California's water woes, solution?

[bradly1101]

I live in the Los Angeles basin. It's a pretty arid place, naturally only able to support mostly scrub brush. Thanks to the giant aqueduct coming down from the eastern Sierra as well as Colorado river water our huge population can be sustained. We have a couple of rivers coming down from the mountains, but they're just giant, concrete flood control channels now with runoff so dirty that I don't think it ever could be cleaned for consumption. We just dump it into the ocean.

But there hasn't been much snow pack in the Sierra this year, and other sources are drying up.

Should we have a nationwide aqueduct system, so that abundant water from the Pacific Northwest could be brought down to our desert? Wouldn't that be a big, fat, job creating infrastructure project?

Or should we stop populating inhospitable places?

 

[Herr Kutz]

How about reducing your population instead of stealing more water from others?

 

[Geosurface]

The solution to this problem is probably the same solution to just about every problem the human race faces across the entire planet:

For a shit load of people to die.

We're up over 7 billion now and rapidly climbing. Problems like this will only get worse, and worse, and worse.

Both humanity and the planet would be better off and happier if we were at about 1 or 2 billion.

I'm not advocating killing anyone, I'm just saying perhaps we shouldn't work so damned hard to make the problem worse by avoiding the inevitable as long as possible so that when it does happen, it's way worse than it could have otherwise been. We could also stop having so many policies which encourage irresponsible breeding.

 

[marincounty]

I think Obama should okay the Oil pipeline from Canada, in exchange for a large water pipe from B.C. down to Southern California.
B.C. has the water, LA has the money.

 

[davmat787]

Should we have a nationwide aqueduct system, so that abundant water from the Pacific Northwest could be brought down to our desert? Wouldn't that be a big, fat, job creating infrastructure project?

No thanks, we prefer our Salmon runs to quenching southern California's thirst.

There are downsides to living in a desert. Instead, I suggest looking into desalination, and perhaps using some of those research Universities to make it more cost effective.

 

[LunarRay]

How about reducing your population instead of stealing more water from others?

We do have a pretty large body of water to our west, it seems... The process of reducing the ocean to wonderful drinking or irrigation water is pretty simple... Maybe even lugging an ice berg or two up to LA or down where I live is viable.

I think Brown ought to invest in that kind of infrastructure than a train that goes fast... We've the means and the need... being a desert like place. And I'd not want to worry about the San Andreas going and destroying the water flow from the East or North.

 

[bradly1101]

The solution to this problem is probably the same solution to just about every problem the human race faces across the entire planet:

For a shit load of people to die.

We're up over 7 billion now and rapidly climbing. Problems like this will only get worse, and worse, and worse.

Both humanity and the planet would be better off and happier if we were at about 1 or 2 billion.

I'm not advocating killing anyone, I'm just saying perhaps we shouldn't work so damned hard to make the problem worse by avoiding the inevitable as long as possible so that when it does happen, it's way worse than it could have otherwise been. We could also stop having so many policies which encourage irresponsible breeding.

The problem is, who defines 'irresponsible'? Aren't we taught that all human life is precious? And breeding just feels so good, and things like alcohol inhibit the logic that would encourage the use of birth control.

I overheard a lady on the train tell another that she gets $400 per month per child. She had three kids in tow and one well on the way. Also I'm pretty sure these women were of a religion that forbids birth control.

 

[bradly1101]

No thanks, we prefer our Salmon runs to quenching southern California's thirst.

There are downsides to living in a desert. Instead, I suggest looking into desalination, and perhaps using some of those research Universities to make it more cost effective.

Yes an even better option, hopefully.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

The solution to this problem is probably the same solution to just about every problem the human race faces across the entire planet:

For a shit load of people to die.

We're up over 7 billion now and rapidly climbing. Problems like this will only get worse, and worse, and worse.

Both humanity and the planet would be better off and happier if we were at about 1 or 2 billion.

I'm not advocating killing anyone, I'm just saying perhaps we shouldn't work so damned hard to make the problem worse by avoiding the inevitable as long as possible so that when it does happen, it's way worse than it could have otherwise been. We could also stop having so many policies which encourage irresponsible breeding.

A growing population wouldn't be a bad thing if we were producing more responsible adults. Sadly instead it's a reverse.

 

[Drako]

Conservation.
More reservoirs.
Desalination.

 

[Agent11]

LA should build a desalination plant and stop stealing water from Northern California, the rain forest needs it more. That would make too much sense though.

How about reducing your population instead of stealing more water from others?

Ever seen The Purge?

 

[Drako]

LA should build a desalination plant and stop stealing water from Northern California, the rain forest needs it more. That would make too much sense though.



Ever seen The Purge?

They already are. Well, Carlsbad is.

 

[Fern]

I think any solution that involved taking water from another place is no solution at all. It's just transferring the problem to someone else.

Fern

 

[Jaskalas]

The short term solution is to populate the areas where water is located.

The long term solution is sustainability... and that begins with population. It must stop rising.

 

[unokitty]

Water shortages occur in the West not because too many people are flushing their toilets too often, but because agriculture, heavily subsidized through cheap water made possible by the federal government, continues to grow crops in places that would never support agriculture on a similar scale in a free market. Indeed, agriculture uses well over 80 percent of all the water used in Western states, and most of that water is stored, pumped, and diverted using dams, pumps, and aqueducts paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

... the development of the West, dictated by water, has been dominated by the federal government and its friends for at least 75 years. It props up industries unsuited to the realities of the Western deserts, while populations rely more and more on a diminishing resource controlled by an aging infrastructure of taxpayer-funded boondoggles. Is it any surprise that the West now faces some serious water problems? In spite of this, there is one thing we can know for sure: we’ll be told that the federal government is our best hope for solving the problem.

Radical idea. Stop the federal subsidies that are being paid primarily by people that will never benefit from them.

Let the farmers, that use 80% of the water, pay market prices for their water...

Uno

 

[boomerang]

Well somebody is going to feel some pain, the question is who. We need policies that stop development in deserts, flood plains and in areas below sea level to specify the areas that quickly popped into my head. Yeah, a lot of land owners are going to get fucked.

The problem is taking care of those that already live in these areas. I don't have the answer.

 

[KMFJD]

Radical idea. Stop the federal subsidies that are being paid primarily by people that will never benefit from them.

Let the farmers, that use 80% of the water, pay market prices for their water...

Uno

As long as consumers don't bitch about the price of produce increasing i'm all for this.

 

[Geosurface]

As long as consumers don't bitch about the price of produce increasing i'm all for this.

Seems like an entirely reasonable and realistic condition to attach.

 

[Attic]

We could take a bunch of tax revenues and build a train to nowhere and continue to pay bureaucrats way beyond market rates for delivering consistently subpar and overpriced work.

Oh, we already do that?

Yea, don't hold your breath waiting for bureaucrats to solve water issue here. They'd most likely spend billions of dollars studying the problem, applying a ridiculously overpriced and non effective solution and then spend the rest of their time and money trying to twist and rig numbers to indicate they are supplying more/better water (in bids to grab more money from tax payers) when they haven't in reality improved a thing.

I know, lets put government (who has endless money and gets away with murder and selectively applies laws and rules onto itself) in charge of more stuff instead of letting folks in the real world solve and tackle issues.

Bureaucrats are the cancer of our society and history will not look kindly on these men and women of our time.

 

[MovingTarget]

As long as consumers don't bitch about the price of produce increasing i'm all for this.

They will, regardless of reason. However, there are plenty of states/areas without arid climates that would gladly make up the difference for producing certain crops.

 

[Brovane]

Where I live in Southern California, Orange County we have a program for recycling waster water. Orange County has a large aquifer beneath it. We take water from waste treatment plants and we go ahead and basically complete clean the waste water to make it drinkable again instead of just cleaning it and dumping it into the Ocean. We then pump this water back into the aquifer and then it eventually gets pumped out for drinking water. Over a decade ago LA tried this same type of program but people in LA freaked out and called in Toilet to Tap and it was shutdown. The water district where I live in Orange County (Irvine Ranch Water District) now only import 22% of its water compared to 66% in 1990. I think a combination of programs including recycling waster water, desalination, and conservation we can meet or needs. Also considering that almost 80% of the water used in CA is used for farming we need to have a serious discussion about ways to better use the water we do have for farming.

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Pray to Jesus.

 

[Brovane]

Pray to Jesus.

John 4:14

"but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

 

[senseamp]

We still have golf courses wasting water, so the situation can't be that bad.

 

[Brovane]

We still have golf courses wasting water, so the situation can't be that bad.

The golf course isn't really wasting water if they are using reclaimed water for irrigation.