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Comment by Victerius | Hacker News Reader

Imagine the chaos if millions of Californians started getting saltwater in their faucets, in a matter of hours. Saltwater dehydrates the body. There would be pandemonium. Every store that sells water bottles would be cleaned in less than an hour. Hoarders would buy everything they can by the truckload. Online marketplaces would be flooded by desperate people looking for water. The price of a water bottle would quickly reach $40+. There would be a run on portable desalination machines. The governor would call the National Guard to restore order. FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security would be mobilized. California being the breadbasket of the country, the President would declare a national emergency. Congress would pass emergency spending bills to build desalination plants and nuclear power plants in California. It would be WWII/Manhattan project levels of government mobilization.

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California is the breadbasket of the country? The 'fly over' Midwest would like to respectfully disagree.

Much of the Midwest is corn and soybeans, both garbage since a good portion of them are synthesized into corn/soybean oils. We should make better use of the farmland but Big Agro would rather torch their fields than stop their government handouts.

Proteins are garbage? Fine, go without protein.

If you're going to argue for wheat, then https://www.statista.com/statistics/190376/top-us-states-in-...

Kasnas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Texas, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois.

https://cdn2.vox-cdn.com/assets/4565275/crop_value.png is likely a better approach that looks at the value per acre in food and the percent of animal products vs vegetable product. You can see Wisconsin dairy there, but there is a significant amount of green from North Dakota through Illinois and then down the Mississippi river valley.

The products can be seen at https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4565283/crops_by_county.png showing that the Missippi and the Central Valley are fruits and nuts while Iowa is certainly Soybean and Wisconsin is corn... and wheat shows up too.

As to government handouts... that's an interesting thing to bring up.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-10-31-951031...

> In fact, in setting up the prevailing system of dairy price supports and marketing orders in the late 1930s and 1940s, the U.S. Agriculture Department decided that the most efficient place in America for milk production was Eau Claire, Wis.

> Government officials then measured the distance dairy farmers in states such as Connecticut or Florida were from Eau Claire and, using a complicated formula, calculated their premiums and subsidies.

The further away you are from Eau Claire, the more the government helps the dairy industry.

So that California cheese? That's about as far away from Eau Claire, WI as you can get.

This changed a bit in recent times - https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2004/got-milc - but if you want to campaign against government subsidies and big ag, get rid of California cheese (and its associated water use).

> It would be WWII/Manhattan project levels of government mobilization.

It should be, but it would be too little, too late. Before anyone has even compiled the list of construction materials needed for a single nuclear power plant (tons of water needed, BTW), everyone will have died. So people will flee to areas where there is water. And since the abandoned area is too big to control, it'll turn into a ghost country where warlords run unchecked before the National Guard can take it.

So that's a pretty negative prediction, but I'm sure yours is too positive. It'll be a pretty big disaster with major social and economic impact.

You're right. It will be a disaster. There will be millions of overnight refugees in parts of the state and in other states. The traffic jams will be tens of miles long on every highway.

> There would be pandemonium.

In some places. In other places neighborhoods would come together to help each other out.

Sure if there's a mix of homes with and without salt water. However i think you're wishful if everyone is surviving on bottles. You can only help your neighbor if you went to the store and bought water. And that supply would go quickly.

You can desalinate it with a solar still rather easily..

You only need a kids paddling pool, a bucket, a (clean!) tarp and a brick.

Fair, i was mostly commenting on the scenario that the GP seemed to create.

How many people can survive from each one of those setups?

How can anyone help anyone out when an entire zip code loses water? And I don't think people understand just how much clean water our society uses, especially in the food supply chain.

Is any grain grown in California? It's not the breadbasket, it's the vegetable basket.

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