Hacker News Reader

Since farming is 80% of water use, cutting out a little bit of the water intensive farming will provide for any residential needs for some time.

Yep. All other discussions are fiddling around the edges while you still have farmers casually spraying water in the hot air as it is cheaper than pipes.

Then raise the price of water. I don't get a Nobel Prize for this. It really just earns me a Captain Obvious sticker.

In the short term, your food will be more expensive. In the long term, people will invest in water-reduced production. Want to see fintech and crypto currency startups at YC get replaced by VF (vertical farming) startups claiming to reduce water use by 80%? Just raise the price of water by 1¢/liter. VFVC (vertical farming venture capital) will be all the rage.

You're assuming farmers are paying for water the same way residential consumers do. "Just raise the price of water" doesn't work without first reforming a lot of law.

I think the recent bouts of inflation show that people don't take large price hikes kindly

In a country where major companies get governments to fund their factories while they spend billions on stock buybacks that is unlikely to be allowed to happen.

Well that's it. Pack it up. There's no solution as long as government can be bought by companies.

...and if you stop farming in california. Inflation will go up.

Realistically, California could and should start a major water works project to import water from the east or pacific northwest.

Only alterantive is to cut back some of the corn/soybean production in the midwest and grow some of the other crops grown in California. If that doesn't work, like you said, we can import water but other states need to cooperate and the federal government should chip in some funding. You can't just tell Californians to suck it up and figure this out by themselves when the state has >10% of the population plus many essential crops and industries.

I don't think there is a need to cut back on corn/soybean production. But we definitely need to be growing more fruits and veggies in the midwest.

Last year Illinois passed two laws: one prevents towns and cities from restricting vegetable gardens. If you want to fill your front yard with a hoop house, your city can't stop you. The other forces each county to establish guidelines for p2p food sales and prevents town and cities from stopping it. This needs to be adopted in other states.

Yup. Orchard farmers will routinely leave their thirstier crops in puddles of water, leaving their sprinklers on the whole day because it's easier and less management than a smarter plan. Any exposed water that evaporates from the surface is effectively wasted and won't be replenished until the next rain- or snowfall.

Meet the California Couple Who Uses More Water Than Every Home in Los Angeles Combined

How megafarmers Lynda and Stewart Resnick built their billion-dollar empire.

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

Having shrewdly maneuvered the backroom politics of California’s byzantine water rules, they are now thought to consume more of the state’s water than any other family, farm, or company. They control more of it in some years than what’s used by the residents of Los Angeles and the entire San Francisco Bay Area combined.

[...]

Their land came with decades-old contracts with the state and federal government that allow them to purchase water piped south by state canals. The Kern Water Bank gave them the ability to store this water and sell it back to the state at a premium in times of drought. According to an investigation by the Contra Costa Times, between 2000 and 2007 the Resnicks bought water for potentially as little as $28 per acre-foot (the amount needed to cover one acre in one foot of water) and then sold it for as much as $196 per acre-foot to the state, which used it to supply other farmers whose Delta supply had been previously curtailed. The couple pocketed more than $30 million in the process.

Yeah people moving out and people moving in. It’s not like CA lost “millions of people”.

https://www.capolicylab.org/pandemic-patterns-california-is-...

> You don't have to solve the problem in a single year.

Yes, you do. Or nearly so. This is not a problem that has decades to go. If Lake Powell drops below the minimum power pool (as early as 2024), the results could easily be dramatic and horrifying.

It's not even known if long-term water releases from the Glen Canyon dam are possible without using the power plant.

Human consumption if you have an ocean isn’t much of a concern in the dry places, desalination is cheap enough for what people can pay.

Agricultural and industrial usage, not so much.

Building permits are already crazy expensive in California; you can save a lot of money by building in another state.

> If you start charging $20/CCF instead of $5/CCF to fill an olympic-sized swimming pool, immigration into California might come to a screeching halt.

1.33 CCF = 1000 gallons.

So $20/1 CCF = $26.6/1000 gallons.

It's already near those rates, my water bill which I paid last week was roughly ~$20 per 1000 gallons.

Where do you live? The California Water Service Company tariff for 1-8 CCF is $4.269/CCF for residential metered service in East Los Angeles.

That's remarkably cheap. 8 CCF is just about 6000 gallons (I'd never seen CCF used before, our water district in norcal bills in gallons). The rates are tiered, but by the 6000th gallon we'd paying ~$24 for 1000 gallons. It goes up to ~$29 for 1000 gallons.

That's not including the ~$100 base fee, so even if you only use one gallon a month (or even zero), the bill is almost $100.

This really makes me appreciate my well.

It uses around $0.45 in electricity to pump 1000 gallons from my well continuously. Around $0.37 for 1000 gallons pumped intermittently.

Enforcing US immigration laws and securing the Southern Border should be pursued from an environmental sustainability angle, at least. Seal the border properly and that's 2million people each year we don't have to feed, house, or water.

Deport the 10-20 million already inside the USA and that's an even greater improvement.

This doesn’t address the largest consumers of water in the area, as stated above. People consume far less water than business and ag.

IMO, golf courses in the southwest is straight up foolish. Start the ax there.

Just because I'm a smart-ass... it actually might address the agricultural aspect if farmers don't have access to the stereotypical labor sources.

"golf courses in the southwest is straight up foolish."

Or turn them into full size putt putt with astroturf. I wonder if that's ever been done. Would be comical to see.

We could also start exiling US citizens and liquidating (ironically) undesirables.