If only one of the richest and most high tech US states was nearer to some huge water source... Unfortunately it is landlocked.
Jokes aside, it won't be easy, it won't be nice, but I'm pretty sure that if it comes to it California could start desalinating the Pacific. It will provide them with something to do for all that cheap solar power that's probably going their way in 20 years or so.
Once they get the ball rolling they could even export that fresh water, if it becomes so scarce...
There is absolutely zero reason that California's cities cannot be fed with nuclear heated desalinated seawater or heck, traditionally desalinated sea water.
The only thing holding back this engineering solution are NIMBYs, naive greenies, and mountains of legal paperwork.
Water doesn't go away and we have the solutions to make freshwater. The problems are political, not technical.
Tha solves the city consumption problem which can then allow water run off from the mountains back into the valley where it used to be. That will help restore the aquafiers.
Read up on what the California valleys used to look like before the water was siphoned away to the coastal cities.
Edit: the replies and downd00ts to this post are precisely why California is in its current state. All whiners and no solutions. Enjoy your mess and desertification!
California needs 3x more reservoir capacity and 10,000x more desalination capacity including enough to export to neighboring states. I left CA for TX after 30 years for many reasons:
1. Wildfires and related homeowners insurance raises
2. Deteriorating prevailing attitudes and outlook
3. Earthquake risk (grossly underestimated in some areas)
4. Long-term water scarcity
5. Worsening income inequality as evidenced by people living on the sides of the roads and highways. It's not normal and it's a lack of government action to secure affordable housing
For reference California takes 58% of the water. It's not even close to self sustaining and is HIDEOUSLY overpopulated in comparison to the resources it has available (especially when you consider the squandering of them on inappropriate agriculture).
TFA talks about agriculture being the biggest drain on California's water supply--I'm always disappointed that California (probably the most left-leaning state in the country) can't pass sane environmental policies... I can empathize with the impulse to defer restrictions on carbon emissions--carbon is a little intangible and even if California goes to zero co2 it is still impacted by the rest of the world's carbon policy. But water? Every Californian is impacted by the droughts and how other states or nations manage their water has little bearing on California's water supply (of course California's drought is a product of global co2 emissions but I strongly suspect California could have plenty of water if it was managed sustainably).
California just gratuitously rejected a desalination plant: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/12/us/california-water-desaliniz..., too: the state is not serious about water. It rejected that plant and won't charge one price for water regardless of user; agricultural uses are subsidized. Get a free market in water and we'll see what happens.
I think it is unlikely the citizens of California are going to be be willing to shoulder all the environmental damage required to move massive amounts of water from the Pacific Ocean to Las Vegas, even if the full financial burden is shouldered by Nevada.
I'd love to see the reasoning where the California government, rather than prohibitive energy cost, is why we don't have privately bootstrapped desalination at a scale to replace the Colorado river.
This isn't climate change. People try and make that argument by just looking at water levels. The water inflows are currently slightly lower than historical norms but honestly not by much. The big problem is ever-increasing consumption. Look at Figure 2 [1].
I'm glad to see California reject desalination here [2] because what that would do in essence is to further subsidize agriculture (who often don't pay for water at all) with expensive desalinated water.
California agriculture is simply going to have to adapt to less water-intensive agriculture. This may mean less agriculture overall. It's a matter of when not if.
Yeah! California could fix the water issue by restricting agricultural use water. That way, California could finally kill off it's agricultural production. This will ensure farmers will move to other states and turn to the plentiful supply of hard drugs. This seems exactly what California will do. You would think California politicians might make a good decision -- EVEN by mistake once and while -- but NO. How is that train from LA going?
California refuses to desalinate, which would solve all the problems.
I thought they were smart, instead they're political. They'd rather kill off the southwest. Assholes.
I've been hearing about water issues my entire life living in California but I don't worry about it because one of these days people will come to their senses and realize clean water is a precious resource that is priced too cheaply. Once we pay for it what it's worth, it will no longer be economical to grow water intensive crops [1] and it will become economical desalinate Pacific Ocean water like San Diego [2] powered by the falling price of renewable energy [3] (one day with plentiful fusion energy maybe) or pumping water from Oregon to California through an undersea pipeline [4] and more far out plans like pumping water from Alaska using 6 nuclear powered pumping stations and atomic bombs to dig trenches will be unnecessary [6] [7]
edit: For example, people are fine with paying $2 for a bottle of clean water but farmers get mad if you suggest paying more than $70 an acre foot for similar quality water. An acre foot is 325,851 gallons of good clean water suitable for growing the high quality crops California is known for
I don't hate California at all, I'm a Washington Liberal.
But the agriculture in California in the face of climate change is completely unsustainable. It is up there with the coal mining and fracking in Pennsylvania.
We need to properly manage the crisis and reduce the amount of human suffering involved because uprooting people in painful.
The alternative seems like we could wind up having literal water wars at some point. This proposal caps the diversion at 5% but that seems the same as building more freeways to me, which just causes more traffic. Give California more water and the agricultural industry will expand and you'll kick the can down the road again.
California in fact could have invested more in water collection and reservoir building but they did not. Desalination is pretty distant.
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