California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/us/california-imposes-first-ever-water-restrictions-to-deal-with-drought.html

by sethbannon • 11 years ago

231 237 11 years ago

jstalin• 11 years ago

We learned yesterday that 80% of water consumption in California is by agriculture[1]. Yet this executive order does nothing to reduce agriculture's use of water[2]. It only refers to use of urban water, lawns, landscaping, and cemeteries. Agricultural users just need to submit vague "plans."

1. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/30/how-growers... 2. http://gov.ca.gov/docs/4.1.15_Executive_Order.pdf

joshstrange• 11 years ago

Yeah it seems pretty crazy that they are targeting the smallest sliver of water use for restrictions. I'd think we would want to limit the restrictions on everyday citizens and focus on the farmers who are fewer in number and, I would assume, easier to control as a whole than every citizen in CA...

johndevor• 11 years ago

It's not crazy. It's politics.

wnevets2• 11 years ago

someone has to protect our poor farmers, everyone loves farmers.

baddox• 11 years ago

Residential users are a dispersed interest group. Industrial users are (mostly) concentrated interest groups. These results are exactly what you should expect.

pdeuchler• 11 years ago

Just more theater by a corrupt system and it's inhabitants desperately trying to maintain the lucrative (for them) status quo, everything else be damned.

CUViper• 11 years ago

This is where Amdahl's Law meets real life.

pbreit• 11 years ago

"used to find the maximum expected improvement to an overall system when only part of the system is improved"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl's_law

jconley6• 11 years ago

Many farmers are getting no [0] water this year and are relying on ground water to keep trees alive or not planting seasonal crops. Others get a very small fraction of their typical allotment [1]. California water rights are complicated...

[0] http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article11355200...

[1] http://hanfordsentinel.com/news/in_focus/california_drought/...

grok2• 11 years ago

The farmers are getting no "Federal" water. I don't know what exactly this means -- presumably the state too supplies water to it's farmers via various water-works projects (your 2nd link indicates that farmers relying on state supplied water will get 20% of their usual quota this year) and farmer's also possibly have other sources of water like wells, bore-wells, etc.

olliej2• 11 years ago

The trees they're trying to keep alive have ridiculously high water consumption, almonds for instance consume 10s of litres of water for each _individual_ almond.

They need to stop growing trees like that in a desert, which is what they're doing.

The wells they are digging are tapping into the underlying aquifers that are the last resort, so they are in fact getting _free_ water while complaining about the cost. In essence they are stealing the water that other californians pay for.

At the same time they are asking for subsidies, to support a business model built on the ridiculously stupid idea of growing high water use crops in a _desert_.

The solution is to actually treat this as a free market (as most HN commenters seem to believe is the solution to everything), everyone pays the same amount for water, including farmers. This would mean farmers would actually make sane use of their water - maybe they can't grow almonds for a profit anymore, and switch to something else. They will probably fairly quickly find some new food stuff that people really want to pay lots of money for, but uses less water.

That's how things work.

bradleyjg4• 11 years ago

Ground water is also a limited public resource. In fact, draining an aquifer can have even more dire consequences than draining a surface river.

The fact that California law allows unlimited water withdrawal until 2040 is literally a tragedy of the commons.

egh• 11 years ago

No water from the federal government. Not no water.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_in_California#Water_distr...

thaumaturgy• 11 years ago

You are right. Just read through the XO and agricultural water suppliers are only required to come up with "plans" detailing the amount of water they need.

This is obnoxious and stupid. Given the severity of the drought and California's willingness to continue to supply all the water that agriculture wants at the expense of some of the smallest water consumers, California's looking like a pretty good place to be from.

rdtsc• 11 years ago

For bureaucrats it is very important that they are perceived as being proactive and doing something, preferable make it as visible as possible by as many people as possible. Someone out there will get a pat on the back for "taking initiative", "being proactive" or "making an impact".

Residential water restrictions seem to qualify maximizing those things.

nostromo2• 11 years ago

If the TSA is security theater, this is conservation theater.

It's all about feeling good and conspicuously "doing our part" but has nothing to do with solving the problem.

I wonder what's next, maybe a ribbon or wristband campaign?

caublestone• 11 years ago

Plot twist, the TSA dips into conservation by presenting it's water reserves stocked by forgetful travelers.

thrownaway24246• 11 years ago

Yes those of us who did not already know this long-standing fact learned it yesterday. What many of us seem to have failed to absorb is that water supplies are compartmentalized in such a way that saving in one area does not necessarily improve the situation in another area. One city can run out of water while another has plenty. Many cities have dedicated water supplies that are in no way connected to nor shared with agriculture, so saving even 100% of agricultural water provides no benefit for the municipal supplies.

Kluny• 11 years ago

Directly from the article:

"State officials said the order would impose cutbacks on water use across the board — including homeowners, farmers, cemeteries and golf courses."

bradleyjg4• 11 years ago

Here's the primary source, look for yourself. http://gov.ca.gov/docs/4.1.15_Executive_Order.pdf

All the mandatory restrictions are on urban water users, agricultural water suppliers are required to submit paperwork.

chaostheory4• 11 years ago

We need food. We don't need wasteful, water hungry lawns and we can make inefficient toilets and showers a little more water efficient with some cheap mods.

pjlegato7• 11 years ago

Lawns and toilets are such a tiny part of water usage in California that even if you got rid of all lawns and toilets altogether, it would not make any material difference to the water shortage. All residential usage of all types in CA amounts to ~9% of water usage. Talking about lawns and toilets is a purely theatrical feelgood measure designed to make people think they're pitching in and helping.

We need food of some kind, yes. We do not need massively water-hungry high margin crops such as pistachios and almonds being grown in the middle of the desert during the worst drought in centuries.

WalterSear4• 11 years ago

We don't need meat. We just convince ourselves we do.

kemiller4• 11 years ago

We do need food, but much of what California farms produce is exported, often to places with plenty of water. It doesn't make sense to export water from an arid state in a drought. If the water's real economic value were priced in, that would not be so bad.

vijayr2• 11 years ago

Sad part is, a huge portion of agriculture is to feed animals which then become our meat. It is just not sustainable. The best way to conserve water is to eat less meat. This book has lots of interesting numbers - http://www.amazon.com/Meatonomics-Rigged-Economics-Consume-S...

mark_l_watson• 11 years ago

+1 you are exactly right on this. It takes about 10 times the water and 10 times the energy to eat mostly meat.

I would argue that a mostly vegetarian diet is healthier also. One problem is that it takes some degree of skill to cook a delicious vegetarian meal, but is fairly easy to make a tasty meal out of meat.

AesopHimself• 11 years ago

Does this %80 include the water footprint for raising livestock?

It would be interesting to know the relative price in water of a small Niman ranch steak compared to a single serving of California-grown almonds.

Is the drought an argument against eating California-raised livestock since it isn't necessarily as location-dependent as certain agriculture?

anigbrowl3• 11 years ago

I certainly think so.

markvdb• 11 years ago

http://www.waterfootprint.org/Reports/Mekonnen-Hoekstra-2012... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/meat-makes-the-pla...

"beef, about 145,000 gallons per ton"

"Changing one’s diet to replace 50 percent of animal products with edible plants like legumes, nuts and tubers results in a 30 percent reduction in an individual’s food-related water footprint. Going vegetarian, a better option in many respects, reduces that water footprint by almost 60 percent."

timchen1• 11 years ago

they should probably impose http://treetpee.com/ as a requirement for agriculture

krisroadruck• 11 years ago

I simply do not understand california's water shortage problem. They are by a frickin ocean. It's sunny nearly all year round. Solar powered or wave powered desalination is a fairly straight forward solution to this problem.

MagicWishMonkey• 11 years ago

Desalination is incredibly expensive. At this point, they aren't completely out of water, as the crisis continues desalination will become more viable (expensive or not, people need water to survive).

higherpurpose• 11 years ago

These plants seem to be self-sustaining (they even create extra energy) and can provide potable water from the oceans:

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/03/15/first-kind-wave-energy-f...

mtrpcic• 11 years ago

Desalination is expensive because of the cost of power, but what is being proposed is not just "we should desalinate", but is "Why don't we make better use of the power opportunities," such as a desalination plant with solar panels and/or generators for waves/tides. We could offset the electrical cost of desalination if the plants could help generate their own power. Why not pass water through turbines before desalination? There are tons of opportunities for refining the process, and it's just the initial cost that's large. Over time, the plant will pay for itself and if ever optimized, could actually provide power back to the grid.

nawitus3• 11 years ago

According to Wikipedia it's really cheap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Economics

chadzawistowski• 11 years ago

It's technically possible, but not at the right prices. California has been supplying water to agriculture at below market prices.

ptaipale2• 11 years ago

California has been supplying water to agriculture at below market prices.

Is that actually "supplying", or is it that farms have been located at rivers precisely for the reason that they have access to water there, and water rights are part of property rights?

(Honest question, I don't know California system.)

gtirloni• 11 years ago

People have had water for a fairly low price that nobody really cares about it. Now they have to care, but it's not the end of the world (yet). Solar/wave powered desalinization will look a lot more interesting when they hit bottom. Unfortunately nobody will move before it reaaaaally hurts them.

matznerd• 11 years ago

Why desalination isn't the answer... http://blogs.kqed.org/science/audio/why-isnt-desalination-th...

jerhinesmith• 11 years ago

I was literally going to post the exact same article. Up until I read this a few days ago, I would have jumped into a debate with "desalination! just do it!" -- turns out it's much more complicated than that.

bduerst2• 11 years ago

tl;dr: Desal is too energy intensive and expensive to be feasible while other conservation options haven't been tried yet. Also, massive potential environmental impact for water intake and brine output.

MichaelGG• 11 years ago

Why aren't they simply boiling the water, nuclear powered? That article says membrane desal leaves half the water extra salty, is that right? Does boiling it leave that much? I'd imagine there'd just be a concentrated, mostly-solid byproduct.

I'm probably wrong else everyone would already be doing this. OTOH, many people and places seem to be going against nuclear power, so perhaps it isn't just a technical issue. At any rate, that article just left more questions than answers.

anigbrowl3• 11 years ago

Because the real problem is inland, so as well as desalinating the water (which is somewhat easier said than done, though I agree in principle), it would have to be pumped inland and mostly uphill for millions of miles.Our state water infrastructure is ancient, we just last year secured passage of a $9m bond to overhaul it, despite the vociferous objections of the farm lobby.

stonemetal2• 11 years ago

mostly uphill for millions of miles.

Not quite that far. San Francisco to New York is less than 3K miles. Maybe tens to hundreds of miles.

MichaelApproved• 11 years ago

Here's an article that goes into the complications and controversies of desalination in California. http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-large...

spiralpolitik2• 11 years ago

The reality of desalination is that apart from Karlsbad where they are already building one, there are very few places you could build a desalination plant and associated power plant without someone (rich person or environmental group) getting lawyered up.

Then you have the problem of getting the water from the coast to the Central Valley. Given that it's going to take 20 years to build 400 miles of train track I don't hold much hope getting pipelines of a similar distance getting built in under 10 years.

rogerbinns3• 11 years ago

Note that California's electricity "market" is anything but that, and a bizarre regulatory mess. You may remember Enron being bad many years ago, but they exploited the regulations. The net result is amongst the most expensive electricity in the country. The electricity companies aren't even allowed to set their own rates. http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2014/nov/19/citylights1-c...

ToastyMallows• 11 years ago

You should listen to this podcast about desalinization. Towards the third part of the podcast they talk about the problems with desalinization and why it isn't always the solution. I just listened to it yesterday, very interesting!

http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/how-desalination-...

chiph2• 11 years ago

I've been hearing this on the news for at least a year now, and they're just now imposing restrictions?

thrownaway24246• 11 years ago

This is on the state level. Most water districts have been imposing restrictions and raising prices for years.

dasfw• 11 years ago

Why isn't california using the same technology people use for almost every other scarce resource? Markets. If you raise the price of water, people will start using less. I suspect there are some political reasons why this is not happening.

zkhalique• 11 years ago

Yeah, why isn't the price of water being raised?

webXL• 11 years ago

Because it is government controlled mainly, and at each level (state, district, municipal) there are way too many squabbling parties that would need to agree.

I recently listened to a great EconTalk (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/03/david_zetland_o.htm...) on the subject.

mjhoy• 11 years ago

There's a good post on marginal revolution that puts California in some perspective.

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the...

As David Zetland points out in an excellent interview with Russ Roberts, people in San Diego county use around 150 gallons of water a day. Meanwhile in Sydney Australia, with a roughly comparable climate and standard of living, people use about half that amount. Trust me, no one in Sydney is going thirsty.
So how much are people in San Diego paying for their daily use of 150 gallons of water? About 78 cents.

ptaipale2• 11 years ago

That is indeed quite cheap if water is supposed to be scarce. (I don't quite see why you're downvoted.)

78 cents per 150 gallons is $1.37 per cubic meter. Here in North Europe, where we have no shortage of water whatsoever, we pay €1.34 per cubic meter. In addition to that we pay €1.66 per cubic meter as "wastewater management fee" (and yes, you have to pay wastewater management fee even for water that you use for watering plants, something that doesn't need wastewater management at all).

So, San Diego residents pay less than half the price of here? Wow.

(Not that the more than double cost would be a problem here, as the average consumption per person is 100-150 litres depending on whether people live in detached houses or blocks of flats. People in blocks of flats consume much more water on average, and even that is only about a quarter of the San Diego figure you quoted.)

joycey• 11 years ago

Regressive taxes are usually not very popular.

SilasX• 11 years ago

Also, if farmers are blowing $100 of water to produce $5 of crops, that suggests some kind of "use it or lose it" system is going on, which means it can be eliminated without taking anyone's rights; rather, just give them the right to sell it, at which point significant water is freed up.

But I don't know the water rights system well enough to know if we're in that kind of situation.

olliej2• 11 years ago

California does have that. They just don't apply to farmers, who use 80% of the water.

sandworm2• 11 years ago

There are limits to the governor's powers here. Much of the agricultural water comes from "rights" or easements attached to specific land. Ownership of farm X comes with the right to water from river Y. This is the "free" water often mentioned in news reports. Any reduction in these rights is viewed as a legal "taking" or condemnation of a property right by the state. Lawsuits for compensation will result. And they will likely win. That is why the order avoids mention of agricultural uses.

3pt14159• 11 years ago

You can't give away what you down own.

When the state gave rights to water to land holders it was well before we had the technology to meaningfully impact water levels and thereby impact other peoples access to water.

Since Roman times land ownership went from the highest heavens to the the deepest deeps, but the law was changed after blimps and other aircraft needed it and they certainly didn't need to pay off millions of people in Italy or anywhere else for that matter.

Same goes for pollution. When there are measurable impacts to other people (ie, my small use, home well went dry and now I need to ship in water at a much higher cost), farmers don't get to claim compensation.

_delirium• 11 years ago

I agree in a philosophical sense, but in a U.S. legal sense, water rights are often treated as property, though it depends on precisely when they were granted and with what terms, and why/how they're being abrogated. The U.S.'s "takings clause" jurisprudence has a fairly expansive definition of what constitutes "property", and water rights disputes often end up tangled up in it. If a river literally runs out of water then a farmer probably has no claim, but if the state reallocates its water (to balance with other uses, for environmental reasons, to build up a reserve, etc.) then it ends up in court.

macspoofing• 11 years ago

That's a good argument that may or may not stand-up in court.

nitrogen3• 11 years ago

When the state gave rights to water to land holders it was well before we had the technology to meaningfully impact water levels and thereby impact other peoples access to water.

Droughts, floods, dams, and aqueducts are older than any currently standing government. If water rights laws can already consider those events and structures, they can be adjusted to incorporate manmade climate change as well.

ryen• 11 years ago

Any reduction in these rights is viewed as a legal "taking" or condemnation of a property right by the state

I wonder what role "eminent domain" may play in an issue like that.

pjlegato7• 11 years ago

In the US, states have vast, almost unlimited powers to seize private property for the public good, provided they pay fair compensation.

dragonwriter2• 11 years ago

"Eminent domain" is simply the power to condemn, which is limited by the requirement for just compensation under the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment.

bradleyjg4• 11 years ago

Not necessarily. The idiotic prior appropriation system is a matter of state law and takings doctrine are a matter of federal constitutional law. The combination doesn't have a whole lot of case law at the Supreme Court level. It may well be the case that a coordinated change in both federal and state (statutory) law would be enough to work around the takings clause issue.

Even if all else failed it might well be better to bite the rentier tax once than to live with them forever. Remember takings only requires the payment of fair market value, and these water permits have limited alienability.

robryan• 11 years ago

In Australia the government has bought back vast amounts of water from land owners allocations to save a river system.

tibbon• 11 years ago

Wait, they just imposed water restrictions? Wouldn't have that made sense to start like... near the beginning of all of this?

MrZongle2• 11 years ago

That would require somebody with intelligence and conviction to lead the push for change.

We don't have those people in politics in America any more.

bottled_poe2• 11 years ago

Remind me, is change compatible with re-election?

drawkbox• 11 years ago

We are human beings and we take it to the limit, constantly testing boundaries and how far we can take it. Is it not always smart but it is part of our differentiation properties to find new beneficial paths. There may be some good innovation that comes out of this but right now it is a problem.

pkaye7• 11 years ago

It was already done done mostly in the state/county level. For example, in my part of the bay area, they have raised rates especially if you have disproportionate usage. Also you cannot water your lawn more than once per week.

pacificmint2• 11 years ago

So far the relied on voluntary reductions, which has worked well in some areas and less well in others. It's not like they just woke up to the drought now, but they considered restrictions to be a measure of last (or later) resort.

emodendroket2• 11 years ago

Alaska is slowly melting away and people are still arguing about whether global warming is real. Inaction is kind of the order of the day.

usefulcat• 11 years ago

I was kind of surprised by that too. Even down here in Tea Party HQ (TX), at least Austin and San Antonio have had water restrictions for years if not decades.

duderific2• 11 years ago

Well, Texas is probably drier on average than California. California has wide swings between very wet winters and very dry winters. See this chart of Fresno, which is pretty dry on average, but ranges from a high of 22" in a year to a low of 4" over the last 80 years or so. http://www.bytemuse.com/post/drought-historical-rainfall-cal...

mtviewdave• 11 years ago

...near the beginning of all of this?

It's hard to know you're in a multi-year drought until multiple years have passed.

nostromo2• 11 years ago

California needs to raise the price of water.

Isn't it ironic that water in Seattle (which has an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fresh water) is more expensive than it is in SF and LA?

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/wp-content/uploads/201...

If you want people to use less water, simply raise the price.

pkaye7• 11 years ago

The other way is if other states would grow more agriculture so there is more diversity.

mikeash3• 11 years ago

Other states might grow more if their California competition wasn't subsidized so heavily with water.

jseliger• 11 years ago

California needs to raise the price of water. [. . .] If you want people to use less water, simply raise the price.

This is absolutely correct and Alex Tabarrok just wrote a similar post on Marginal Revolution: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/03/the...

oasisbob• 11 years ago

Or, to flip that around -- if your residents use less water, the price per gallon will increase. Seattle has nearly the lowest per-capita water usage on that list.

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/u-s-urban-r...

deftek• 11 years ago

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/may/26/california-fails-...

teamhappy3• 11 years ago

The first picture that pops into my head when I think of California is sprinklers on people's lawns. We don't really have them in Germany. I mean, of course we do, but people are hesitant to put them up because the first thing that will happen is your neighbours standing at the fence judging you for being so goddamn wasteful (seriously). Now, I'm not a huge fan of judging people (that's a lie), but I can't help but notice that americans (seem to) completely lack this sense of responsibility/playing your part/restraining yourself for the greater good/whatever. Another thing we don't really have is air conditioning (might be a climate thing). It's insanely wasteful and chances are you'll be sweaty anyway. So we don't use them.

Unfortunately I have a hard time finding numbers on how much water is actually wasted. I.e., with a somewhat reasonable definition of "wasted."

SSLy• 11 years ago

Another thing we don't really have is air conditioning (might be a climate thing).

This one is a climate thing.

teamhappy3• 11 years ago

Certainly for California. But what about New York for example?

Have a look: http://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/air-...

// Can't find numbers for Germany, but I can tell you that I don't know anybody who has AC at home. (I'm not a hippie.)

// You know how examples work, right? The data is pretty clear: More than 60% of households in the USA have AC.

munificent• 11 years ago

Another thing we don't really have is air conditioning (might be a climate thing). It's insanely wasteful and chances are you'll be sweaty anyway.

The average high in Munich in July is 23 °C. In Los Angeles, it's 28.4 °C. In Death Valley, California, it's 47 °C. (That's average. The highest temperature ever recorded is 57 °C.)

23 °C is what most Americans set their air conditioners to. If it never got hotter than that, we wouldn't use them either. For example, where I live (Seattle, near the northern border of the US and on the ocean), air conditioners are uncommon.

nordsieck• 11 years ago

It's actually tragically common for older people in hot climates (e.g. Arizona) to eschew air conditioners and die.

secabeen• 11 years ago

Even in Los Angeles, if you're within 5 miles of the ocean and your house was built more than 15 years ago, you won't have AC either. AC is largely a feature of mini-mansions and houses in the more inland areas.

thrownaway24246• 11 years ago

The first thing that pops into my mind about Germany is lederhosen and beer. But it's surprisingly difficult to diagnose large-scale socio-ecological problems from the other side of the planet.

pjlegato7• 11 years ago

I can't help but notice that americans (seem to) completely lack this sense of responsibility/playing your part/restraining yourself for the greater good/whatever

Of course there are exceptions, but in general Americans are much more oriented to the rights of the individual and much less to collectivism and the 'greater good' than Germans. We tend to view collectivism as an inherently oppressive and dictatorial mode of social organization, a cruel enslavement and subjugation of the individual, who is prohibited from doing anything but following the mandates of the collective handed down by some vast inhuman and opaque bureaucracy.

This attitude is less prevalent in more leftist areas such as California and Massachusettes, but I think it's safe to say that it's fairly representative of the average American overall.

I had the reverse experience in Germany: I was amazed at the degree to which many Germans obsess extensively over the minutiae of trivial decisions (such as how far to open the water tap while washing dishes) in terms of what (vanishingly inconsequential in most cases) effect it will speculatively have on the collective good.

Moreover, this seems to be cast in terms of what other people will think of you. Americans care far less about what others will think of them. We tend more towards a philosophy that says if you are not (directly) harming someone else, it's nobody else's business what you do. Germans sort their recycling into 9 seperate bins by color and composition. They could easily put everything in 1 bin and make machines to sort it automatically, or hire someone to do it by hand, but instead it is set up so everyone has to do it themselves -- so your neighbors can see that you are or are not complying with the dictates of society.

Another seperate factor is that natural resources in general are far more abundant in the US than Germany. Relative to the US, Germany is a tiny country with a huge population packed into a very small space.

Meticulously conserving resources is imperative when you have a high population to resource ratio, but less important when you have a huge land area with a very low average population density and so vast amounts of resources available for each person. We are just recently starting to reach the limits of what the natural available resources can support in the US. The local limit in Germany was reached centuries ago, forcing more efficient use of what was available.

emodendroket2• 11 years ago

I think the image of Massachusetts as a bastion of "leftist" or liberal thought and ideals comes mostly from people who have never lived here. For various historical reasons the state is dominated by Democrats but many of them are comparatively conservative.

blazingfrog22• 11 years ago

Americans care far less about what others will think of them

As a European expat in the US, I find this statement to be very accurate. It can be maddening at times but I've grown to find this characteristic one of the main attractions of life in the U.S. It can be summed up as "I don't feel guilty about anything I don't have direct control over because it makes life much more enjoyable and it always works out in the end."

teamhappy3• 11 years ago

First of all, kudos for not taking it personally. I don't know how any of this is scored but I think you may have won.

[...] Americans are much more oriented to the rights of the individual [...]

It definitely feels like it. When it comes to things like abortions you can't live up to your own expectations though. Not quite sure why that is.

I love the water tap story. Sounds about right :D

Let me get the recycling thing out of the way and then I'll cover the rest in one go. We have three bins: 1. Organic stuff, 2. paper and 3. everything else. (We have a bag for plastics, not a bin. That's important.) They get picket up by different people and are brought to different places (at least in theory). Kind of makes sense I guess. The reason we do that directly at home is probably because it's the most efficient solution. Our friends in Sweden have way cooler bins. They use one with four compartments instead of four separate bins. Same thing though.

What you said about the "vanishingly inconsequential" effects got me thinking. Maybe that's the real problem. Imagining things on such a large scale is very difficult (e.g., people can't image how small changes caused by evolution lead to a new species). Small streams make large rivers.

---

[...] if you are not (directly) harming someone else, it's nobody else's business what you do.

That's the other thing, right? They're almost always indirectly harming other people. Indirectly is a nonsense term in that context. They're directly harming other people.

djur• 11 years ago

We tend to view collectivism as an inherently oppressive and dictatorial mode of social organization, a cruel enslavement and subjugation of the individual, who is prohibited from doing anything but following the mandates of the collective handed down by some vast inhuman and opaque bureaucracy.

The number of people I have met who actually 'tend to' believe anything of the sort is very small, and they are all big-L Libertarians. Americans as a whole are certainly more oriented towards individualism than Europeans, but there are plenty of collectivist endeavors that Americans love (see: football, megachurches, the military).

Another seperate factor is that natural resources in general are far more abundant in the US than Germany. Relative to the US, Germany is a tiny country with a huge population packed into a very small space.

I think that is historically a much, much larger contributing factor to American attitudes on conservation than anything related to collectivism. The many early American communes were just as fervently devoted to expansion and industrious exploitation of the land as the cash-driven individualists.

blazingfrog22• 11 years ago

The average for June through September here in the State Capital, Sacramento, is just over 89 degrees Fahrenheit (or almost 32 degrees Celsius). This is not a matter of comfort but of health.

dataker2• 11 years ago

I don't wanna sound like an annoying libertarian, but would it be the same if water was privatized in CA?

Seems reasonable to assume a private company would solely increase the price of water and gradually try to find other ways to solve the problem.

bdamm• 11 years ago

Ah, the classic naive geek. All it would take to implement your plan is:

1) Become dictator of all California via military coup. 2) Create water monopoly that has rights over all water sources. 3) Regulate said water utility.

Totally reasonable.

dataker2• 11 years ago

That's not the implementation of something like that. Actually, apart from military coup, your plan looks exactly like the current system.

I can't tell if that was an irony...

AnimalMuppet2• 11 years ago

There's water, and then there's water. You can put just about any water on a farm field or orchard, but not into someone's tap. Water for taps has to be treated.

This means that you can have more than one kind of water shortage. There's shortage of water, and shortage of treatable/treated water.

What's more, water is difficult to (efficiently) transport long distances. Aquaducts are about the only way to do it. This means you can have a shortage of water in one place, and water available somewhere else, and not be able to fix things.

Then, as Joel Garreau pointed out in "The Nine Nations of North America", there's the difference in viewpoint between northern and southern California. Southern California (think LA) believes in development, growth, conquering nature. Northern California believes in harmony with nature, and leaving things unspoiled. This means that in LA, "letting a river flow unchecked into the sea is a waste, a sin. In San Fransisco, it's a blow struck for God's original plan for the land." This makes it very difficult to find political consensus for a plan of action.

And, on a bit more specific topic, I see people talking about orchards. Let's say you've got an orchard that takes lots of water. People are screaming at you to turn off the taps because things are so dry. But your trees are, say, 30 years old. That means if you turn of the water because this is a dry year, it's going to take you 30 years to fully recover from that move. So you're going to do everything you can not to have to turn the water off to your trees.

thrownaway24246• 11 years ago

I think this is one of the better posts on this thread but I take issue with two things. First, I think it's hilarious that you think northern californians live in harmony with nature. I would say the nature harmony declines as you go north, terminating in the "state of jefferson" region where all they want is to clear cut every single tree. Secondly, because of the almond rush there are comparatively few 30-year-old almond orchards, and those that do exist are in the wetter orchard regions like Butte or Glenn county, while the recently planted orchards (which constitute the majority of them) are in the San Joaquin valley.

AnimalMuppet2• 11 years ago

Thanks! Replying to your two points:

Taking the city of San Francisco and comparing it to the city of Los Angeles, I think that SF has a considerably stronger environmental movement, so the statement was not complete nonsense. It may not reflect the whole of Northern California.

As to the orchards: I pulled "30 years" out of thin air; I have no particular attachment to that number. My point was that the orchard loses considerably more than this year's crop.

TallGuyShort• 11 years ago

In Sunnyvale as recently as a year ago at least, public parks and schools were seriously over-watering their fields. The drought was already a serious concern and I called the school district to point out that their sprinkler systems were running even on rainy days and ran long enough to make the ground marshy even on a dry day. They didn't care. I'm pretty disgusted by how long it's taken for more action to be taken. Water rights is the first time I've heard of California state giving a crap about property rights.

enahs-sf• 11 years ago

I have a lot of fun pondering the effects of a longer term drought. Will populations shift north to Oregon and Washington? Will desalination technologies advance to significantly reduce the cost?

blisterpeanuts• 11 years ago

They have a huge desalination plant coming online soon in San Diego.[1] There are about 15 others that are proposed. With California's vast coastline and huge concentration of population along the coast, it seems logical to build more of these plants. However, they do use a lot of energy (which could be supplied by solar and wave power) and may have deleterious effects on sea life in the vicinity of the salty output. But what choices do they have, really? Until people move northward or eastward, as you suggest, or other ways to conserve are implemented, they're in a very tight spot right now. I think desal is the best option.

New desalination technologies may also provide the key, such as the RO/PRO so-called "reverse osmosis" approach[2]. The Israelis have a giant plant "Sorek"[3] that is purifying seawater on a large scale and using advanced technology to reduce the energy cost and improve efficiency. So there's some hope for this approach to providing purified water on a large scale.

1. http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25859513/nations-large...

2. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150217144246.ht...

3. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/534996/megasca...

spiralpolitik2• 11 years ago

Too little too late. Here's things Jerry could have done but didn't.

- Ban the export of bottled water from California. If the drought is as bad as they say we shouldn't be shipping any of it out of state. Sorry Arrowhead.

- Introduce tax breaks for installing water efficient appliances.

- Introduce tax breaks for the removal of sprinkler systems and replacing plants with ones that require less water.

- Introduce a market for water so that everybody from homeowners, farmers, and business all pay the same market rate.

- Provide tax breaks to allow agriculture to transition to crops that require less water. Convert these to fines after 5-10 years so that any holdouts get the hint.

This is one of those cases where everybody has got to give up something.

thrownaway24246• 11 years ago

Contrary to your statement the Governor of California lacks the power to do almost all of those things. In particular you can't just apply a market system to agricultural water. Most of those growers have contracts with the federal Bureau of Reclamation for their water. This is the Central Valley Project that ships water from the Trinity all the way to Kern County. Much of the rest comes from the California State Water Project, which involves contracts between the State Department of Water Resources and various other agencies and parties.

Both of these contract systems are full of outright fraud and mendacity and you can certainly call into question the moral foundation of the contracts, but under our system of laws these contracts are fundamentally untouchable.

epmatsw• 11 years ago

Those all seem like pretty reasonable things. But how on earth aren't there already tax breaks for water efficient appliances? That seems like such an obvious and trivial improvement...

Lewisham• 11 years ago

It does exist on a county/city level, Santa Cruz will give you money if you get a high efficiency washing machine.

nzealand• 11 years ago

From the article:

In addition, the state and local governments will offer temporary rebate programs for homeowners who replace old dishwashers and washing machines with water-efficient models.

jbritton• 11 years ago

How come I never hear any talk of building a new water pipeline from Alaska.

Crito2• 11 years ago

Because that would be ridiculous? The distance between Alaska and California is huge; there is tons of fresh water that is closer to California than Alaska.

chiph2• 11 years ago

From what I understand, there are massive pipelines sending water to the LA basin. And the people who live where those pipelines originate are upset over sending water to what is really a desert. So going further afield in the search of water is likely to exacerbate the tensions.

And I'm not sure where'd they go that they haven't already. Las Vegas? (it has even less water) Yosemite? (probably already feeding water to the central valley) Oregon? (move construction of the Keystone XL westward?)

kingmanaz• 11 years ago

Read "The King of California" ( http://www.amazon.com/The-King-Of-California-American/dp/158... ) for insight on what became of Central Valley's Tulare Lake, once the largest freshwater body in the United States West of the Mississippi. The lake is gone, but its footprint is now the world's largest cotton plantation, JG Boswell Company (ticker BWEL), which owns rights to millions of acre feet of Central Valley's ground water. J.G. Boswell II, who died several years ago, pioneered the use of laser-levelers, GMOs, etc., whereas his predecessor, J.G. Boswell, was an unsophisticated Georgia cotton farmer who relied on post-Reconstruction black slaves to create an empire in the heart of California.

Fascinating read. Recommended.

davidf18• 11 years ago

Israel produces about one-third of its water from desalination. Its largest plant produces 165 million gallons per day. The firm that built and runs that plant is building one in Carlsbad, CA going on-line in 2016 and producing 50 million gallons per day.

thebiglebrewski• 11 years ago

You our humble audience, You will finally see, What it's like when people can't pee free

- Urinetown

Balgair• 11 years ago

Ahhh, water. The one thing that The West hasn't got and that we all need. I grew up in the Bay Area and honestly, it is great to see a bunch of people on HN who are not from here trying to wrap their minds around this. Make a De-sal plant! Make Markets! Almonds cost too much water! (By the way, the correct pronunciation is Amm-ond when they are off the tree, AL-mond when they are on it, as you "knock the 'll out of them").

There are no politics in The West unless you talk about water politics. Full-stop.

Sure, abortion, gay marriage, budgets. These are all distractions from the real nitty gritty politics of The West. From Nebraska to Califronia, it is ONLY about water. The history of The West can largely be written by the history of how to control the water in The West, and who is doing the controlling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars This should give a barest introduction into the viciousness and fingernail clawing politics of water out here.

So, welcome to the REAL politics of The West. Now things matter.

EDIT: By the way, pro-tip: Up your water usage today. They usually calculate these percentage reductions based on the last month's water usage, hence the April 1st date. Whatever you do, use more water and pay the bill. That way you don't end up with an allotment of 8 gallons per day or something crazy. You need to be able to cook spaghetti if things get bad. I remember the late '80s and the drought then. Rule was: If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down; much to the outcry of public health workers. Note this, things have gotten bad before in Cali, and that was the result; things are much worse now and the results will be much worse.

orware• 11 years ago

Continuing to read these articles about water shortages, particularly in the Central Valley, definitely makes me feel fortunate that the water supply for Imperial County (we're located in the bottom right of California) comes directly from Colorado and the All-American Canal and we're not as subject to the issues a lot of the rest of the state is facing (I'm sure we have our own issues, but for the most part, water isn't really something we have to worry about down here).

Additionally, a recent Opinion piece in the local paper put it quite nicely: "Valley has reason to honor National Ag Day Imperial Valley Press (El Centro, CA) - Friday, March 20, 2015

Despite the obvious presence and abundance of the Valley's agricultural commodities, their true significance can be easy to overlook. Thankfully, National Ag Day aims to correct that.

National Ag Day, which is typically commemorated in March, and this year was celebrated on Wednesday, has the commendable purpose of highlighting the contributions of the nation’s agricultural community. It dates back to 1973, when the nonprofit Agriculture Council of America launched its National Ag Day program.

We too have tried to do our part through the years to highlight the important role ag plays here as well as in the far-flung markets that it has tapped into. Luckily, there hasn't been any shortage of examples, or eye-popping statistics, that we have been able to cite in the past to emphasize the significance of Valley agriculture, or mention now in honor of National Ag Day.

One of our favorites to cite is the fact that about 95 percent of the fresh vegetables consumed in the nation are produced in Imperial County and Yuma between the months of November and March. Another rather astounding statistic is that of the nation's 3,079 counties, Imperial County ranked No. 8 in total annual agricultural production, according to the US Department of Agriculture's 2012 Census of Agriculture.

It should also be noted that in 2010, American agricultural products worth an estimated $115 billion were exported throughout the world, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Yet, no commemoration of National Ag Day is complete without noting the some of the concerns that threaten to take productive farmland offline. Whether it's unforgiving forces of nature, cumbersome regulations or development trends that increase the pressure to transfer water from rural areas to more populous metro areas. Here in the Valley, we have already heard some concern about the amount of farmland that has been converted to house renewable energy projects. Concerns such as these aren't likely to disappear, unless they are addressed in a meaningful way, which hopefully does take place.

THE ISSUE: National Ag Day

WE SAY: Be proud of local ag roots."

Growing up down here you don't usually here too much about how crazy big ag is locally, but it certainly is an interesting thing to read about and learn that your community produces so much of the nation's fresh veggies.

As another person commented in this thread though, California water rights are complicated (I just feel fortunate that for the most part I don't have to worry about how much water I'm using...especially out in the country outside city limits where I live where we only have to pay a flat fee every 6 months and get our water pumped directly out of the nearby canal).

astrocyte2• 11 years ago

A state with questionably the highest concentration of some of the most intelligent people in the U.S and some of the dumbest politicians in the U.S. Question : What were all of the Californian's doing when the state was running out of water for years? Why do you elect bozos? Too busy making apps to be concerned with where you're going to get water from?

Ever wonder where all that tax revenue goes? Apparently not to important issues.. Planning ahead.. wtf is that?

Yes, Agriculture burns up 80% of the water supply... California is a desert yet attempts to be the source of the nation's agriculture .. $$$

Every step of the way, money is a motivator over survival. As a result, even with the current order, it wont go far in way of solving the water issues. In all honesty, it seems no one in that state is going to wake up until all of its gone. Maybe then people will wake up. 194 comments and counting about doing everything under the sun and nothing of value is done about it. Where's Zuckerberg? Where's Google? What are the problem solvers of the world in that state doing? Exactly....

Good luck California. You elected these bozos and sit by worrying about everything but what's important. The very nature that attracts people to the state and the lifeblood of habitability is under threat and no one has bat an eye for years... You can't get Zuckerberg to shut up about flooding an already flooded workforce with outsiders. Yet, the whole state's water supply is under threat and no one has said a word. Not one person from the 'leadership'... Gotta love the times we live in.

duderific2• 11 years ago

Zuckerberg is not a leader of anything except Facebook, so it seems kind of silly to expect him to do anything about it.

California actually passed a bond measure last year to improve the water situation[1]. It's easy to sit back and say how dumb everyone is, but I would say most states don't do so well planning for events that may or may not happen every 40 years.

[1] http://www.acwa.com/spotlight/2014-water-bond

astrocyte2• 11 years ago

As I recall, this drought has been ongoing for 5 years+. It is easier to be myopic it seems. Best of luck. I'm sure when the water finally runs out, everybody will want to get a word in

mikekij• 11 years ago

The Western Hemisphere's largest water desalination plant is opening in Carlsbad this year. It cost $1B, and project planning started almost 10 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsbad_desalination_plant

DigitalSea• 11 years ago

I think California and other drought affected areas could take a leaf out of Australia's book. Here in Australia drought isn't a new thing. We aren't exactly the worlds greatest and most drought resilient country (it still has an effect), but I grew up with water restrictions being the norm. Only being allowed to wash your car with a bucket or regulated car wash, recommended shower priod of 3 minutes (the Government handed out free sand hourglass timers a few years ago) and only being allowed to water your gardens on specific days of the week (or not at all) were some of the things I recall as a kid.

Depending on the state (I am from Queensland) there are various stages of drought action. We have seven levels, some states/territories have 3 or 4. In Queensland from stage 2 onwards sprinklers are banned. Stage 3 onwards hosing is banned (no hosing gardens, cleaning using a hose). Stage 7 is the worse and it means no external water usage without a permit permitting so (or the fines are astronomical). Sounds to me like California is probably at a stage 6 or 7 on our drought scale.

I am surprised that it took this long and for things to get this bad before they considered water restrictions. Heck, the Australian government has even bought back water allocations from land owners to save river systems. I think California should have been doing more sooner than they are.

caust1c• 11 years ago

Please let the governor know what you think. Everyone who reads this site is at least tangentially affected by it, and at most live in California.

http://www.gov.ca.gov/home.php

restalis2• 11 years ago

...oh, California, your "rainy days" have finally come?

On a more serious note, if I remember correctly, there are technical solutions to precipitation control. Cloud seeding had been tried repeatedly and provided results (sometimes surpassing the estimations by a large degree). Is this political too? Should California stay sunny even now?

California Imposes First-Ever Water Restrictions to Deal with Drought

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