In a Warming West, the Rio Grande Is Drying Up
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Not just farming and agriculture, either. People are moving to Phoenix and Santa Fe and Dallas and Houston at amazing rates, but the water systems can't keep up. In the Dallas suburbs, one public water system owns exactly one lake and has partial rights to three others but all of those lakes drop to alarming levels almost every summer. Yet, the cities inside that water district keep adding more and more houses and commercial buildings and water connections because nobody wants to say "we might not have enough water for those who are already here." I don't even know if a city government could say that.
But here we are. More people moving into dry areas expecting to be able to drink, wash, and clean, but with less water every day with which to do it.
Increasing tap fees are the closest thing to a market driver- although they have not stopped development, they have been rising. I think they are around $30k in my area.
Areas that are unremarkable now because they've gone through a deindustrialization transition (upstate NY, northeast Ohio) will cycle back as sites of opportunity, and non-southern metros that have heretofore been able to maintain a liveable compromise between affordability and demand (represented by Chicago, but also Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis) will face an influx of out-migrants from the declining fortunes of the southwest.
Southeast metros that are targets of opportunity now (Atlanta, Dallas, Raleigh, Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando) will have cycled further along the affordability transition, so they won't draw nearly as much residents during the southwest's decline as they do now.
If property values are rising, then manifestly it is becoming more appealing to live there, not less.
Aside from the limited water, there's the total dependence on air conditioning running headlong into the urban heat island and a warming climate.
And everyone in the north has a total dependence on heat. Solar panels are viable in the desert so it's easy to have self-sustaining houses when it comes to A/C.
Also, energy trapped by black solar panels & released by A/C is a net increase in heat into the city, compared to reflecting that energy off a high albedo surface, such as a metal or white roof, or the unmolested desert itself.
My recollection is that the humidity in Phoenix actually gets higher than you'd expect due to swamp cooling, lower altitude, less temperature swing day-to-night, and a huge amount of swimming pools, but I have no source for that, it might be bullshit.
Here's an interactive site from Texas' state water plan that has a really really great breakdown: https://2017.texasstatewaterplan.org/statewide
Texas has virtually no natural lakes, we have to construct anything we want to drink from (or pump it from the ground). Actual billions of dollars are being poured into these drinking supplies, and I can't even count how many times election season includes a "water projects" ballot measure.
We're very fortunate to live on the coast of a very warm body of water. I foresee more water projects to capture the moisture from the gulf here, but yeah I have no clue what the dry states are going to do.
Just price water like any other market good. It will wipe out farming in deserts (this happens a lot in California as well) and there will be plenty of water for residents. The increased revenue per cu/acre will allow more reservoir projects, water canals, and even desalination.
I'm always shocked at arm-chair commentary on these threads that assumes people in the Southwest don't have the forethought to consider their water sources.
The Central AZ Project hasn't even been built out fully partially because of lack of water demand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Arizona_Project
The reason the lower colorado basin statea waste so much water is to save their allocations for future growth.
Lenders and fire insurance will be the first to obligate some level of water supply chain assurance. But not until they get burned badly first.
We should be building as many desalination plants along the coast as we can right now. When we need them it will already be too late.
How do you classify rivers? Water falls one place, and rivers direct it elsewhere, sometimes hundreds of miles away from where it first fell. Presumably these nearby rivers are still in area, even though the water flowing in them did not originate in area.
For example, SF gets its water from a reservoir in the Sierras, 150 miles away. Much of California gets its water from just a couple places: the Colorado river (which runs along the border) and Northern California (and much of "Northern California" gets its water from More-Northern California).
Some people who live in the southwestern deserts live closer to their water source than people in SF.
My point was, if I’m a lender, and I’m about to lend to a property that has a history of water shortage + a severe threat of total drought, i’m hedging my bet by knocking back the appraisal to be sure I can get my money back from the property given the likelihood of drought. Likewise, I think there is an outsized chance wildfire or an empty fire hydrant, my premiums charged to the property are going way up.
In these cases, “area” is looking at all possible options for getting potable water to the site for the foreseeable future, including high cost options like trucking supplies in to refill municipal water supplies.
The bottom line is that if people and communities are replacing farmland then there is a net increase in the availability of water by a large margin.
Something to keep in mind when looking at water availability.
[1] https://extension.psu.edu/water-system-planning-estimating-w...
IIRC it's even encroaching upon Dallas' suburbs.
https://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/19/texas-recycling-oilf...
The timescales are slightly longer than human lifespan, so while the capital class will lose money on this in the long term, the decision makers will be dead by the time the land dies, so there’s no real incentive to care. And they’ll make a lot of money right now when they need it, while their kids are in college.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/78652406/The-bottled-water-gi...
https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/11/16/dairy-farming-is-p...
https://www.abcwua.org/uploads/files/Water%202120%20Approved...
Is it enough? Probably not, but Albuquerque hosts more than half the population of the state, so if only they get their act together it'll still cover most of us. I think it's likely that well water will be mostly sufficient for most of the rural communities for a long time. I would hope that Las Cruces develops a similar plan, but Santa Fe's population is not that high and the cost of living there helps keep it down.
What an astonishing attitude for someone who is watching one natural resource actively disappear. He's only "droughtproof" for as long as the groundwater remains.
I'm sure past farmers could never imagine the Rio Grande being used up.
After all, the Rio Grande didn't dry up overnight, and for someone who was a farmer, say, 50 years ago, it was reasonable to assume that it would last their lifetime as well.
Earthquakes, fires and mudslides but it's ok because "surf and ski in the same day bro".
Something something glass houses, stones, pots and kettles...
A $5-$6 billion crop, consuming half the residential water for a $2.7 trillion economy. If you include alfalfa, which is even worse than almonds, it's something comparable to 150% of all the residential water use in California.
It's a spectacular failure on the part of the state of California. Where are the famous CA voter propositions when you need them? A large share of the alfalfa and almonds - aka California's water - gets exported to Asia. It's social and economic suicide for meager benefits.
Most of the water goes into farming at super cheap rates to feed the rest of the country almonds and other crap. It's not that difficult to get enough water to people for supporting residents, just price water at a market rate like anything else.
I mean, there's more to it than that. The warmer climate means the southwest has more growing days, but that's kind of a no-brainer for a lot of people. The disease part is a little less obvious though.
Take a look at grapes. A lot of grapes are grown in very arid environments. Why is that? Well, that's because grapes are susceptible to a particular fungus called Black Rot. In parts of the United States with particularly wet and humid summers, this disease can pretty much destroy your entire harvest. In dry, arid parts of the country, however, it's unheard of.
So that's just on example, but the rule can apply for just about any type of fungus. If you are growing fruits and vegetables in a water-rich but particularly humid part of the United States then you are going to have to contend with more fungus than those parts of the United States that are considered a desert.
It's not just fungus either mind you. Pretty much every agricultural pest known to man thrives in water-rich but humid parts of the country, but is less common in those parts of the country considered desert.
So, there you go, that's why we don't grow more fruits and vegetables in, say, southeastern Texas, which is especially wet.
That being said, overcoming the pests that come with humid weather isn't a terribly hard problem to solve. There are plant varieties out there that have been bred to be more resistant to humid-weather diseases. Some of these are even heirloom crops, meaning they've been around for a while. Unfortunately, there's usually some kind of downside. Maybe the crops in question are less flavorful. Maybe the yields are smaller. Maybe they don't ship well over long distances. Each of these are pretty serious commercial considerations that usually restricts these crops to the niche market of quirky local organic farmers. When it comes to grapes in southeastern Texas, you're dealing with a less familiar taste and an utter lack of brand recognition. As a consequence, southeastern Texas wine producers really need to rely on agritourism to sell their product, otherwise I doubt a single one of them would be in business.
I see ag-tech as a potential solution, but the end result wouldn't necessarily be solutions that make urban farming more feasible, but rather solutions that make it possible to control pests more effectively, preferably in a non-GMO and organic fashion, so we can grow the same crops cultivars typically grown in the desert. Removing the various middle-men that stand between small farms and the consumer would also help. Smaller farms can manage pests more effectively and they're more open to trying out atypical crop cultivars, including cultivars that may taste better but have smaller yields or don't ship well. Problem is, small farms typically aren't economically viable due to the bargaining power that crop buyers and grocers possess. If you want to stop growing food in the desert, give them more price bargaining power so they can at least make a living.
Then when Hurricane Harvey hit, he said the federal government needed to give him over $100 billion for the cleanup.