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Comment by woeirua | Hacker News Reader

At the rate we're going there will eventually be armed conflict in the western US over water. Large municipalities and maybe even the federal government need to put together a plan to buy out farmers after we have to turn off their taps for good. Ground water will only go so far. At some point we will have to acknowledge that some areas are just never going to be sustainable for agriculture ever again.

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Cities have been buying out farms for years now. They can buy a single farm with water rights, then drain the aquifer over the next 10-20 years. Every other family that depends on that aquifer gets screwed, with wells that dry up.

The western water laws are enshrined in states constitutions. It's going to get a lot worse before the laws are changed.

Just one example: https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2016/07/06/el-paso-wa...

Time for my usual WITWUS post.

We have know this for more than 140 years [0].

I strongly recommend that everyone living in the western United States read at least the introduction[1] to Beyond the Hundredth Meridian[2]. The introduction is more relevant now than it was when it was written 67 years ago, itself 75 years after the publication of Lands of the Arid Region.

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27910098

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18098899

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26964166

0. https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/70039240/report.pdf LANDS OF THE ARID REGION John Wesley Powell 1878

1. https://erenow.net/modern/beyond-the-hundredth-meridian/1.ph... Bernard DeVoto 1954

2. Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West ISBN:9780140159943 Wallace Stegner 1954

Or we could just stop exporting almonds to other countries.

https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/LA-vs-Exports...

An individual almond contains only a small portion of the water used to grow it, so presumably the vast majority of the water used to grow almonds in California actually stays in California.

"Today nearly 80% of California almond orchards are using microirrigation and, as older orchards are replaced, we expect that number to grow."

"Previous studies have shown that a reasonable estimate of the runoff volume is 15-20% of the applied water."

Source: https://www.almonds.com/sites/default/files/2020-04/Almond-I...

I'd guess that runoff is a relatively small compared to transpiration. If it takes gallons of water to grow a single almond, there's no way that a significant portion of that is still in the almond when it's exported. IIRC almonds aren't particularly thirsty compared to other nuts, they're just really popular so their stats look the most dramatic.

Indeed, they're not especially thirsty; California just grows an incredible volume of them because we subsidize their production with vastly underpriced water far cheaper than the rate per volume that residential users have to pay.

It takes about a gallon of water to produce an almond, and the residual ends up in the air, where it's basically useless.

I mean, you don't see the state repealing rules about low-flow showers and toilets because "the water stays in California", right?

Here's an idea, charge 5x the amount for water for farms than we do residential, (or any industrial/commercial purpose) and if you pollute the water ways you pay 3x the cost to fix it, and if it isn't fixable you pay some really exorbitant (might as well go out of business fee).

Sure prices will go up on goods from those water ways, but maybe they won't..maybe they'll do better more environmental farming to preserve water, like vertical farming.

Agricultural use of water is heavily subsidized. The amount of water you would have to pay $2000 for, Big Ag gets for around $40.

Source: https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2018/01/26/the-cost-of-irrigation...

https://www.npr.org/2015/05/28/408295800/the-water-knife-cut...

Listened to this book describing what you predict while driving across the Central Valley... It sure does feel like just a matter of time.

That is a great book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars

But yeah, it's going to get a lot worse.

and a plug into: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert

Or, in a more optimistic approach, the market will take over here. Private water delivery companies? Agricultural advances to use less water? Prices for water-hungry crops going up, shifting consumers to cheaper alternatives?

The problem is that water rights are covered by State constitutions and statutes. Introducing markets would require changing those laws and seizing water rights. That might require making huge compensation payments to existing rights holders. Politically it's just extremely difficult.

In general US agriculture is extremely wasteful of water. We could drastically cut water consumption by adopting farming techniques used in Israel, but food costs would increase.

“That might require making huge compensation payments to existing rights holders.”

I doubt most of the stakeholders paid anything for their water rights. Perhaps, if there is any compensation, it would be equal to what they paid for the actual rates originally inflation adjusted.

That's not how the law works. Acquisition price is irrelevant to 5th Amendment rights. Compensation must be based on current fair market value. You might consider that unfair but it's the reality of our laws today.

Laws can be changed, especially when it comes to people’s survival.

The easy thing to do would be to tank the value of water rights first.

Taxes seem like an obvious option. I can't think of any constitutional reasons why they can't tax you for drawing from natural springs, else all new taxes would be a constitutional issue. You may not even need to nationalize then.

You might also be able to simply ban private consumption of water from waterways. Nothing is being seized, they still own the water, it's just worthless because they can't use it. Similar to what would happen if we ban coal. I don't think we'd have to go track down everyone with rights to a coal vein and pay them what it's worth.

The market is always too late in constraining resources often running counter to it. Higher prices for water will lead to more water being mined. High oil prices led to deep water drilling, fracking, and tar sands.

What's the prospect for building large pipelines from places with abundant water? It would be extremely costly up front but infrastructure like that can last over a century fairly easily.

I wonder about that too but is it even possible to do such a thing on the scale that’s needed? Also, are there places that have enough water to supply the West or would they dry out too?

What if we created inland seas? Pipe salt water inland into reservoirs... the water evaporates, and then catch the rainfall which maybe is filtered of the salt?

Afghanistan did it thousands of years ago. Some of them still work. They are called a Karez IIRC.

Where's this place with excess fresh water on the level of what California wastes growing alfalfa in the desert?

Northern Canada?

Is there a map somewhere that illustrates areas with different water availability? I don't think average rainfall is quite the metric as places like Michigan have access to the Great Lakes. I'd want to compare places with low or high natural water.

Yeah, and the midwest will be next. Agriculture at scale has really destroyed our aquafiers.

it is not impossible to bring water through pipes, or invest heavily in desalination

But to bring water through the pipes, you have to have water at the other end of the pipe. That's rare out west, and getting more rare.

Pacific Ocean has some water in it.

Not usable water, though. That brings you back to desalination, which is... possible. Is it possible on the scale that's needed? It's not obvious that it is.

Physically possible? Yes.

Financially feasible? Not yet, and maybe not ever. We’ll see.

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