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

#181

Post by HenryMulligan » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

voakbasda wrote: post #116

cobbzilla wrote: post #81

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…

I expect the people will realize how easy it is to disable agriculture pumps, located in the middle of nowhere, with no one around to protect them. When the law fails to protect the people, they will eventually do what it takes to protect themselves.

To preface this, I agree with the parent of your comment that doing water-intensive farming in California just doesn't make rational sense. However, you are seriously suggesting using guerilla tactics, against farmers of all people‽ You've got nothing on farmers. Many are hunters if you didn't know, and would start defending water pumps from hundreds of yards away (if you get my drift). Good luck ( ... not!).

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

#182

Post by lesostep » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 6:59 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #166

lesostep wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Water which is evaporated is also returned to the ecosystem. It falls back out as rain. No, not necessary to the same one. Every body of water has a catchment area, and through the bottom parts of some lakes/rivers water sips into the earth, filling underground water levels. Now, let's say you life on a coast with a regular winds in the ocean direction. You basin fills with water evaporated by you, your neighbors…

> Now, if you increase your evaporation, you could easily drain a lot of water from your land. At which point we're back to the quadrillion watt hours of sunlight you get a day, which evaporates such a large amount of water that you have to be doing something pretty dramatic to move the needle. Which thermal power plants and data centers don't, but agriculture? It's pumping trillions of gallons of water out of the gr…

Good question!

Most of the heat doesn't go into evaporation. If it did, we wouldn't have higher temperature during the day, just more moist.

Truth is, I personally think farming evaporation is leagues more ahead of datacenters. Datacenters are more of a nuances locally, where depleting resources already don't give enough water to keep households water pressure up. Add to that a new water-hungry datacenter, and pressure in pipes drops even more.

They aren't bad on their own, but in a context where they want to share a depleting communal resource.

Edit: tl;Dr farming is worse but historically there. There is a lot of discourse around that, also, but it's a separate issue.

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

#183

Post by Ferret7446 » Thu, Aug 06, 2026, 2:44 AM UTC

theshrike79 wrote: post #131

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming is a necessary activity and in most countries, they are also a politically influential group. The case for data centers in the age of AI is weaker, and the only effects for the average person are noise, pollution, higher electricity costs, higher water costs, for the ultimate "benefit" of losing your job.

California farms some very non-essential things like Pistachios, that take insane amounts of water to grow. In what's effectively a desert.

Because the stereotypical California hippie loves pistachios (e.g. dubai chocolate) despite the virtue signaling about protecting the environment.