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California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

drought.ca.gov

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Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#201

Post by aerostable_slug »

mdavis6890 wrote: post #107
kolanos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climatologist Bill Patzert estimates that more than 80% of the region's rainfall ends up diverted from urban areas in Southern California into the Pacific . “All those trillions of gallons of rain, which sound so sweet, really end up in the ocean,” he said. [0] > Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban, although the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatic…

"50% environmental" - This term is very deceptive. It's basically water that can't be used anyway, and clouds the fact that really agriculture uses 80-90% of the actually available water. It artificially grows the denominator.

That's untrue. It's freshwater that is purposely diverted to streams and rivers to sustain the local ecology. This is what farmers are complaining about in the Central Valley.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#202

Post by aerostable_slug »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #106
kolanos wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Climatologist Bill Patzert estimates that more than 80% of the region's rainfall ends up diverted from urban areas in Southern California into the Pacific . “All those trillions of gallons of rain, which sound so sweet, really end up in the ocean,” he said. [0] > Statewide, average water use is roughly 50% environmental, 40% agricultural, and 10% urban, although the percentage of water use by sector varies dramatic…

> > Climatologist Bill Patzert estimates that more than 80% of the region's rainfall ends up diverted from urban areas in Southern California into the Pacific . “All those trillions of gallons of rain, which sound so sweet, really end up in the ocean,” he said. [0] You don't need to be a climatologist to figure this one out, just being a resident there you figure out very soon how flash flood areas are possible (spec…

> missed opportunity to build the infrastructure for water reclamation

Unfortunately, Gavin Newsom would rather direct funds to an imagined "surplus" so he can buy Democrat votes. If we had intelligent leadership we'd be building reclamation infrastructure and at least thinking about the unfunded public pension liability.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#203

Post by aerostable_slug »

jeffbee wrote: post #177
frickinLasers wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this mean? That farmers don't get enough water to wash their hands now? That there will be no crops coming out of California unless they were grown on well water? Where can I look up this reduction rate?

California "farmers" all live in Beverly Hills. And yes, they are pumping out groundwater as fast as they can.

> California "farmers" all live in Beverly Hills.

That's untrue and a harmful stereotype. I personally know farmers who live in and around where they grow in Watsonville, SLO county, and other places, and they are hardly living the Kardashian lifestyle.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#204

Post by paulcole »

aerostable_slug wrote: post #200
paulcole wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with you. But nobody wants to hear it. A person deciding not to have biological children is the best decision they can make to combat climate change. This does not mean everyone will stop having kids. It means that if you are willing to make the choice to not have biological children then it's something you should strongly consider if you want to maximize your individual impact on fighting climate ch…

TBH, if someone bases their decision whether or not to have children on their ecological impact to the world, I would suspect that they're mentally ill.

Like most things, I think this is a little more complicated.

If somebody doesn't want to subject future generations to the reality of catastrophic climate change, are they mentally ill?

TBH, I think anybody who has kids and still bothers to recycle is incredibly delusional.

If we just want to label people whose decisions make us uncomfortable as "mentally ill" I guess that's our right.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#205

Post by kolanos »

diggernet wrote: post #191
kolanos wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to rely on hunches. > In an average year, about 39% of California's water consumption, or 34.1 million acre-feet (42.1 km3), is used for agricultural purposes. Of that total, 11%, or 8.9 million acre-feet (11.0 km3) is not consumed by the farms for crop production but is instead recycled and reused by other water users, including environmental use, urban use, and agricultural use, yielding net water con…

From your Wikipedia link: > Water use in California is divided into approximately 51% for environmental uses, 39% agricultural use and 11% urban uses, though that varies considerably between regions and between wet and dry years. Solely relying on these statewide volumes is controversial because they don't consider the fact that most of the volume of water used for environmental purposes includes flows down Wild and…

> Solely relying on these statewide volumes is controversial because they don't consider the fact that most of the volume of water used for environmental purposes includes flows down Wild and Scenic Rivers in the North Coast where there is no practical way to recover it for either agricultural or urban use because it lacks many connections to the statewide water supply system. It also doesn't factor in the amount of water required to keep salty water from the Pacific Ocean from intruding into the Delta beyond a certain small concentration.

These are solvable problems, so excluding that water from the ~40 million acre feet of water California uses every year seems like a convenient way to balloon the other uses. Plus as cited earlier, of the 39% of water use attributed to agriculture, 28% of it actually has multiple uses in addition to agriculture and is recycled (the 11% figure). So only 28% of the total is actually exclusively used for agriculture.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#206

Post by scruple »

kolanos wrote: post #199
scruple wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Show me where I said we need to stop growing all crops in the state. I'll wait.

I was addressing your belittling of California's food production and its importance. > No, we will not starve to death if California stops growing almonds and pistachios. California is effectively the sole source of: almonds, olives, peaches, artichokes, dates, pomegranates, raisins, sweet rice, pistachios, plums and walnuts. [0] [0]: https://www.ocregister.com/2017/07/27/california-farms-produ...

> I was addressing your belittling of California's food production and its importance.

Again, show me where I did this. I'll continue to wait.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#207

Post by gpapilion »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #27
orlp wrote: post #2

"Californians are being asked to reduce their water use by 15 percent over 2020 levels to protect water reserves and help maintain critical flows for fish and wildlife wherever possible." And by that they surely mean agriculture, right? Right? The industry responsible for 80% of the water usage in California? They surely couldn't just be asking urban consumers to reduce? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/2…

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…

I would venture most toilets in California are 1.6 gallons per flush or less. In 2014 it moved to 1.28 gpf. The replacement cycle has probably caught the majority, but you never know.

Drought tolerant landscaping took off in the 1990s, and you still see plenty of it. Lawns represent a real issue, but municipalities still force users to water at night, sometimes particular days to reduce usage.

The real issue is agriculture usage and high usage crops(almonds and alfalfa) which are often exported. These users get absurd discounts compared to residential usage (in the 90s there was moaning when prices went to 32 dollars an acre foot, or 325k gallons currently it’s ~$70).

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#208

Post by ok_dad »

Melatonic wrote: post #195
sologoub wrote: post #117

And at the same time we are being prohibited from paying for more water production (desalination) by the coastal commission and various activists: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-05-12/resident... Paying for desalinated water should absolutely be an option. If a household can’t afford it, then a necessary normal amount should be provided, but let others fund the infrastructure we need. Politicians and a…

Grey water like you talk about could be huge. Really big. Desalination could be interesting but is pricey to scale. What I want to know is how expensive or unfeasible it really is to just make a long ass pipeline from some other part of the US that gets stupid amounts of rainfall. We do it with oil - isn't water easier?

The amount of water we use is several orders of magnitude greater than oil. I believe I once saw a calculation that you would need like 10 96 inch pipes just to serve California households let alone agriculture.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#209

Post by AYBABTME »

paulcole wrote: post #111
eixiepia wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I actually agree with you. But nobody wants to hear it. A person deciding not to have biological children is the best decision they can make to combat climate change. This does not mean everyone will stop having kids. It means that if you are willing to make the choice to not have biological children then it's something you should strongly consider if you want to maximize your individual impact on fighting climate ch…

Nobody wants to hear it because it's a knee-jerk, throw-your-hand-in-the-air reaction. Taking this stance boils down to questions like "what's the point of life", whether you're an optimist or a pessimist, and whether you're individualistic or not. You know, trivial things that everyone agree with and no one has strong feelings about.

Hence I don't think any real solution can come close to something as fundamental a change as "just don't have kids". To a lot of people, this equates to "why do you even bother being alive?". Folks are already annoyed if you ask them to segregate plastics by types, how do you think your "don't have kids" suggestion will pass? It's not a real plausible solution to the climate problem, all it does is infuriate 50% of the people, while solving no problem and changing no one's mind.

Re: California Drought Update May 2022 [pdf]

#210

Post by wahern »

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…

Discounts is a very misleading word in this context. The core issues relate to the fundamental legal doctrines surrounding water rights, particularly the Prior Appropriation Doctrine. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prior-appropriation_water_righ... and https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&ht...

People with prior appropriation rights to water don't need to pay for the water at all, except perhaps incidental fees and taxes. The right to use the water, contingent on availability, is a property right.

The prior appropriation doctrine threads through all water issues in the Western U.S. States also have appropriation rights as between each other. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact And then the Federal government introduces another dimension of complexity as they can pick and choose flow rates and distribution.

Theoretically, and AFAIU, there's nothing fundamentally anti-market with the prior appropriation doctrine. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem and also the above paper by Micha Gisser. And there are markets in prior appropriation rights--farmers buy and sell their prior appropriation rights. But apparently these markets aren't very extensive, presumably hindered by a century of complicating legislation and political bickering layered atop the underlying legal doctrines.

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