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Comment by onphonenow | Hacker News Reader

Yep. You can look at this from an economics standpoint as well.

We have run out of FREE water.

If all water use in CA cost anywhere close to residential water rates ($8 / 100 cubic feet) there would be no shortage.

Even a small tax of $0.01 per gallon would be a start in this space.

We have exploded population and if you look at water projects (that actually deal with supply) have not done the same over 50 years or whatever. Think grey water use and recycle / desal / dams etc etc.

It's the perfect trifecta+.

Ridiculous water use (afalfa for china) in a desert, free water (water "rights"), limited projects to increase supply for enviro and other reasons (inability of govt to do things).

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The residents see it differently. They have been farming there for several generations and it's been mostly fine, the land is very productive when irrigated.

The fact that it all depends on a massive public subsidy (both cash and water) from the rest of the state is ignored by then. They focus on arguments like "stop dumping water in the ocean" - eg make all the river run dry before reaching the coast, and "this is where food comes from" - as if it's the only place in the country you could grow food, or that other nations/regions manage to grow plenty of food in a similar climate with a fraction of the water.

Do we even grow a sizeable proportion of staple crops in the western US? Isn't the majority of water going to crops like almonds (as opposed to grains)?

Edit: looks like the bulk of land at least in california is allocated to hay production, with tomatoes in a somewhat distant second. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_Overview/stateOverv...

California grows 80% of the US vegetable crop (i.e. excluding grain and pulses).

Vegetables use far less water than dairy and almonds do, fwiw.

Yes, almonds and dairy in California are contraindicated.

Those "Stop dumping water in the ocean" signs are a direct result of the Resnick's marketing efforts to grow nuts in the California desert. You may not be familiar with the Resnick name, but you are probably familiar with some of their brands.[0]

[0]https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/08/lynda-stewar...

The problem is California is such a young land, people there think "several generations" is a long time that gives them insight into the typical climate of California. They look back one or two hundred years and remember lots of wet weather, and extrapolate out from that to conclude things will be dandy.

Paleoclimatologists look further back than that, and what they say about the history of California is a lot more grim. The present droughts are mild when you look back even just a thousand years.

> in a desert

Why do so many people choose to live in a desert? It makes very little economic sense. Feels like it will be destined for failure no matter what silicon valley tries to pay its grunts.

Any expectation of having enough water for such a low price is laughably absurd. The population of this state is literally asking for these conditions - they are choosing to live there.

People like nice weather.

The vast majority of the population in California doesn't live in a desert. They live in chaparral, temperate coniferous forest and mountainous biomes/climates.

It's a moot point regardless as the California Water Plan is probably one of the most extensive in the world, beaten likely only by Israel. There is plenty of water for the populace and supporting services; and most of the populated desert regions (the IE particularly) are self-sufficient in water sources (Big Bear and Mt San Antonio supplying the aforementioned region).

The problem is water heavy industries (specific types of: ag, water bottling, manufacturing, etc) that benefit from the mild-temperate year round climate and strong soil, despite lack of sufficient natural water supply.

Why aren't there MPG-like standards for farming, and if we had such standards, how much water would be saved? Maybe there are irrigation standards and I just don't know.

If you charged for water and also let farmers sell excess there would be incentive to improve efficiency. But politically this is untenable.

I think a consumer standard (like farmed with x quantity of water) might work just as well, and it might be a way to get around the normal politics.

The aforementioned industries have pushed heavily for "water rights" under the guise of residential accessibility, artificially deflating their cost and forcing the population to subsidize their usage.

That's like asking why does the government take federal tax dollars to subsidize corn fields in Nebraska despite massive surpluses? Because those businesses then use those profits to continue to lobby for those under the guise of "jobs" and commercial welfare.

>The vast majority of the population in California doesn't live in a desert. They live in chaparral, temperate coniferous forest and mountainous biomes/climates.

The San Francisco watershed covers 40% of California including much of the region you are speaking of. The paleoclimate research, measuring historical salinity of the Bay using carbon dated sediment cores, shows that during the Medieval warm period the San Francisco watershed averaged only 60% of the rainfall it does today.

How did you make the jump from "Residents use 3-5% of the water supply" to "any expectation of having enough water to reside in this place is absurd"?

Do you think the water table is not enough to support 5% of current usage levels?

It's nice living where there aren't any mosquitoes or humidity.

Right, but then you're also living without plentiful growth - without lots of pollination. That's part of what not having water is. That's the current plight of California, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Florida has plenty of humidity, and when I lived there I got on just fine.

I live in rural TN today - same deal. It rains all the damn time, mosquitoes everywhere. We have a service come once a quarter that takes care of them. I don't have cancer as a result. I capture so much rain water and filter it down and use it for productive purposes, I live on 15 acres and pay $25 for my water.

I saw some other people make reference to subsidizing folks in rural areas, but that's simply not the case. We use our water and conserve it unlike any suburban areas do, we don't spare a drop. And we pay the same rates as everyone else in the state.

People lived in deserts all across the US for tens of thousands of years and got by just fine and never had to pay a dime for water.

This isn't a desert climate problem, it's a "capitalism charging money for something that should be free" and "modern civilization having no concept of ecological balance" problem.

> it's a "capitalism charging money for something that should be free"…problem

It’s mostly the opposite. If we put a price on water, with the first 50,000 gallons per residence being free or subsidised [1], the problem would self correct. Water-heavy industries would be priced out. A budget would emerge for conservation.

We don’t get this, however, because the state’s heaviest water users, certain agriculture and industry, have convinced enough of the urban population that water pricing is some capitalist scam. (Analogous to how landowners convinced renters that the enemy was the employers.)

The story of modern California’s woes is one of special interests co-opting a gullible anti-capitalist slice of the populace.

[1] https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2021/Nov-21/State-Ag...

Are you kidding me? Water and farmland were perpetual sources of ancient conflict, even if you fail to normalize for population density.

Prices are how you push back and achieve balance. Wishful thinking is not a solution.

> and got by just fine

Or maybe not. The Anasazi left a bunch of uninhabited ruins. Current thinking is that drought played a big part in why their population declined.

Likewise, cf. The Catastrophe, when every coastal city around the Mediterranean was sacked c. BCE 1190, beginning a 300-year dark age, which appears to have started with a multi-year region-wide drought; although it is hard to be sure at this remove, especially when record-keeping evaporated along with civilization itself. Archaeology has had to fill in the blanks.

Desert is more sensible place for urban humans than using productive land for buildings and roads.

Live on your own productive land and use sensible automation to make it manageable.

We live in the 21st century. What is wrong with everybody?

> If all water use in CA cost anywhere close to residential water rates ($8 / 100 cubic feet) there would be no shortage.

From my water bill which I paid tonight (in California), 1000 gallons is around $20. So about $14 / 100 ft^3.

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