the local atmosphere via either evaporation from the soil or transpiration from the plants.

Before one can reasonably discuss the impact of alfalfa growing one needs to figure out what happens to that 99.995% of the water that ends up initially in the local atmosphere. What places does it end up? How long does it take to get there? How much of this process is a loop?

I've not been able to find answers to those questions.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#123

Post by maccard »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #40
paulcole wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we’ll never “stop the climate crisis.” Everybody thinks somebody else is causing the problem and that somebody else needs to change more than they themselves do. The truth is, stopping the climate crisis involves everybody changing how they live in a significant way. Anything short of that and you better hope your great grandkids like eating crickets and forest fires. The sadder truth is that the climate…

If someone focus’s on 1% of the problem and never touch the 99%, the former is going to get frustrated and give up.

Agriculture is responsible for far more than 1% of the problem - USDA says about 10.5% [0]. And those of us who do advocate for making more sustainable decisions are not ignoring the other 89%, we're actively trying to reduce that too.

[0] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/natural-resources-environmen...

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#124

Post by mdavis6890 »

kolanos wrote: post #99
mdavis6890 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that if you add up ALL the swimming pools in California, it totals ~0 water. Not even a rounding error. Farmers measure water use in MILLIONS of ACRE FEET. There is even an acronym for it: MAF. There are rice paddies surrounding the capital city of Sacramento. Why do we keep asking residents to sacrifice for even trivial pleasurers like swimming, when it makes no difference at all?

Who is sacrificing exactly? > The federal government said Wednesday that it won’t deliver water to farmers in California’s agricultural belt, which produces roughly a quarter of the nation’s food, due to the extreme water shortages that are expected to deepen if the direly dry conditions continue through March. [0] HN is throttling me, so I'll put this here. the CVP is the largest in the country. > In a normal year t…

Yes, but the article doesn't share any numbers that give a sense as to how much water that actually is. How much water does the Central Valley Project normally deliver? What fraction of total water use is that? What fraction of ag water use is it?

My hunch is that this is a small fraction of the amount of water farms use.

There are a lot of articles like this that make it sound like farms are really hit hard and having to endure sacrifices. There was one from a few months back talking about farmers that had to destroy a bunch of almond trees they couldn't afford to water anymore. About 400 acres worth. There was a dramatic photo of a farmer standing next to a bunch of uprooted trees. Reality: there are 1.6 million acres of almonds in California. Pulling up 400 acres is nothing.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#125

Post by hellisothers »

kolanos wrote: post #99
mdavis6890 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that if you add up ALL the swimming pools in California, it totals ~0 water. Not even a rounding error. Farmers measure water use in MILLIONS of ACRE FEET. There is even an acronym for it: MAF. There are rice paddies surrounding the capital city of Sacramento. Why do we keep asking residents to sacrifice for even trivial pleasurers like swimming, when it makes no difference at all?

Who is sacrificing exactly? > The federal government said Wednesday that it won’t deliver water to farmers in California’s agricultural belt, which produces roughly a quarter of the nation’s food, due to the extreme water shortages that are expected to deepen if the direly dry conditions continue through March. [0] HN is throttling me, so I'll put this here. the CVP is the largest in the country. > In a normal year t…

Wait I’m confused now, what is the relationship of this 0% water to the 80% figure that ag. gets?

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#126

Post by mdavis6890 »

kolanos wrote: post #108
toomuchtodo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No political will to force ag and industrial water users to curtail usage to sustainable (less than aquifer replenishment rate) levels.

Farmers have been curtailed to zero. [0] Now what ? [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/23/rain-califor...

See my other comment below. Farms are not at zero.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#127

Post by mdavis6890 »

hellisothers wrote: post #125
kolanos wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is sacrificing exactly? > The federal government said Wednesday that it won’t deliver water to farmers in California’s agricultural belt, which produces roughly a quarter of the nation’s food, due to the extreme water shortages that are expected to deepen if the direly dry conditions continue through March. [0] HN is throttling me, so I'll put this here. the CVP is the largest in the country. > In a normal year t…

Wait I’m confused now, what is the relationship of this 0% water to the 80% figure that ag. gets?

Exactly.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#128

Post by tacitusarc »

mdavis6890 wrote: post #92
kolanos wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might just be me, but I prioritize agriculture over swimming pools. It's strange that it is agriculture to blame when LA doesn't source its own water and instead diverts water from the central valleys away from agriculture. Agriculture doesn't "pay their fair share", yet LA is actively taking water away from agriculture and also draining 5-7 year reservoirs. When wild fires are in full swing we're going to reall…

The point is that if you add up ALL the swimming pools in California, it totals ~0 water. Not even a rounding error. Farmers measure water use in MILLIONS of ACRE FEET. There is even an acronym for it: MAF. There are rice paddies surrounding the capital city of Sacramento. Why do we keep asking residents to sacrifice for even trivial pleasurers like swimming, when it makes no difference at all?

I thought the drought was exclusively in southern California?

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#129

Post by labcomputer »

tzs wrote: post #87
JKCalhoun wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously there are progressive ways to do it. You make it tiered such that the the typical household never leaves the lowest pricing tier. Golf courses, cattle ranchers and almond farmers on the other hand....

So you don't raise the price of water for typical households, which is only a small percentage of their budget, and instead raise the price of food, which is generally a much larger percentage of their budget?

Oh noes! All the people for whom almond consumption represents a significant amount of their daily calories will have to switch to some pedestrian food! Quelle horror!

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#130

Post by lupire »

gruez wrote: post #113
rmah wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, but the water in California is cheap and plentiful. Sustainably sourced, I don't know. But the root of the problem is that farmers do not pay a "fair" price, they get steep steep discounts. All the lawn watering, all the toilet flushes, all the swimming pools, etc. all amount to around 10% of water use in California. And those people already pay, on average, many multiples of what farmers pay per gallon.

> But the root of the problem is that farmers do not pay a "fair" price, they get steep steep discounts. What are the reasons for these "steep discounts"? The obvious explanation is "lobbying", but I remember a comment from a while ago mentioning that the farmers "own" water rights and those can't be expropriated from them without a costly legal process. edit: comment mentioning the water rights aspect in this thread…

The costly legal process is no problem. The gov can get that back by raising the price of water afterward.
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