Increases in water pricing would help pay for said programs. I'd rather there be some sort of active plan in place rather than just jack the rates sky high and hope everyone figures it out.
Good start. The most effective way to solve this is also the easiest, raise the price. Demand seems to be far exceeding supply (thus the water supply is being steadily depleted). Price the water higher to the point where demand decreases enough to stabilize the water supply. Will it suck paying a lot more for water? Sure. But that's the reality of living there.
Given that and the new higher price of water, the rest of your ideas would happen via market incentives. It is all the sudden more imperative and cost effective to fix leaky infrastructure, landscape your yard in plants made for that environment, not plant crops that don't belong there, etc.
I have no doubt that eventually the above will happen. How long until remains to be seen.
Increases in water pricing would help pay for said programs. I'd rather there be some sort of active plan in place rather than just jack the rates sky high and hope everyone figures it out.
we are allowing a company to build a pipeline that will ship Canadian oil to wherever they want it shipped.
What resources of ours are we giving away?
The biggest one would be land. There are a lot of Americans not very happy with the expropriation of their farm and ranch land property for this pipeline. They also don't appreciate the potential ecological issues that would accompany the building of the line through their lands.
That depends on how it's done. A high salt concentration in the local aquatic environment would not be acceptable.
Salt is a resource. Purify and sell it.
Think like a capitalist.
The environmentalists in CA are going to screw up pretty much any plan that involves infrastructure. Building plants, building aquaducts, discharging into the ocean, the list goes on. Especially if there's a bug or a flower or maybe even special types of sand that will be affected. Now, if they get thirsty enough that may change but I wouldn't bank on it.
California needs more reverse osmosis plants to pull water from the ocean.
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
A massive project to build giant stills across up and down the coast to desalinate sea water.
Also if you live in the arid parts of CA a project to design and make stillsuits...
"For he is the Kwisatz Haderach!"
Anybody that opposes building new reservoirs or opposes desalination plants on the coast should never be able to drink clean water again or complain about it.
And where is the water / infrastructure support supposed to come from when the chain migration starts from all the illegal aliens?? When Arnold ran for governor he said calif.needs three more Shasta sized hydroDams just to break even on electricity and water i.e.population growth.
RO should only be used as a minority supplement for municipal water supply since it is extremely expensive to build and operate. Dumping RO water to the farmers would be like using stacks of $20s to heat your house.
This. It'd be better to spend the money improving hospitable places. Let inhospitable places become more inhospitable and more expensive to live in so foolish people won't live there.Or should we stop populating inhospitable places?
Cost goes down based on how much is invested in the RO plant. For example, this $1 billion dollar plant in Carlsbad will cost roughly $2000 an acre foot vs their current rate of $1000 acre foot. The article mentions $2000 an acre foot being enough for two families of four for a year so that's roughly $83/month per family. Expensive? Maybe but it's better than rationing water or not having access to it at all when there's no rain. If anything, it can be used to supplement the natural supply during harsh periods such as this. As more plants are built, their costs should also come down like any other technology. Hook them up to nuclear power plants and build more of those in California and that will help solve even more problems there. Problem is the environmentalists have run amok in California and are letting the state fall into chaos and bankruptcy.
This. It'd be better to spend the money improving hospitable places. Let inhospitable places become more inhospitable and more expensive to live in so foolish people won't live there.
Part of the problem and solution as stated by other posters here is the subsidization of water rates to the biggest consumer of water in the state, i.e. the Californian agriculture industry. Of which those left picking up the tab are actually city and suburban dwellers who as a result are forced to pay higher water rates and are always pushed to enact water conservation policies first even when it rains normally across the state during the year.
Meanwhile these subsidized water rates to often incentivize CA farmers to plant crops that are water intensive (but more profitable) on their farms. Especially in the southern parts of California where most of the region is naturally a dry / desert region climate by default. Thus you can have years (which was true about 2-3 years ago) where even if it rains normally the state of California will still impose drought measure alerts and rationing in some areas because demand and use of water remains high across the state by CA's agriculture industry continues to grow in order to feed the needs of water intensive crops. Of which many are mainly for grown for export overseas.
Problem solved then by your own admission.That doesn't really solve any problems. All it does is shift the population to places where water is and cause everyone else to live in cramped closets with skyrocket costs for everything.
And where is the water / infrastructure support supposed to come from when the chain migration starts from all the illegal aliens?? When Arnold ran for governor he said calif.needs three more Shasta sized hydroDams just to break even on electricity and water i.e.population growth.