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California suggested that water be completely cut off from Las Vegas and Phoenix in recent Colorado River water negotiations

mclumber1
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mclumber1

mclumber1

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California floated cutting major Southwest cities off Colorado River water before touching its agriculture supply, sources say | CNN

WWW.CNN.COM
The proposal came in a closed-door meeting between states that was focused on achieving unprecedented water cuts to save the Colorado River -- a system that overall provides water and electricity to more than 40 million people in the West -- people familiar with the talks told CNN.

 

Fucking Californians

 

You've got an ocean right next to you that you could desalinate!

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TyphoidHater

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I think the bigger issue/solution is switching California's agriculture products to less water intensive ones.

 

Addressing infrastructure to properly capture and retain the floodwaters that alternate with the droughts also seems like something that should happen.

 

Edit- but we definitely shouldn't be building/living in deserts either.

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mclumber1

mclumber1

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2 minutes ago, TyphoidHater said:

Edit- but we definitely shouldn't be building/living in deserts either.

 

The desert is a great place to build a city as long as you can recycle the water.  That's what Las Vegas does.  All of the water used indoors is ultimately cleaned up and returned to Lake Mead.  The only water that is lost/wasted is the stuff that is used for irrigation.  If every city that currently gets their water from the Colorado River basin employed the same strategy as the Las Vegas valley, the water issue wouldn't be nearly as bad.

 

But as you mention, the biggest problem is wasteful agricultural practices.  That has to change - and the two biggest offenders are California and Arizona.  

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TyphoidHater

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15 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

The desert is a great place to build a city as long as you can recycle the water.  That's what Las Vegas does.  All of the water used indoors is ultimately cleaned up and returned to Lake Mead.  The only water that is lost/wasted is the stuff that is used for irrigation.  If every city that currently gets their water from the Colorado River basin employed the same strategy as the Las Vegas valley, the water issue wouldn't be nearly as bad.

 

But as you mention, the biggest problem is wasteful agricultural practices.  That has to change - and the two biggest offenders are California and Arizona.  

 

Yeah, as you said, most don't use enough/proper water mitigation processes such as recycling. 

 

Probably should have said INEFFICIENT/IMPROPER building in deserts.  But the people who live there are also at fault for clinging to lawns, encouraging sprawl, etc.

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Littleronin

Littleronin

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39 minutes ago, mclumber1 said:

 

The desert is a great place to build a city as long as you can recycle the water.  That's what Las Vegas does.  All of the water used indoors is ultimately cleaned up and returned to Lake Mead.  The only water that is lost/wasted is the stuff that is used for irrigation.  If every city that currently gets their water from the Colorado River basin employed the same strategy as the Las Vegas valley, the water issue wouldn't be nearly as bad.

 

But as you mention, the biggest problem is wasteful agricultural practices.  That has to change - and the two biggest offenders are California and Arizona.  


It really is amazing what the Southern Nevada Water District has accomplished. They use fair less than the allotments from the Colorado River and even with the newest provisions are still under the new number. That said, they still are trying to get water from Northern Nevada, which has also seen reserves dry up. I know Lake Lohanton was just a few acre-feet from its kill level this last summer. Hopefully with all the snow/rain we have had the last couple of months it will help. But still it is a temporary reprieve overall. 

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Jason

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42 minutes ago, TyphoidHater said:

 

Yeah, as you said, most don't use enough/proper water mitigation processes such as recycling. 

 

Probably should have said INEFFICIENT/IMPROPER building in deserts.  But the people who live there are also at fault for clinging to lawns, encouraging sprawl, etc.

 

California farmers have zero incentive to be more water efficient because the water is basically free for them and the water rights are on a use it or lose it forever basis. Farmers will literally flood their fields just to use up their water allotment so that their allotment doesn't get cut going forward.

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unogueen

unogueen

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4 hours ago, TyphoidHater said:

I think the bigger issue/solution is switching California's agriculture products to less water intensive ones.

 

Addressing infrastructure to properly capture and retain the floodwaters that alternate with the droughts also seems like something that should happen.

 

Edit- but we definitely shouldn't be building/living in deserts either.

California is a freak.

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mclumber1

mclumber1

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35 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

But it's happened

 

carlsbad-desalination-plant-logo_1.png

Carlsbad Desal Plant - Home

WWW.CARLSBADDESAL.COM
The Carlsbad Desalination Project is the largest desalination plant in the Western Hemisphere. Located in Carlsbad, California it converts sea water into 50 million gallons of drinkable water per day. Learn more at our site or come for a tour.

 

 

I'm well aware of this plant.  But 50 million gallons a day is a tiny, tiny fraction of what San Diego county actually needs. 

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TwinIon

TwinIon

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San Diego is also investing in wastewater treatment (though COVID delayed that a bit). Of the major CA cities, I'm pretty sure that San Diego has invested the most in alternative sources of water. I recall some point recently where San Diego officials were arguing that we shouldn't have to comply with state water restrictions because we supplied enough water that wasn't from the Colorado, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Also, I think the drought got bad enough again that it didn't matter at a certain point. Even with all that, San Diego is still only aiming to supply 35% of its water locally.

 

That said, as has been acknowledged in this thread, it's not really the urban areas that use all the water, it's agriculture.

 

Here's a figure from a 2019 article, and I think the major trends have maintained:

water-use-figure-2.png

 

That is, the population has continued to grow, but Urban use has stayed more or less the same.

 

I personally find it difficult to figure out what the right balance should be. The agriculture industry seems like it's more important from a policy perspective than an economic one. According to this article CA supplies 12% of the food in the US, and ag employs 420,000 people, but economically it's not so big, something like 1.5% of GDP or ~$50B a year. From a purely economic reality, it seems like we'd be better off pushing ag away from water intensive crops and out of desert areas in order to supply water to the cities.

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TwinIon

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I gotta say that the whole historic water rights things is such BS. Yeah, they really favor my state, and my farmer friends would be furious if they heard I suggested doing away with it, but "first come, first serve* (native populations excluded)" is a pretty dumb way to allocate an essential resource.

 

I find it kinda funny that the Biden admin came up with "three" potential plans, where plan 1 is "do nothing", plan 2 is "keep CA happy" and plan 3 is the obvious "reduce usage equally according to usage."

 

Quite often I'm happy when CA throws its weight around. I think it's good that we can show the nation that higher taxes doesn't mean your economy nose dives. I think it's good that we can force more stringent emissions standards and push EVs. CA can often lead the way on a more progressive agenda, but on this water thing it seems like the bargaining position is difficult to defend. It's very much a "we got ours, go get your own" policy.

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Zaku3

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17 hours ago, TwinIon said:

I gotta say that the whole historic water rights things is such BS. Yeah, they really favor my state, and my farmer friends would be furious if they heard I suggested doing away with it, but "first come, first serve* (native populations excluded)" is a pretty dumb way to allocate an essential resource.

 

I find it kinda funny that the Biden admin came up with "three" potential plans, where plan 1 is "do nothing", plan 2 is "keep CA happy" and plan 3 is the obvious "reduce usage equally according to usage."

 

Quite often I'm happy when CA throws its weight around. I think it's good that we can show the nation that higher taxes doesn't mean your economy nose dives. I think it's good that we can force more stringent emissions standards and push EVs. CA can often lead the way on a more progressive agenda, but on this water thing it seems like the bargaining position is difficult to defend. It's very much a "we got ours, go get your own" policy.

 

It doesn't seem like it's a difficult decision to defend but the US is founded upon fuck you got mine. It's an unnatural sentiment that you see it as indefensible. However the norm is fuck you got mine. 

 

I'm not sure if I'm making myself clear enough. We are experiencing societal decay and the sympthoms of that decay are self reinforcing. We lack the political will to solve our problems because everyone is in it for themselve essentially.

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