
How serious is the California drought? Before and after pictures - hispanic
http://imgur.com/a/IgoUq
======
morgante
This is a really poor illustration, because it only includes Lake Oroville,
which is a reservoir. Reservoirs _exist_ to be tapped like this and drained
down. Even a small drought would see a significant change in the water level
for a reservoir.

~~~
debt
One reservoir or not, meant to be tapped or not, Lake Oroville is at it's
lowest point _ever_. Also that dam isn't generating as much power which is
causing brownouts; the drought is causing _brownouts_ :

"The dam at Lake Oroville is not generating enough power; only 510 megawatts.
That’s down from 820 megawatts. The power shortage is causing rolling
brownouts in parts of in eastern Butte County on Kelly Ridge and Forbestown
Roads.

“We are dropping a foot a day in a 24 hour period,” said Frazier."

[http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/lake-oroville-water-
level-f...](http://www.krcrtv.com/news/local/lake-oroville-water-level-
falling-rapidly/26854392)

~~~
morgante
To be clear, I'm not disputing the existence or seriousness of the drought.
Just pointing out that this really isn't a very good visualization of its
seriousness.

------
Crito
Maybe California should re-evaluate their relationship with agriculture.

 _" But California grows so much of our nation's food! What would we eat
without them!"_ you exclaim. Well, I actually agree with you. For the sake of
a stable society, it is important that our supply of food remain
uninterrupted. Food is essential to the US, and California is essential to the
US's food supply.

Fucking pistachios _are not_ though. Tax the ever-loving shit out of any
farmer growing bullshit luxury crops like that, and quit blaming regular
Californian citizens who just want to take a nice shower after a hard days
work for all the missing water.

Oh, and somebody fix the "save water" propaganda to include some notion of
watersheds and aquifers. I've met 3 people recently who don't understand that
my [mis]use of fresh water has fuck all to do with California's water supply.
I am sick of explaining that my supply of water neither flows out of nor into
California.

~~~
gdubs
Or people could just eat a little less beef, which takes 100,000 liters to
produce just one kilogram. [1]

1: [http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-
feed-80...](http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/1997/08/us-could-
feed-800-million-people-grain-livestock-eat)

~~~
bryanlarsen
Cattle is raised in places that are technically desert, like Montana, without
requiring any water beyond natural rain fall. They eat the hardy natural
grasses of the area. If the land was plowed to grow grains or any other human
palatable vegetable crop, the soil would dry up and blow away, becoming desert
like other over farmed areas like the Middle East.

~~~
gdubs
Certainly there are sustainable farming methods, but it doesn't change the
fact that industrial factory farms are a reality.

My comment was that simply eating less beef would have a huge impact on the
environment. I'm not advocating that we replace cattle farms with wheat
fields, nor am I advocating that people go vegetarian.

------
declan
Nobody doubts there's a serious drought here in California, but those "before
and after" photos (2011 vs. 2014) are misleading and likely show seasonal
variance.

I can find photos predating the "before" images that make Lake Oroville look
like a parched wasteland:
[http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518597](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518597)
[http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518170](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518170)
[http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518629](http://www.panoramio.com/photo/17518629)

Those were uploaded in 2009 (the camera used was announced in 2006, so that's
a three-year window).

Yes, there's a drought. Yes, 80 percent of the developed water supply in
California is used by agriculture. But not accounting for seasonal variation
in a state with a dry vs. rainy season doesn't do the argument justice.

------
smhinsey
I'm curious how much water the various water projects in California lose to
evaporation. The All-American Canal goes through the desert and is uncovered,
for example. It seems like people have talked about covering them with solar
cells, but it might be valuable just to cover them with anything.

------
bmw357
A really interesting article was posted about 6 months ago that covered some
of the history and drama around the state's aging water projects:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/american...](http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/american-
aqueduct-the-great-california-water-saga/284009/)

------
iLoch
Now, I know nothing about Earth science, but is this not at least a little bit
expected given that this is a man made lake? Can I see some pictures of
natural lakes in this area? Obviously the drought is bad, because this isn't
common and looks very worrisome - but how much of this is just due to this
lake basically being a giant swimming pool?

------
idlewords
Unfortunately, California (and the American West) have experienced droughts on
the order of decades or centuries, and in the fairly recent past. So it could
get so much worse:

[http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/medieval.sh...](http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/medieval.shtml)

------
dredmorbius
For a comparison to historical averages, see California Department of Water
Resoruces Reservoir Conditions. Where the historical average calls for about
2/3 capacity, most reservoirs are at about 1/3, some markedly less (10%).

You'll get percent-of-average from Reservoir Water Storage (By Hydrologic
Region), with historical data for selected years to 1977.

A plot for Lake Oroville showing annual patterns for current, wet, and dry
years: Lake Oroville Storage Level Graph.

URLs in the Reddit comment below, apologies but moblie cut & paste stinks.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/2ebhyx/images_3_ye...](http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/2ebhyx/images_3_years_apart_showing_the_severity_of/cjycrx5)

[http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action...](http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/resDetailOrig.action?resid=ORO)

[http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-
progs/reservoirs/STORAGEW](http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-
progs/reservoirs/STORAGEW)

[http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-
progs/products/rescond.pdf](http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-
progs/products/rescond.pdf)

------
tfe
It would be nice if they had photos from somewhere other than a single
reservoir (Oroville).

------
npinguy
From 5 days ago:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2eawhw/how_serious_is_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/2eawhw/how_serious_is_california_drought_check_out_these/)

------
SilasX
How about a picture of a farmer harvesting the rice he's growing with the
"ultra scarce" water?

... 'Cause whatever droughts look like, that isn't it.

~~~
wwweston
From what I've heard, a lot of CA rice is grown around the Sacramento-San
Joaquin river delta, in areas the water table is so high farmers turn pumps
off to water crops.

Also, keep in mind that while rice can use a lot of water (600 gallons or so
to produce a pound of rice), it's small fry to beef, which is an order of
magnitude more. Or if you want another beloved non-meat product for
comparison, an equivalent weight in wine probably uses on the same order as
rice (significantly more for less careful wineries, somewhat less for
efficient ones).

Not that I'm against the state taking a hard look at _all_ agricultural,
industrial, and residential water use. Just not sure we should be picking on
rice in particular...

~~~
SilasX
All good points, but remember, they're still significantly less value-dense
uses of water than things we're being hounded to stop.

For example, how much is it worth to me to blow 50 gallons of water in a
shower. Maybe 5 cents at least? That water is valued at .1 cents per gallon.

In contrast, a pound of beef at the ranch costs maybe a dollar. 100 cents to
5000 gallons of water makes it valued at .02 cents per gallon at most (because
it has other inputs).

The rancher should still cut back _way_ before showers.

~~~
Shog9
Why are you comparing the cost of the water to your house with the cost of
beef at the source? You sure as hell aren't paying $1/lb for beef, and
remember that the water you're using in your shower has to be transported and
treated before it can be re-used; it's not evaporating off your bathroom
floor.

This seems like a really odd way to make a comparison, even if we accept that
the value to you of a shower and a meal are roughly the same.

~~~
SilasX
A few things:

1) I was conservatively assuming that the cost of the meat is due entirely to
the cost of the water. In reality, it's even less. Taking the value of meat-
in-the-city would make the estimate err even further in the wrong direction by
attributing, to water, value that was actually added by transportation.

2) For city dwellers, I wasn't using the actual cost paid for the water, but
the (approximate, much-higher) amount they _would_ way if push came to shove,
in order to estimate the relative utility destroyed by people cutting back on
showers compared to farmers producing less water-intense output, and thus how
misguided are the campaigns to get people to cut back what are already high-
value uses of water.

------
ClayFerguson
Makes you wonder if this is indeed a permanent change in the earth's water
distribution, rather than just a time of low flow rates. I don't think our
climate models can predict it. Not because of atmosphereic, but because of
geothermal. We can predict atmospheric, but geothermal is as unpredictable as
earthquakes.

~~~
ars
> if this is indeed a permanent change

It's not. It's happened many times before.

------
sytringy05
This is how you do a real drought -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_Australian_drought](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_Australian_drought)

Basically 10 years of below average rainfall. Melbourne's water storages got
down to about 25% at one point and I seem to recall you basically can't use
the last 20%.

There were terrible bushfires in 2002, 2006 and 2009 and farmers needed a fair
bit of relief from the government but life went on (with water restrictions).

The worst part of the drought was the Victorian government decided to build
one of the worlds biggest desal plants (will cost the state about $30b over
its lifetime), which was delayed in being finished because the drought broke.

They have not used any water from it.

~~~
lotsofmangos
I just looked it up.

Cost of the plant was around $4 billion and the 30 year operating costs are
apparently around $1.5 billion.

It was only finished in 2012 and so far it has not been required to be used.

Over the course of the drought the government handed out $4.5 billion in
drought assistance to farmers and the economy overall had over $5 billion in
losses per year. 2002-2003 alone cost $6.6 billion.

To be honest, this looks like a good insurance plan. Australia should build
more of them.

~~~
sytringy05
A desal plant in Australia is a good idea because it is an arid continent and
is prone to drought. The biggest desal plant in the world was not a good idea.
It was not required at the time and probably wont be required for another 20
years, especially given how well water restrictions worked during the drought.

Over-building on infrastructure is almost as bad as not building it at all.
And as someone else pointed out this particular project was beset by dodgy
builders, unions drinking at the trough and grandstanding politicians who
wanted to be seen doing "something". All up, massive waste of money.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Fair enough. I must say from looking into it more that there seems to be an
absurdly wide range of cost estimates being quoted, as well as a lot of mixing
up of prices and costs, so the figures I quoted are probably bullshit.

Edit - I am not sure I agree with you about overbuilding on infrastructure
though. A good example of this is the London sewer system by Joseph
Bazalgette, that was massively overbuilt to the tune of twice the maximum
requirement from what was considered the highest possible population density,
just in case. Which was very lucky, given the development of the towerblock
100 years later.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bazalgette](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bazalgette)

------
smtddr
Meanwhile... [http://gizmodo.com/rich-people-are-trucking-their-own-
water-...](http://gizmodo.com/rich-people-are-trucking-their-own-water-into-
drought-r-1627178060)

------
ck2
Meanwhile Beverly Hill and other wealthy areas have 5000 gallon water trucks
coming in to private properties each day.

Where do they think that water is coming from.

------
rayiner
Southern California is a result of big government messing around with the
market to disastrous consequences. If it was worthwhile for people to live in
California, then the market would've built the necessary irrigation, without
Army Corps of Engineers meddling.

~~~
lotsofmangos
People have lived in California since at least 17,000 BCE, according to
archaeological excavation. It had about a third of the native population of
what is now the USA.

~~~
dredmorbius
Source?

The total precolumbian population of the Americas (north, south, and central)
was ~40-112 million. Less than 1/6 to 1/3 that of the present US and only
slightly more than California today at the low end.

See Charles C. Mann's _1491_ , pp. 104-109, among others.

~~~
lotsofmangos
_" something approaching one third of all Native Americans living within the
present-day boundaries of the continental United States - which is to say,
more than three hundred thousand people - are estimated to have been living
within the present-day boundaries of California."_

[http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-IXp7of_QxIC&pg=PA13&lpg=...](http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-IXp7of_QxIC&pg=PA13&lpg=PA13&dq=third+of+native+americans+lived+in+california)

The 17,000 BCE may a bit early (that was based off stone flakes rather than
direct evidence of human remains), but there are 14,000 year old human
coprolites in Oregon and evidence of boat use in California 12,000 years ago.

[http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migration-coming-to-
ameri...](http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-migration-coming-to-
america-1.10562)

My point was that there were quite a lot of people considering it worthwhile
to live in what is now California, long before Europeans got there, let alone
any army engineers.

There are now a lot more people and it is stretching the water use, but there
are a lot more people in most places, not just California.

And saying that markets will build any necessary irrigation projects and that
the state shouldn't build them is an interesting position to take, given the
historic link between irrigation planning and central government. You could
make the argument that government wouldn't even exist in the present form, if
it were not for the history of managing irrigation.

~~~
dredmorbius
Starr's quote isn't what you'd said. The precolumbian population of California
was less than one tenth the present total, and equivalent to a large town, not
even a city. Say, Stockton.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Are you sure?

I said:

 _It had about a third of the native population of what is now the USA._

Which to me means, take what is now the USA, find out what the native
population was, and then find a third of that.

I wasn't saying that it was anything close to the population of modern
California, just that California is not inhabited because of the irrigation,
but that the irrigation is there because it is a place that people want to
inhabit.

At the time Columbus landed London only had ~100,000 people. For the time,
California was pretty busy and if Europeans had not taken over the western
USA, I am pretty sure there would still be massive irrigation networks in
California today.

~~~
dredmorbius
Yes. I'm sure.

At best you were grossly ambiguous. And really, attempting to argue this point
is beyond childish.

~~~
lotsofmangos
I was actually just trying to work out what you thought I had meant. I can be
pretty childish, but I wasn't doing anything other than stating what I meant
by that sentence. You don't have to tell me what you thought I had meant but
it would be nice.

------
dghughes
Picture these pictures in reverse but at a coastline then think of the dry
after as the normal before and the water as the after.

As a person who lives on a very low island, average 20m asl, climate change is
going to be rough :{

~~~
chime
I live at 7ft asl. People think I'm kidding when I say I will most likely sell
my house due to rising sea-level.

~~~
dghughes
It's the same here really since most people live on the coast so yeah most of
the population would be a few meters above seal level.

We've lost so much land and people argue about reclaiming some of the land,
some places have lost hundreds of meters in on the last decade. We don't have
any rock here it's all sandstone.

We're as big as Long Island but I think we may be in trouble if we don't start
rebuilding the coast and cutting carbon emissions of course.

