California Braces for Unending Drought | Hacker News Reader

California Braces for Unending Drought

nytimes.com

39 pointsjstreebin51 comments

The oddest thing is that engineers came up with a solution to this in the 1960s. Some smart people realized that there is an enormous excess of precipitation in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, and this most of this freshwater flows into the Pacific and Arctic oceans unused. The flow of freshwater runoff in Alaska alone is more than half of the entire runoff of the continental United States. Engineers realized that with a very long aqueduct, they could pump this unused water thousands of miles to the parched Southwest United States. They came up with a viable plan to make this happen. At the cost of $100 billion (the same price as the US interstate system), the aqueduct could pump 10 times the flow of the Colorado river, more than enough to completely resolve the region's water problems. The aqueduct would generate billions per year in hydroelectric power, an even more in added economic value. Like the Hoover dam, it would pay for itself within 30 years.

Yet, due to objections from environmentalists, the project ended up going nowhere and few people today have even heard of the project.

If you're interested, there's more on this topic on the Wiki page [1], as well as two videos made in the 1960s about the benefits of NAWAPA.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MibzpJ54do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0dsc-341O8

Trump has stated he intends to bring this plan back... (just sayin' :) )

Did he really? Trump says a lot of things, it sure is hard to keep track. It's also hard to tell if he's serious about it.

If he really did say this, then I'm very impressed he knows about it.

He threw darts at a wall and got lucky from my perspective. Basically how he's run his whole campaign.

Source?

Sorry I can't find it immediately but he was asked about it when Shatner was pushing this and he thought it was a great idea.

I think it fits in with his immediate solution to everything angle that's completely nuts when you stop to think about it.

The plan is about as feasible as "I will make Apple produce all their products in America", so it's not surprising.

Agreed :)

It certainly sounds right up his alley. Grandiose idea, and fuck the consequences.

I lived through the 70's drought in CA and have never heard of this. Very interesting.

I'm glad you found it interesting :). If you are still interested in reading more, Michelle Nijhuis wrote a longform article about the project last year [1]. In the article she visits the Parsons office and interviews several long-time proponents. It is a bit long though (10 pages), but provides a great background on the (failed) project.

[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/nijhuis/pipe-dreams-the-forgotten-p...

> Yet, due to objections from environmentalists

Have you read the environmental impact - just the summary on the wikipedia article is fucking horrific.

> The engineering of the project and the creation of a large number of new reservoirs — many of them in designated wilderness areas — would have destroyed vast areas of wildlife habitat in Canada and the American West and would have required the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people — including the entire city of Prince George, British Columbia.[1] A number of federally designated Wild and Scenic Rivers in Idaho and Montana would be submerged under reservoirs, including the Salmon, Lochsa, Clearwater, Yellowstone and Big Hole.[1] The amount of electricity required to pump the water over the Rockies would require the construction of as many as six nuclear power plants.[1] Significant negative consequences were also predicted for Pacific salmon runs in the many Alaskan and Canadian rivers that would be dammed and diverted, reducing their flows. Luna Leopold, a conservationist and professor of hydrology at the University of California, Berkeley said of NAWAPA, "The environmental damage that would be caused by that damned thing can't even be described. It would cause as much harm as all of the dam-building we have done in a hundred years."

The first time I visited California, it was for a project for one of the native american casinos in the Temecula area. We flew into LAX met up with our colleagues (from other countries), rented a big suv thing and then drove to the casino.

The trip down was basically "wow this is a big city" followed by "holy shit there is nothing here but desert".

Then we arrived in Temecula. A small city, in the middle of the fucking desert, with perfectly manicured, perfectly green lawn along the side of HIGHWAYS.

In most of the world, if an environment is too inhospitable for people, they either change their way of life (e.g.: people living underground in Coober Pedy; people embracing alternative types of gardens in dry/arid locations) or they accept that it doesn't suit them, and live somewhere else.

In America: no. fuck that. It doesn't matter that 10 square feet of lawn will require more rainfall than this entire suburb will get in a year. I want my fucking lawn, so let's make it happen!

Temecula is not a desert, nor inhospitable for people...

I do apologise. According to the standards, it's officially classified as a "Semi-desert" or "Semi-arid climate" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-arid_climate

Well, temec itself is a bit crap (all track housing) but the area is quite nice.

> Have you read the environmental impact - just the summary on the wikipedia article is fucking horrific.

I did read the article thank you, and I understood when I posted it there would be multiple comments highlighting the environmental issues. I could have chosen not to write a comment about NAWAPA, and nobody would have cared, but I simply wish for people to know this project exists. I have no intention of arguing with you or any of the other posters on this.

I think it's important to understand that we've known the American Southwest has had water problems since the 1800s, had a solution to fully resolve them, but for various reasons chose not to.

> I think it's important to understand that we've known the American Southwest has had water problems since the 1800s, had a solution to full resolve them, but for various reasons chose not to.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, that's like saying that I've understood that my Maserati payment is too much for me to afford and I've known that since the day I bought it and the solution proposed by my financial adviser was to crash it into a fuel depot at 150kph, but for various reasons I chose not to.

You can't just say "hey, we knew this would happen but our failure to sacrifice thousands of square kilometers of land, a whole lot of natural habitats, the livelihoods of the same number of people who live in Spokane, oh and the little thing of almost completely destroying a major fish species that is relied on by humans and animals alike...that's on us" and call it a day. Well, I suppose you can, but that's rather disingenuous of you for any future people who find this thread.

You're being disingenuous. The language in your original comment was quite noticeably biased in favour of the project.

You still could have written a comment about the NAWAPA but in much more neutral terms. Up to you, but with your choosing to write such a ‘ra-ra’ comment it is completely unsurprising that people responded to balance things up and point out the massive down-sides of the project which you had glossed over.

Since you're keen on giving advice, I'll bite, how would you describe NAWAPA to others?

The way I see it, no matter which way I described it, I knew there would be commenters who would have a visceral reaction when they learned about the project's externalities. There's a reason this project was killed before getting anywhere. Hence, I knew full on when writing the grandparent comment there would be that kind of reply, from people solely letting others know how much they disagree with the project.

I don't see much value arguing with these commenters, because they've already decided their opinion. And I gain no benefit convincing them otherwise.

Obviously, based on the votes on the grandparent comment, some people did find what I wrote interesting or insightful enough to upvote. But it did bring out many unhappy posters. How would you have handled it?

  > Yet, due to objections from environmentalists, the 
  > project ended up going nowhere

Or, say, objections from the entire city of Prince George, BC (population: 80,000), along with the tens to hundreds of thousands of other people who would need to be relocated in order to flood a 500-mile long stretch of Canada for the benefit of Californians.

You dismiss the environmental concerns with little more than a handwave, but they were substantial.

The plan would have re-routed entire river systems, including economically important salmon runs, created a 500 mile long artificial lake in addition to other smaller reservoirs, would have required the relocation of "hundreds of thousands" of people, and would have required the creation of six nuclear power plants, just to power the pumps[1]. It was a grandiose, unworkable and IMO profoundly stupid idea. About at the same level as the plan to fill in the entire SF Bay south of Palo Alto that emerged around the same time.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...

As I posted elsewhere [1], I have no intention of debating with you or other posters here about the merits of the project. I'm simply letting people know the project exists, and is feasible from an engineering standpoint. If someone finds my comment intellectually gratifying, then I consider it a success.

Something worth mentioning though is that right now China is building its own version of the NAWAPA called the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (Nánshuǐ Běidiào Gōngchéng) [2]. This would divert water from the wet regions in the south to the dry regions in the north. They've built the largest dams in the world and hundreds of miles of aqueduct to make this happen. They've also relocated hundreds of thousands people too. In my opinion, this is one of the largest engineering projects on the planet.

NAWPA is very similar to the Chinese project, except on a larger scale.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11665546

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South%E2%80%93North_Water_Tran...

[deleted]

Bizarre non sequitur.

That's what the Economist, certainly not a lefty rag prone to criticize great engineering feats, has to say on NAWAPA. I quote parts of the article, since non-subscribers may not be able to open the link:

Shifting billions of cubic metres across the country has caused huge disruption. The government says it has moved 330,000 people to make way for the central route. Laixiang Sun of the University of Maryland in America reckons the number uprooted is at least half a million. There will also be health and environmental costs. Diverting river-water northward could promote the spread of diseases common in the south, particularly schistosomiasis, a debilitating snail-borne disease. Reduced flow in the Yangzi may make coastal water supplies vulnerable to intrusion by seawater and increase the potential for drought.

The financial cost is also high. Mr Sun puts the cost of the project at more than $62 billion—far higher than the original $15 billion price tag. His estimate does not include the running of the project or the building of 13 new water-treatment plants to clean the water.

By increasing supply, the government is failing to confront the real source of the problem: high demand for water and inefficient use of it. Chinese industry uses ten times more water per unit of production than the average in industrialised countries, according to a report by the World Bank in 2009. A big reason for this is that water in China is far too cheap. In May 2014 Beijing introduced a new system that makes tap water more expensive the more people use. But prices are still far from market levels. Officials turn a blind eye to widespread extraction of un-tariffed groundwater by city dwellers and farmers, despite plummeting groundwater levels."

So, sure. It can be done and it may be an engineers wet dream. If it should be done is a very different question.

Two thoughts:

1. Half a million people is nothing if your population is a billion. (I'm less willing to hand wave away the disease concerns. Some sort of feasibility study would be nice.)

2. Defer optimization until necessary. Market competition trumps environmental efficiency. There will be no environmental concerns to worry about in Chinese manufacturing if there is no Chinese manufacturing. We can optimize usage later.

I understand that the environmental concerns are real. I'm just trying to put things in perspective.

> Market competition trumps environmental efficiency. There will be no environmental concerns to worry about in Chinese manufacturing if there is no Chinese manufacturing.

Just as there will be no Chinese manufacturing concerns if there is no Chinese environment to sustain life.

> They came up with a viable plan to make this happen.

That is a curiously positive take on it. The wikipedia page you cite notes numerous extraordinary consequences to this plan that call into question its viability, to put it mildly. They include widespread destruction to wilderness areas, the relocation of >100K people, and six nuclear power plants worth of electricity to pump water over the Rockies. It has not been seriously considered since the 1970s awakening to environmental destruction of large scale dam building.

How about re-purposing old (underutilized?) oil pipelines from PacNorthWest...? Seems more plausible to change out the working fluids on an existing pipeline than building an aqueduct...?

Well even if the environmental concerns were invalid and their alarmists appeased, it still doesnt seem like a good idea, when the problem can be solved simply by properly aligning incentives so that people don't privately benefit from overusing water, and aren't stuck in "use it or lose it"-type situations where they can blow $100 worth of water for free to keep the $5 worth of crops.

It can be done without unilaterally voiding water rights: just coordinate a way pay them to waive the drawing rights they'd normally have (such that it doesn't simply go to someone else with similarly skewed incentives). See David Zetland's "all-in auctions". Then, farmers would quit drawing so much for marginal crops, total usage would taper off, and aquifers would replenish. Infrastructure cost: $0.

$100 billion is a steep price to pay to refuse to recognize relevant scarcities.

I agree that optimizing and reducing water consumption will alleviate water shortages. But I do wonder: given how the population of the US southwest is growing every year, how long can water optimization last? Today, California has 38 million residents, and by 2050 is projected to reach 60 million. Will optimization be enough to provide water for 20 million additional inhabitants? If the population keeps growing, will optimization be enough in the year 2100? And onwards?

After a certain point it's not possible optimize any more and new water sources are needed.

"The aqueduct would generate billions per year in hydroelectric power"

Hydro-electric sounds green, but it would be nuclear-powered hydro-electric power, if I understand the Wikipedia article correctly (nuclear power pumps the water up the Rockies, hydro-electric recovers some/most/all/more on the way down)

This "solution" is a cure worse than the ailment. Those pesky "environmentalists" simply pointed that out.

Massive projects to move water from where nature put it to where man wants it put always reminds me of the Aral Sea story in the old USSR.

I was looking for just how expensive desalination would cost, using ocean water.. Google says "[d]esalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre foot -- roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year."

Here is an article from a few years back, targeting 17 deslination plants by this year's July.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/getting-clean-water-from-the-sea...

The ending is so sad. Earlier this year gasoline was at as low as $1.3 here where I live in NYC (or even less I honestly can't remember how low!) Right now the gasoline price is at 2.37 where I live.

> "I do see that water is the next oil," Webber notes, "that water is the great resource of the 21st century over which battles [will be] fought, money is invested."

So here is what we need to do. Please invest more into desalination process. Make is so cheap we can produce water at a low cost.

Tell the typical suburban family that water now costs $4k a year (you need to maintain all those pipes under the sidewalk, too) or $333/mo and you'll be able to hear the screaming from China. Not to mention lots of the coast is close to mountains, and piping water over mountains is too expensive...

Californians, both humans and agriculture (that uses and wastes ludicrous amounts of water) desperately need to start using lots less water on a permanent basis.

An acre-foot (stupid unit!) is about 1.2 million litres.

Five average Europeans use 250,000 litres per year, and pay €3.50/l for it.

If they used as much as the Americans, that would be over $4000.

But Euros don't shower...as much.

"pay €3.50/l for it."

I think it's more like €3.50 for 1000 liters (or 1 m³ which is a standard unit).

Desalination is a bit like smelting aluminium - high energy requirements are kind of built-in due to the basic chemistry.

If you want cheap desalination, look for cheap energy.

Desalination is all about cheap energy. Desalination plants produce fresh water at sea level, and that water has to be pumped to higher elevations where people live. It's a hidden, often overlooked, cost of desalination. That makes desalination most economical in flat, low-elevation costal regions.

The Water Knife: http://www.amazon.com/Water-Knife-Novel-Paolo-Bacigalupi/dp/...

which repeatedly mentions the book Cadillac Desert (which my dad has been trying to get me to read for 15+ years, dads are smart).

Just was fined $100 for going over recent usage standards set.. household gallons per month. Was told fees go up should overuse continue. Already swapped for low flush toilets.

Funny how they're going after the residential users, who are responsible for a miniscule amount of the overall usage.

Because the politicians could care less about water usage, it's about control and money

I know, right? I keep reading about almonds and strawberries and whatnot. I'm all for conserving the water, but if all 40 million of us humans here would get wiped out and replaced by farmer robots, the water usage would not go down by much.

Residential users don't have 100 year old water rights. Much easier to restrict their use legally.

Does California still use drink water to flush toilets? There's an increasing movement to use "grey" water: water not suitable for drinking, but still good enough for flushing toilets and plenty of other purposes.

Worth noting is that Israel has gone through this already and largely handled their problem. In fact, we have already begun collaboration with them: http://forward.com/news/national/318721/can-israel-help-cali...

Why can't cities buy the lower value/marginal farmers out (growing stuff like Alfalfa, or possibly tree fruits at the end of the useful lifespan of the trees)?

The chicken-littles of this world just wont give up. Sure drought will always be an issue in CA but we've had a ton of rain this year, the reservoirs (esp. Shasta) are mostly full [0] and there is a good snow pack [1]. These politicians need to quit their whining and let go of the little powers they gained due to the recent drought.

[0]: http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.act...

[1]: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160330-california...

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