The mention of farmers with access to groundwater reminds me that water rights issues in New Mexico vs. Texas have, in part, been caused by a disagreement over how much pumping out groundwater affects the downstream flows of nearby rivers in the aquifer. https://sourcenm.com/2023/02/10/state-requests-125m-over-fiv...
Oh yeah, and the Colorado River Compact was based on estimates of river flows that were optimistic even for wetter years in 100 years ago. The compact allocated over 16 million acre-feet for a river that most years manages less than 14 million.
It gets even more fun across country borders. Most of the water for southern NM and a lot for El Paso come from a giant Mesilla aquifer. Turns out, that extends beyond the border, and Mexico has started hitting it heavily to supply Juarez. Fun times ahead.
There are tradeoffs for sure, but fundamentally farming is a life-sustaining activity, and we should be very careful about unintended consequences of our policies. For instance, maybe almonds should not in fact be grown in this region, but I suspect that is a very small and unrepresentative portion of the actual crops harvested.
Your "suspect" seems to be based on zero evidence.
A quick google seems to give various sources that say:
* Farming uses about 80% of all water in california.
* Almonds use 17% of that (so 13% of all water use).
Are almonds important enough to use 13% of all water use in an area suffering increasing cripling drought? I'm happy to have a discussion about it, but calling it a small portion seems to greatly underplay almonds.
>Almonds use 17% of that (so 13% of all water use).
Ye gads, that's an amazing stat. I heard heard almonds were using a lot water, but never the scale. For a strictly luxury crop, that is an unbelievable amount of resources in a state with 11 desalination plants.
Well, i'm not sure a quick google is definitive, but my main point stands on its own. As I said, almonds may not be a good tradeoff for the region, but farming in-general should be treated very carefully, and is indeed life-sustaining and critical. We shouldn't just equate "farming" in the region, with "almonds".
Even if we take your googled numbers as fact, it's a relatively small minority of the total farming production in the region.
Farming should be treated carefully, I think we agree.
What isn’t careful, in my opinion, is to take some poorly thought out “water rights” rules and keep applying them, while it is clear they are not fit for purpose and various water levels, both above and below ground, continue to reach new lows every year.
I too doubt almonds use that much water but they make an easy target since who cares about almonds right?. Much like not washing your car or not watering your lawn would never make much of a difference yet still people were making a big deal out of that as if that would solve everything.
Farming is needed and I'm all for farming, but that's for fruits and vegetables which like almonds I doubt they take up that much water. If I had to guess it would probably be some type of animal feed that is wasting all that water.
I remember reading a story somewhere where the saudi's were buying up land that had these old water rules to grow animal feed to bring back home. When other countries start using you this way to me is a sign of a BIG problem in your policies.
The water numbers get really ugly once you account for productivity. Some plants would T surprise me if 80%+ gets lost at various stages (spoiling, damage, pests, etc).
In Arizona, Nestle is building a new $700mm plant to produce 'high quality creamers', and were going to use the local utility EPCOR for water-but apparently EPCOR may not be able to provide enough for their needs.
To resolve the issue, they are lobbying[0] to have the groundwater laws adjusted to allow companies to treat and return their own water back to groundwater aquifers without any oversight.
e.g. they may be allocated to pump 3,000 acre-feet of water/year, but if they pump 1,000 acre-feet of 'treated' wastewater back into the ground /somewhere/ then they are allowed to pump an additional 1,000 /plus/ 1,000 more the next year. And of course those are all virtual credits, they can acquire clean water wherever they like and dispose of 'treated' water into the ground wherever for credits, with little to no oversight.
> "Today, roughly 500,000 acres in and around Imperial County are cultivated with irrigation, with the bulk of the land devoted to growing alfalfa and other forage that feeds California's dairy industry, the nation's largest."
Looks like switching to desert-optimized crops that have historically been grown in the region is the only real long-term solution, plus a lot more drip-style irrigation:
> "Heat-loving plants are best suited for summer production in desert climates. The plant families that fit into the heat-loving category are nightshade or Solanaceae (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) and squash or Cucurbitaceae (cucumbers, melons, summer and winter squash). Corn and beans also perform best in hot climates."
One crop per year might also have to be the new norm if the Colorado River dams keep heading for dead pool.
These people were given water rights in perpetuity. How many will ever correct, will drawn down their usage voluntarily? Does society have to pay them for this unearned gift we never had to give, that they were granted?
Somehow I doubt the people given water rights in perpetuity are still alive today. At some point, governments should not be held liable for bad promises made centuries ago which simply can't be kept today.
This feels like one of the most Lawful Evil, Imminate'ing the Escharon'ing ruinating region-murdering life-destroying things the USG has done, and which it continues to perpetuate.
The idea that law must be upheld blindly at any cost, for law itself sake, for "stability" sake is so fallen. The furtherance of these grotesque rights is the use of law to end life, to ruin the country. The law was the mistake, is the instability, and it should not be honored, it's idea should not besmirch just & right laws.
These should be rolled back in huge degree, with not a penny paid. But I have no idea how we do it.
Instead we just wait for the rivers to go dry, wait for the end.
> Nonetheless, a deal, whenever it happens, will be good for everyone. Development will have water to fuel its growth[...]
Maybe we shouldn't be expanding cities and developing new suburbs in such arid regions that don't have enough water?
> More recently, private investors have been buying up agricultural water rights around the state in the hope of reselling them to homebuilders.
So even under the current system, urban/suburban expansion _can_ proceed, but it's disincentivized due to the additional cost of securing water rights? That seems like a good deterrent to building in a marginal location, not a problem.
It seems to be that much of this could be solved by pricing water at its actual price rather than through some politically set price. I could see an exemption for private household first 100 gallons per month or so to make sure everyone can stay hydrated.
That's exactly how you would fix it, the interests who control things don't want to pay market price. People in general hate paying what something costs when they have been paying the subsidized rate.
Well it’s easy to be glib but if your economic viability depends on remaining subsidized it’s different. I mean if you had to start cutting a cheque to Brazil for the oxygen that the Amazon produced you’d fight tooth & nail against it as it’d take your precarious startup and really endanger it.
Not saying change isn’t needed, I just understand why the people who will be ruined by it are fighting it. “Clean coal” is another example.
The market price, I suggested, would only work for the housing developments in the dry areas and not for farmers. Apparently farmers get their water from wells and water rights to creeks running through their land.
Water usage in the Southwest has wildly different impacts by area. Las Vegas, for instance, is hardcore about treating wastewater and returning it back to Lake Mead (delicious, right?)—which means that a lot of outdoor water use is still lost to evaporation but almost all household water use has a nearly net zero impact.
Arizona, to my knowledge, doesn't have any systems like that in place. Not for nothing that all those stories you hear about new developments trying to skirt water usage regulations and then being shocked when residents suddenly run out of water for their swimming pools seem to come out of Arizona.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 81.9 ms ] threadOh yeah, and the Colorado River Compact was based on estimates of river flows that were optimistic even for wetter years in 100 years ago. The compact allocated over 16 million acre-feet for a river that most years manages less than 14 million.
A quick google seems to give various sources that say:
* Farming uses about 80% of all water in california.
* Almonds use 17% of that (so 13% of all water use).
Are almonds important enough to use 13% of all water use in an area suffering increasing cripling drought? I'm happy to have a discussion about it, but calling it a small portion seems to greatly underplay almonds.
Ye gads, that's an amazing stat. I heard heard almonds were using a lot water, but never the scale. For a strictly luxury crop, that is an unbelievable amount of resources in a state with 11 desalination plants.
Almonds are luxury?
Even if we take your googled numbers as fact, it's a relatively small minority of the total farming production in the region.
What isn’t careful, in my opinion, is to take some poorly thought out “water rights” rules and keep applying them, while it is clear they are not fit for purpose and various water levels, both above and below ground, continue to reach new lows every year.
Farming is needed and I'm all for farming, but that's for fruits and vegetables which like almonds I doubt they take up that much water. If I had to guess it would probably be some type of animal feed that is wasting all that water.
I remember reading a story somewhere where the saudi's were buying up land that had these old water rules to grow animal feed to bring back home. When other countries start using you this way to me is a sign of a BIG problem in your policies.
Alfalfa is the culprit you're looking for. Thirsty crop, grown in the desert, and almost exclusively for nonhuman consumption.
To resolve the issue, they are lobbying[0] to have the groundwater laws adjusted to allow companies to treat and return their own water back to groundwater aquifers without any oversight.
e.g. they may be allocated to pump 3,000 acre-feet of water/year, but if they pump 1,000 acre-feet of 'treated' wastewater back into the ground /somewhere/ then they are allowed to pump an additional 1,000 /plus/ 1,000 more the next year. And of course those are all virtual credits, they can acquire clean water wherever they like and dispose of 'treated' water into the ground wherever for credits, with little to no oversight.
[0] https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/water-wars/nestle-...
Non-shaded non-lined/piped open earth irrigation is a big waste.
Someone using land in the 1920s doesn't mean that they should get to keep having wildly inefficient irrigation practices in the 2020s.
Looks like switching to desert-optimized crops that have historically been grown in the region is the only real long-term solution, plus a lot more drip-style irrigation:
https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=2205
> "Heat-loving plants are best suited for summer production in desert climates. The plant families that fit into the heat-loving category are nightshade or Solanaceae (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant) and squash or Cucurbitaceae (cucumbers, melons, summer and winter squash). Corn and beans also perform best in hot climates."
One crop per year might also have to be the new norm if the Colorado River dams keep heading for dead pool.
This feels like one of the most Lawful Evil, Imminate'ing the Escharon'ing ruinating region-murdering life-destroying things the USG has done, and which it continues to perpetuate.
The idea that law must be upheld blindly at any cost, for law itself sake, for "stability" sake is so fallen. The furtherance of these grotesque rights is the use of law to end life, to ruin the country. The law was the mistake, is the instability, and it should not be honored, it's idea should not besmirch just & right laws.
These should be rolled back in huge degree, with not a penny paid. But I have no idea how we do it.
Instead we just wait for the rivers to go dry, wait for the end.
Maybe we shouldn't be expanding cities and developing new suburbs in such arid regions that don't have enough water?
> More recently, private investors have been buying up agricultural water rights around the state in the hope of reselling them to homebuilders.
So even under the current system, urban/suburban expansion _can_ proceed, but it's disincentivized due to the additional cost of securing water rights? That seems like a good deterrent to building in a marginal location, not a problem.
Not saying change isn’t needed, I just understand why the people who will be ruined by it are fighting it. “Clean coal” is another example.
Arizona, to my knowledge, doesn't have any systems like that in place. Not for nothing that all those stories you hear about new developments trying to skirt water usage regulations and then being shocked when residents suddenly run out of water for their swimming pools seem to come out of Arizona.
Agriculture is big business's boogeyman.
Golf course, swimming pools, lawns and poorly managed landscaping use water like its a cheap date.
Farmers in suburbs have been GIVING UP their water rights for the greater good.
Land investors have been buying farmland to usurp the water rights.
Bloomberg is a mouthpiece for governance in Arizona that wants to keep building water guzzling semiconductor fabs.