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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

#121

Post by jelliclesfarm »

fmajid wrote: post #60
CitrusFruits wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk with my friend who works in water law a lot about this, and he always comes to basically the same conclusion as this. Almonds and pistachios are a huge waste of water. The problem is that farmer's water rights are constitutionally protected (California constitution). You need a super majority in the California senate to do anything about it, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. IMO I think we should ta…

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.

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

#122

Post by kortilla »

lostgame wrote: post #55
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.

Not sure how people don’t get this or why my post was downvoted. Maybe it’s just not a comfortable truth for some people.

It got downvoted because it was uninformed and missed the point.

First, the point was that municipal water usage wouldn’t need and change and could actually decrease in rates if agriculture and industrial paid the same market rate.

Second, if we are talking about lawn watering, that’s absolutely a middle class thing in the vast majority of California.

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

#123

Post by gruez »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #111
gruez wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, when the resource is no longer plentiful My previous comment mentioned acquisition methods up to and including desalination, which would make the resource virtually unlimited. If the rich want to water their huge mansion grounds and are willing to pay for a desalination plant to do it, why stop them? If they're willing to do that, and we can take a portion of that money to subsidize water supply for the poo…

There are plenty of environmental issues associated with desalination, it's not a get out of jail free card. Obviously energy use (and even if that energy comes from solar it's not completely free of consequences) but also the brine from desalination can cause significant local salinity issues which damages aquatic life.

All of those issues can be addressed with money, which is presumably not an issue because the original premise of this thread is that the rich will gladly pay the steep costs.

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

#124

Post by throwaway09223 »

bilsbie wrote: post #88
CitrusFruits wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I talk with my friend who works in water law a lot about this, and he always comes to basically the same conclusion as this. Almonds and pistachios are a huge waste of water. The problem is that farmer's water rights are constitutionally protected (California constitution). You need a super majority in the California senate to do anything about it, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. IMO I think we should ta…

I’d imagine the trees themselves don’t even get much of the water. Could we find a way to get water directly next to the roots?

Yes, we could but we don't because the farms have little incentive to invest in irrigation infrastructure when water is so cheap.

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

#125

Post by SoftTalker »

vippy wrote: post #118
karaterobot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how it goes: make people feel better by imposing visible but ineffective restrictions, meanwhile allow the worst offenders to continue operating as usual. So much of environmental regulation works by acts of meaningless public guilt and contrition: cf. bans on plastic shopping bags and drinking straws. Of course I mean "works" in the sense of operation, not in the sense of success, because in the meantime thin…

I don't know where you live, but I see many fewer plastic bags drifting like so many tumbleweeds since the imposition of plastic bag fees and taxes where I live.

That's likely true, but what change has been made in the total volume of plastic waste produced in the area? Possibly/probably very little.

It's an example of doing something easy and visibly noticable, but ultimately inconsequential, to create the illusion of solving a problem.

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

#126

Post by kortilla »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #76
amluto wrote: post #68

I’m not convinced that bashing the “A-listers” is productive. Urban water shortages can, with a bit of political will, be addressed by money. It seems to me that allowing people to buy large amounts of water at an appropriate price is just fine and maybe even a good idea. (Even at egregious CA private utility electricity rates, the energy needed to desalinate water is rather less expensive than the cost of residentia…

Buy large amounts of water from where ? California has none to buy, that's kind of what "the largest drought in recorded history" means. The problem is over-consumption of water, not "people not paying their fair share for the water they do use"; there's no budget deficit, there's a water deficit. And when the problem is folks wasting water, the solution is to stop giving them unfettered access to this critical resou…

> Buy large amounts of water from where? California has none to buy, that's kind of what "the largest drought in recorded history" means.

Buy it from the industries using the rest of the 85% of it that pay next to nothing.

An incredible propaganda train has convinced people like you that residential water use is a large portion of overall CA water consumption. It’s not and residential users already pay multiple orders of magnitude per gallon more than agriculture.

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

#127

Post by throwaway09223 »

tzs wrote: post #87
tagami wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are literally exporting water when we grow these.

...in the same sense that we are literally importing water whenever anyone buys a computer (~400 gallons), a phone (~200 gallons), a polyester shirt (~3500 gallons), or a pair of jeans (~1800 gallons) not made locally. I.e., not at all. Most of the water used to make those things doesn't end up in those things. Same with almonds.

Your analogy doesn't hold water, if you'll pardon the pun.

The discussion is about water being consumed. Production consumes water, and when we then export the product it is reasonable to say that the function is, in essence, exporting the water, because the water is consumed during production.

Saudi Arabia grows their alfalfa in California instead of locally. The only reason they've done this is to use our water instead of theirs. More water is consumed by industries which turn water into exported products, like alfalfa, than is used by all homes in the entire state put together -- including all lawns, pools, golf courses and parks put together.

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

#128

Post by tomohawk »

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

Yes, we must sacrifice everything in order to save these unsustainable cities built in deserts.

It doesn't matter if the agricultural users have prior claims. They should just realize that their worth is so much less than the coastal elites. How dare they stand in the way of the lifestyles of coastal elites.

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

#129

Post by pclmulqdq »

SoftTalker wrote: post #125
vippy wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you live, but I see many fewer plastic bags drifting like so many tumbleweeds since the imposition of plastic bag fees and taxes where I live.

That's likely true, but what change has been made in the total volume of plastic waste produced in the area? Possibly/probably very little. It's an example of doing something easy and visibly noticable, but ultimately inconsequential, to create the illusion of solving a problem.

In Australia, when they did a plastic bag ban, the total volume of plastic waste actually went up. Instead of using flimsy grocery bags for their household trash, people were now using thicker dedicated trash bags. Those thin bags are some of the most re-used plastic out there.

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

#130

Post by jelliclesfarm »

Let’s not forget that California does not permit well drilling in most incorporated towns and cities. If homes are allowed to put up solar and drill their own wells..they don’t have to pay for water and power. But that just won’t do, would it?

Even in some parts of Sonoma, there is talk that they will not allow septic tank installation on lots less than 1.5 acres which is really awkward because most lots minimum size is 1 acre. And the city doesn’t annex all areas in the county effectively denying sewer and hence residences.

But none of this surprises me. I am very familiar with the unholy corrupt alliances between Big Gov and real estate mafias. Altho I have only seen in it developing countries. I guess that’s what California is now..it is what it is…

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