Water restrictions California

[Prahlad Strickland]

So there is a mandatory water restriction in california. 

 

Heres a little something the governer should know.   each person uses between 80-100 gallons a day on average.   They are requiring 25% less usage.   

 

None of my business what they eat in california, but how's about putting restrictions on how much cattle is raised and slaughtered in cali.  Or how many hamburgers are allowed to be eaten. 

 

1 hamburger = 650 gallons of water. 

1 pound of beef = 2500 gallons of water. Hard to believe, but totally verified.

 

So lets say they reduce beef consumption and make that mandatory.  

 

That would be a reduction of 600% for every hamburger raised and slaughtered in california.    Even a reduction of 10% will be more than double their mandated 25%.

 

 

This is me doing 5 minutes research.  

Comes down to money and greed at the end of the day. 

[VASI]

How many gallons per day require to watering genetic spinach, lettuce fields?

[Prahlad Strickland]

How many gallons per day require to watering genetic spinach, lettuce fields?

pound of lettuce is 15 gallons.

rice is 400 gallons, 

 

I think rice is the worst of grains, but it's still 6 times less

[Angelo Waldron]

How about California will no longer export fruits and vegetables to Hawaii?

[sarcanon]

Forget beef. Take a look at nuts. It takes 1.1 gallons of water to grow one almond. That's not one pound of almonds. That's one single almond.

 

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/almonds-nuts-crazy-stats-charts

 

Agreed. We need to do more about our consumption of water.

 

BTW, are we on-topic with this?

[Prahlad Strickland]

if california ate as many almonds as beef, maybe that owuld be a problem?

 

Scott,  you are always on topic!, haha

 

but as a number,  it takes 1900 gallons for one pound of almonds,  very high too!

How about California will no longer export fruits and vegetables to Hawaii?

whatever it takes to help my californian brothers

[Jim Feeley]

if california ate as many almonds as beef, maybe that owuld be a problem?

 

Reportedly, 10 percent of California's total water supply is used to grow almonds.

 

About 47 percent is used in meat and dairy operations.

 

In total, 80 percent for agriculture.

 

About 4-5 percent by households.

 

These numbers might be slightly off, but seems like we might not be focusing the cuts where they're needed...or possible.

 

We, for example, have greatly reduced our water use over the last few years. Cutting 25 percent from our current use will be very difficult. Will have to see how this all works out.

[old school]

Jim is right. The cities have been reducing use for over a decade while Big Ag has never conserved.

CrewC

[Mirror]

Yeah! Eating is over rated anyway.

[Philip Perkins]

For a residential customer who has already reduced water use by not or underwatering the yard, being smart about laundry, not washing cars and taking quick showers there is very little left to cut.  Most people won't be able to get to 25% reduction, and the program will be considered a failure.  The truth is politically tough, because it goes against the business model of some very big corporations.

 

philp

[afewmoreyears]

A good read...( Mulholland article below)

The water wars in Cali are old and bitter... What looms is just another chapter.... Big AG...or City dwellers... Or Industry....

Everyone must adjust in this current climate... That is the quick answer..the rest is...well...complicated.......but, options are being acted upon...

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

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/i_r/mulholland.htm

[old school]

Yeah! Eating is over rated anyway.

Are you suggesting farmers ( Big Industrial Ag ), not Ma & Pa Kettle, they've been dead for years, can't be more efficient with water usage in growing food? Read up on the facts. Their usage and methods are very short sighted and wasteful.  The Cites & Counties have worked to reduce use per capita water use for over 15 years and it's working even as we have a growing population.  Of course if you are trolling, well,     have fun.

CrewC

[Jim Feeley]

Phil spells out what I meant to say. We don't water most of our yard; just enough to hopefully keep the trees from dying (and we're even under doing that). But over the hill from our neighborhood (Phil lives about six blocks away), I see people watering hyperlush lawns in the middle of the afternoon...those people will presumably be able to cut back.

 

As a Californian, I've lived through a few droughts and followed water policy for a long time. There are small benefits to drought: The 1976-77 drought left little snow in the Sierras and little rain. Those (then uncommonly) dry and warm seasons led to a reniassance of northern California cycling...including leading one young hotdog skier to try cycling to keep fit (just like one of his idols, Jean-Claude Killy). That young skier: Greg LeMond.  True story.

 

Anyway, here are a couple good resource for those of you who want to dig deeper...

 

The UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences blog; largely policy stuff.

http://californiawaterblog.com/2015/03/30/the-california-drought-of-2015-a-preview/

 

Cadillac Desert: The American West and its Disappearing Water

Marc Reisner's magisterial book on development and water policy in the US west. Deeply researched and very well written. Also really long: over 600 pages. Last revived about 20 years ago, but still the best history I've seen. I'm re-reading it now.

 

Cadillac Desert: Water and the Transformation of Nature

A four-part public-television film by Jon Else and Linda Harrar. Largely based on Reisner's book, along with another book, The Last Oasis (which I haven't read). Made nearly 20 years ago, but lovely and incisive film (as you would expect from Else). And IIRC, not just historians talking...the actual people involved in some of the biggest-deal water policy moves sat for interviews.

It looks like much of the film is on YouTube...probably also available at your local library. I haven't watched it since its TV debut, but I'll probably watch it again in the next month or so.

 

 

Logline: We in California are screwed by a screw largely of our own twisting...

[VASI]

I am waiting to see salt water to be made drinkable or for watering fields.

[Prahlad Strickland]

I'd say,  home users aren't the problem,  

It's mainly cow ag,   it's not sustainable the ammount of water they need to raise the ammount they are raising...  but lots of money, so instead i'm guessing it'll go under the radar.  

 

Hoping the rains arrive again for cali,  love cali, miss cali.

[johnpaul215]

While I'm sure there are a lot of things homeowners can do, it seems like the big business things are where there needs to be some changes. Either reevaluating the industry or smarter ways to do things.

Prahland makes a point. There are changes people could make, but they don't want to. There is a reason that a lot of people go vegetarian or vegan purely on an environmental basis. You can cite almonds, but beef is a major drain on the water supply. That makes a push for water efficient washing machines seem almost silly by comparison.

[Tom Visser]

Water science and conservation is a tricky issue.  It's not like oil where the product is refined and then chemically transformed from 1 form to another, in reality, no one really "wastes" water, unless you are in the nuclear industry, you simply consume it, perhaps misuse it, but eventually gets released back into the hydrographic system.

 

What does happen, is that man takes this natural resource and then tries to control it (diverting it from it's natural path, making dams, denying population free access, monetize and sell it back to the community, etc...)

 

If a stockyard took runoff water from rainfall, that would naturally runoff into the sea, if that water goes into livestock, comes out as cow patties, then evaporates into the atmosphere, and then gets recycled, mother nature takes care of it as it is supposed to.  It is when water is pumped out of the ground in quantities that the hydrographic system can't maintain, that's when long term conditions can change.

 

Let's face it, much of California is arid.  California has also become one of the most populous states in the nation, both absolutely and in density in urban areas.  That has a cost in water, much of that water is coming from neighbor states.  It's not about "us people in the city are doing our part" and pointing fingers at industry as the issue... it's all the same thing, it's one big system, YOU are the industry.  It is YOU living in an area that can't naturally sustain the population that exists now.

 

One would think that Hawaii has plenty of water, since it rains here so much, were surrounded by it, but we have our own water issues and I think California can look at us for some examples of water issues and how a smaller community deals with it.  At least the water issue here is more digestible since the system is simpler and we can talk about water as a tangible thing, where in California the "waters get murky" very fast and the system is much more complicated.

 

The big takeaway is that the Hawaiians treat water as a public trust and when industry misuses that trust, it is hard to detect, but infinitely easier than our brothers on the mainland.

 

Here's a doc that friends of mine produced 

 

"Ola i ka Wai" or "Water is Life"  (how very true)

 

[VASI]

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/01/us/water-use-in-california.html?_r=0

[Angelo Waldron]

TomV, where do you get this information?

" That has a cost in water, much of that water is coming from neighbor states. "

[Tom Visser]

TomV, where do you get this information?

" That has a cost in water, much of that water is coming from neighbor states. "

 

I went to High School in the San Joaquin Valley, I'm not just some "guy form Hawaii" talking out of his ass.  I wasn't a farmer, but farming was part of the community and generally aware that when were talking about surface water, most of California acts as a drainage destination for states that accumulate ground water via precipitation - California not being known for a state that has high precipitation.  I didn't say most, but "much".  I don't really even know how much, but when talking about drinking water, and if your in LA, there's a not-insignificant amount of that water that comes from places like Nevada, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and perhaps even as far as Wyoming.

[Glen Trew]

I'm do my part by going two to three weeks without flushing the toilet or taking a shower in California. Instead, I choose to do that in Tennessee and Georgia during that time, where there is no water shortage. Also, most of the meat I eat is wild venison, which uses even less water than lettuce. Seems like maybe the South had it right all along.

[johnpaul215]

Many rivers are fed by snow melting in mountains. It's a natural time release. That's how this NASA guy reached his "yikes" conclusion, because the usual snowpack that would melt all summer and feed California didn't fall. it's been an ongoing deficit that will eventually come to a head. A lot of the snow may be in another state and other people are tapping those rivers before they cross the border into California.

While the Mississippi might be flowing strong, it's not financially practical to pipe that water to California, and use it to wash cars. Though, I guess some sort of transcontinental water pipeline is the alternative to desalination plants when you look at costs. That is also if other parts of the country could spare that volume of water on an ongoing basis.

Like Tom said, it's not like you actually "use up" water, so whatever California sprays to water lawns will evaporate and follow the jet stream and probably come back down somewhere in the US or Canada.

So much science......

[Mirror]

Interesting article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/02/gov-jerry-brown-battling-california-water-crisis-created-by-his-father-gov-pat-brown/

[Michael Miramontes]

My local water district just got sued for not charging the correct rates to certain areas. The case was recently closed and the district is now increasing our monthly charges to pay for the lawsuit. How's that for water abuse. 

[Mirror]

Are you suggesting farmers ( Big Industrial Ag ), not Ma & Pa Kettle, they've been dead for years, can't be more efficient with water usage in growing food? Read up on the facts. Their usage and methods are very short sighted and wasteful.  The Cites & Counties have worked to reduce use per capita water use for over 15 years and it's working even as we have a growing population.  Of course if you are trolling, well,     have fun.

CrewC

You're reading way too much into my post.