Yes?


Not from California, but this is just the beginning of the problems we will be facing.

That will not work. For every one person that does 10 more don't care. State and local government need to impose reasonable rationing.

you say most ignore it, when the statistics say that conservation has become the norm, not the exception.

Denial is always the best defense.

ok. if you want to deny the facts of water usage in one major region of the state, that's not my responsibility.

call on the rest of us to do a bailout.

but anyway, as soon as you know anything about our water supply here in the Bay Area, let us know exactly what you base running out of water on.

Is the Bay area its own independent country? AZ has more underground water stored than any other state. You can't build in AZ without a 100 year water supply for your development.

as for the Groundwater Protection Act, much of the damage to your aquifers had already been done by the time of its passage.

one of the reasons you're getting so much of your water from surface supplies (an increasing amount from the Colorado River...) is to avoid further damage to the groundwater supplies.

oh and groundwater isn't protected in rural areas.

despite your lecture, Arizona has all the same issues as California, except with higher usage per capita and a greater proportion going to agricultural uses.

The judgmentalism from out of state is a bit much sometimes, especially from those who should know better.

It currently has 2 trillion gallons. How much does CA have in storage? New development must prove it has a 100 year supply before it can be authorized -- a standard not used in other states with potential water storage problems.

You just told people here you don't want to pay for a "bailout".

Well, then you shouldn't use water which was supplied to you by US Taxpayer funds, because that's what you'd call a "bailout" too.

Now there are two things about that:

1) you don't consider it wrong if it helps you or your state
2) you probably don't actually know the subject you're lecturing on in enough depth to even know the actual source of most of your water.

Why would it need a bailout? That would be a waste, right? AZ is watered by four main sources: State river water maintained in reservoirs, Central AZ Water Project from the Colorado River, underground water and reclaimed waste water.

I was pointing out that conservation works, while you were saying it doesn't.

There is a problem and conservation is a key solution to it.

Your freelancing on this topic is the problem I was responding to. You're advice is contrary to what experts are saying and your knowledge is not based on study but assumptions.

Thus, though the article you posted is quite good in many respects.

All the conclusions you're posting downthread are ridiculous.

Until then stop lecturing me when taxpayers have paid significant sums for most of your water supply: The Salt River Project and the Colorado River Project.

That's hypocrisy on your part.

I think it is a serious problem through out the SW but every state stresses development above all else.

We are a republic and not a confederacy.

If it has no problem then it will not have to be bailed out, right?

Fine, at least you saying that, rather than turning it into a personal attack on me.

I live in the SFV and there's a huge office complex near my apartment that removed all its grass and replaced it with plants that don't require much water so some of us are trying.

but comparing SF to other parts of the state (or anywhere else) is a bit apples and oranges. Accurate comparisons have to take a variety of factors into account. I agree that conservation is becoming more of a norm, rather than an exception. The following is from the CA State Water Resources Control Board website:

who's still watering his lawn frequently.

More likely middle-class and Latino or Asian.

People take out their lawns (or never put them in) and just have things a desert would support. I think it is much more attractive than a normal grass lawn and best of all little to no maintenance.

in Sacramento. But I've decided to do water conservative landscaping anyway. Cut down ALL my relatively small deciduous trees and shrubs. Several others down the street have done the same. When I have the money, I intend to fully complete the process with native plants. After all, this isn't the PNW, and it's the right thing to do!

....has a way to go. California's agriculture is vital to the whole US, so is worth protecting and preserving (some while back a DUer was all for telling us to stop growing stuff if it's a problem ) -- but as far as I can tell the small farmers are suffering like hell, while the big corporations haven't gotten the full message yet.

that's because filthy hippies don't bathe.


relax .... kidding.

major credit cards there....

The lion's share of water consumed in California goes to their immense agricultural sector, and it is clear that the farmers are either not rationing sufficiently, or water supplies have fallen so low that even the most stringent rationing can't make the water go far enough to keep the sector viable.

That sector employs millions of people and pumps billions of dollars into the CA economy, thereby supporting cities such as San Francisco. And the water saved by these individual cities doesn't seem to be making much of a difference on the overall water situation in the state.

Had you looked for any, you'd find conservation widespread, not at 20%, but not indicative of only a small percentage of people conserving. Statewide reports show the opposite.

Maybe you should write an op-ed and educate the people of CA. Are you saying I made up the op-ed in the OP? I want to see how far from reality you are...

that's straight from Tempe's own report.

you're lecturing us and you don't even know your own city's water supply?

go study, lecture after you know enough about the topic to teach the rest of us something.

in fact, you responded to it, so there's a word for what you're doing now by saying I didn't provide any stats.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6360818

AZ is a hella lot bigger than Tempe...

And rather astounding that while lecturing people in this thread, you don't even know where your own community's water comes from.

That was the purpose of providing Tempe's statistics, but rest assured, they are mostly the same for Phoenix.

Which I have listed.

Before long the taps will be running dry.

They are currently building the nation's largest ocean desalination plant that is scheduled to go on line in 2016

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-largest-ocean-desalination-plant-goes-up-near

on salt during the Roman era when it was considered the only real way to preserve food, i.e., when salt was something of value.

Today, on the other hand, in an era of 'de-salination', salt is considered undesirable. Perhaps we should all be paid in 'potables' or something, lol.

I mean, several ways of looking at it, but just FWIW.

And then there's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:


Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

Goleta's too small for such a scheme, but one reason we are small is because when Bill Wallace was still 3rd District Supervisor there was a slow-growth majority on the Board that restricted new water meters like mad.

Now, meh. All kinds of stuff being built out by the Costco end of the line.

Long before the taps come close to running dry, the irrigation taps to farms will be shut off. Without a thriving agricultural sector in California, you'll see an exodus of millions from the state looking for work, a reverse Great Depression Okie movement.

The end result being a devastated economy, but more water for the cities to use to support the remaining citizens and industry not reliant on agriculture for employment.

Been saying for years. Don't move to the Central Valley unless you want to retire there. Because no one will buy your house. No work in a few years.

Makes me wonder if I should sell it soon...

While everyone is still ignorant of the facts.

really? how much water do cities use in California?

and how much during drought conditions do you sources store?

I realize some people may not be on city water and have a well, but I think that would be the most accurate way to measure usage.

Also 20 Gallons for a dishwasher is high. New diahwashers may use 4 gallons or less, but there are a lot of oldet models still out there.

If people really wanted to help, they'd stop eating almonds.

I'm tired of being told about the length of my showers while politicians do nothing about the massive water drain of our cash crops.

But somehow everyday citizens are the problem and why aren't you rationing, blah blah blah.

We're not the problem. 10% of water distribution is urban. Residents have reduced water use from something like 230 g/day to 190. We either deal with our massive agricultural drain or we do not.

I suspect we will not.

However, having lived in SoCal my whole life, reducing water usage as much as possible is a way of life. I think this started way back in the 1980s. Every few years there are new, dire calls for residents to practice austerity in water use. These calls for little people to conserve more and more get tiresome.

Seems like a bad idea.

100 years ago, the idea that I, a resident of Minnesota, could walk into a market and buy inexpensive and fresh grapes, peppers or tomatoes in January would be ludicrous. At best, there were a few hothouses locally that supplied very expensive produce to rich families and upscale restaurants. Otherwise, you're eating a diet heavy on grains, potatoes, canned or dehydrated foods, etc. That cellar full of Grandma's preserves were a necessity if you wanted to eat a balanced diet.

As we push the limits of this planet's sustainability and keep cranking the thermostat ever higher via our carbon emissions, we may be forced to give up a lot of the luxuries we've grown accustomed to, such as using massive amounts of irrigation and fossil fuels to grow and transport fresh produce halfway around the globe.

To be safe, I'm planting fruit trees and learning my Grandma's canning recipes.

Yes, a thirsty crop is in fact grown in California. Seems the water district that serves the counties where rice is now grown locked up the rights to about a third of all the water in the entire Sacramento Valley, which is much wetter than the San Joaquin Valley.

Cotton
Grapes, both table and wine.
All the various nuts, but it is my understanding that most of the groves use a drip system, which is good.
Citrus.
Berries of all types.
Etc, etc.

Anything that has a juice in it is water intensive.

I've driven down the Grapevine and up and down the valley all months of the year and the change from Dec/Jan to May/June is dramatic. All those green leaves require water.

We could lose that, too. As could Arizona (!).

is much more water intensive...

And you are right about the onus being misplaced on the regular person when there are water thieves in the corporate world.

A 30 acre field of hay uses as much or more than an average golf course, and there is a hell of a lot of hay grown in CA

Assuming the hay is for our Big Macs and the like.

Question remains is Hay grown in desert and very arid climates?

Travel I-10 southeast of Phoenix, toward Tucson and there are miles of hay fields.

Edit; Your point about the beef industry is spot on. LOTS and LOTS of cattle in California, both dairy and beef.

Cattle can thrive in lots of other places - Florida, for instance which gets plenty of rain.

For years Florida held the distinction of being in the top 5 beef cattle producing states, often #3 or 4. No longer. Still a lot here, but not like it used to be.

As are landscaping for most buildings...

We are not running out of water--2/3 of the planet is water--what we have is woefully inadequate processing and delivery systems.

For decades the American southwest has been "running out of water" and for decades, we could have been building aqueducts, pipelines, grey water systems, and developing new desalinization and recovery techniques. Instead cities just rolled over for the land developers and issued permit after permit without any consideration for the infrastructure needed to support that level of growth.

But somehow I'm the bad guy because I have a couple hundred square feet of grass in front of my house.

The calls for individuals to conserve to the point of taking Navy showers are laughable because at least a couple times a month one of our unmaintained hundred-year-old water mains will burst and a few million gallons of fresh clean drinking water flows out to sea.

I've lost my ability to give a fuck.

unless theres a major turn around in the weather this next year but I haven't heard that.

My daughter lives just west of LA and conservation has been the standard way of life for her and her neighbors for as long as she's lived there. They're very, very strict about it.

but no word whether it'll stick around 'til fall.

and putting in AstroTurf!



Makes me laugh every time I walk around.

AstroTurf?!

my daughters landlord has simply let the grass die. It's just a brown patch.

And everyone's ok with that...

with a few succulent plants in the middle.

There is a more elaborate one down the street, right near the guy who's constantly watering, in fact!

I like the organic appearance of wood chips.

I've been a potted plant person forever anyway, and pots are easy to maintain. I've added more succulents; there's a wide variety, and you can move the pots around until you achieve an interesting grouping. Our street trees are liquidambar, probably 50 y.o., and seem to like infiltrating our wastewater lines. Anyway, I never water them. The giant philodendrons came with the house, and God only knows how old they are. They are true survivors. The only trees that need care are the young fruit trees we put in a couple of years ago.

The aquifers that are not used for drinking water have been ruined by fracking. California is fucked, long term. In the next five or ten years we will have refugees fleeing that state.

May be less than the 40 million living there. (and that's only the officially counted ones at that, who knows how many uncounted there are)

it is well-known as, basically, a desert. That is, California has wet years and dry years; Rajasthan has dry years interspersed with moist ones, on occasion.

People need to adapt.

Surely you're not suggesting that most people in California will be comfortable living like they do in India.

Hell, the last time I was in L.A. people on the radio were bitching about not being able to wash their cars.



"The Rajasthan State Water Policy 2010, describes the critical status of water in the state in terms of the mismatch between demand and supply.
The Rajasthan State Water Policy 2010, describes the critical status of water in Rajasthan in terms of:

The growing imbalance between demand and supply of water
Uncertainty in availability of water
Inequity in access to water
Low operational efficiency of water resource development projects
Depleting groundwater resources and deteriorating quality of water
High cost of service, low cost recovery and low level of expenditure
Lack of ownership among stakeholders"

http://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/rajasthan-state-water-policy-state-water-resource-planning-department-2010

they are big on social darwinism.

They can create jobs by building pipelines to pump the water inland, which would also help rebuild some infrastructure. They would also be combating the rising sea levels.

Where's the money going to come from? Legalize marijuana and tax the sales, then use the proceeds from that. Legalize gay marriage, then use part of the marriage license fees (along with ALL marriage license fees) to help fund it.

Just my 2 cents worth...

Ghost

Never been in the Navy, but I'm taking Navy showers.

I'm on my own well, which tends to focus the mind on these things. But people in the cities are oblivious, for the most part.

So many Californians don't even have water meters! They are just charged a flat rate for supplying water to their house. So cities can't even crack down on water wasters if they don't know who they are.

I don't know how we're going to get ahold of this problem. The vast majority of people will ignore the situation until there is no more water when they turn on the tap.

Those without meter do in fact use more water than their counterparts with meters....lots of information here:
http://blogs.kqed.org/science/2014/03/10/california-communities-that-pay-a-flat-rate-for-water-use-more-of-it/

One of those towns without water meters is near where I live, so I hear a lot about it. Thought it was more common.

compostable toilets...

green lawns to maintain their image. My neice wanted to remove her water guzzling front lawn and shrubs and replace it with desert climate appropriate xeriscaping, but the landscaper warned the city might cite her.

She did it anyway and replaced the shrubbery with desert plants and a couple of palm trees. She swapped out all but a ribbon of grass adjacent to the sidewalk, and added areas of raked sand, gravel and large rocks. Since the code enforcement patrol hasn't ticketed her, now some of the neighbors want to switch to xeriscaping to cut their water bills.

most of the rules prevent most daytime irrigation, irrigation runoff onto sidewalks and streets, etc.

a lot of agriculture is guilty of surface watering, which
consumes a lot more than underground watering. I know
that the change would be very expensive, but with a law
requiring it and some subsidizing from the state, it could help.

Just a suggestion.

Nt

it makes me wonder why people can't take water from places that have too much and pipe to places that don't have enough.
It seems to make sense to me, much more than piping tar sands.

Whereas agriculture used to consume 80 percent of the state’s water supply, today 46 percent of captured and stored water goes to environmental purposes, such as rebuilding wetlands. Meanwhile 43 percent goes to farming and 11 percent to municipal uses.
— The Economist, October 2009

http://californiawaterblog.com/2011/05/05/water%e2%80%94who-uses-how-much/

The municipal uses includes other industry, commercial, and domestic.

Domestic water rationing does more to raise awareness of water shortages than addressing the problem IMHO.

Even here, when we had a smaller water crisis, fools still had to have shiny cars and take four showers a day.

OCD-level cleanliness is worth it, even if you get only four or five days of it til all the water runs out.

I was disgusted with everyone's shiny cars here when they knew soon their water would run out and did not give a shit. Their image was far more important than their survival.

I remember in the early 70's being taught in school about water rationing. Simple things like turning off your faucet while brushing, Turning off the shower head between conditioner and shampoo. If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down.

All of these things still apply today. We are are in stage 3 and have been for a long time. Lawn watering once a week. No car washing. Water only served by request at restaurants. Rain water collection.

These are easy things to follow. I am confused. Whats hard?

and has been for years.

a major brouhaha here. We are conserving more than ever but our water bills keep going up and up.

Conservation is the way to go, we just need to get more people on board. Hitting them in he pocketbook seems like a good idea until it start hitting people that actually DO conserve.

the board cut.

My daughter already isn't watering the lawn, has drought-resistent plants, flushes only "the brown," takes fast showers, etc. It will be harder for them to reduce even further than for people who haven't been cutting back till now.

restrictions here in Seattle, it was still allowed to have it done at a car wash.

But we didn't mind having an excuse not to have a pristine car.

Guess all the salt does that to you.

on top of everything else.

At least I hope not!

And that if you must wash your own car to use a bucket rather than the hose, and try to use as little water as you can get away with.

I have relatively new paint on a very old car, so I hand wash *very* carefully, because I don't want dust causing scratches and dulling the finish.

Ok, the move is back on!

Except that right now there's no rain water to collect.

And I spent too damned long trying to convince the kid to flush the toilet to complicate that matter- especially since the cat thinks it's her extra water bowl.

Washington resident here. If you took the water right before the Columbia River discharge area, we could give you all the water California could ever use.


23 days of average flow Columbia water would replenish Cali's entire yearly deficit @265,000 ft/sec

Look at the Colorado River...

Too many more winters like the last two in the Northwest, and the Columbia is going to be looking a little different, too.

The reality is that California has too many people for its climate. Arizona is even worse that way.

It's time for people to live where it makes sense.

The future is bright, hot, and dry.

Do people ever ask how Israel gets water? Or Australia?

Existing desalination facilities and facilities under construction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Existing_facilities_and_facilities_under_construction

Estimates vary widely between 15,000–20,000 desalination plants producing more than 20,000 m3/day.

Israel

Israel Desalination Enterprises' Sorek Desalination Plant in Palmachim provides up to 26,000 m³ of potable water per hour (2.300 m³ p.a.). At full capacity, it is the largest desalination plant of its kind in the world. Once unthinkable, given Israel's history of drought and lack of available fresh water resource, with desalination, Israel can now actually produce a surplus of fresh water.

The Hadera seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant in Israel is the largest of its kind in the world. The project was developed as a build–operate–transfer by a consortium of two Israeli companies: Shikun and Binui, and IDE Technologies.

By 2014, Israel's desalination programs provided roughly 35% of Israel's drinking water and it is expected to supply 40% by 2015 and 70% by 2050

Australia
Main article: Seawater desalination in Australia

The Millenium Drought (1997–2009) led to a water supply crisis across much of the country. A combination of increased water usage and lower rainfall/drought in Australia caused state governments to turn to desalination. As a result several large-scale desalination plants were constructed (see list).

Large-scale seawater reverse osmosis plants (SWRO) now contribute to the domestic water supplies of several major Australian cities including Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and the Gold Coast.

The extraordinary story of the Victorian Desalination Plant