
California Braces for Unending Drought - jstreebin
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/us/california-drought-water-restrictions-permanent.html
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tristanj
The oddest thing is that engineers came up with a solution to this in the
1960s. Some smart people realized that there is an enormous excess of
precipitation in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, and this most of this
freshwater flows into the Pacific and Arctic oceans unused. The flow of
freshwater runoff in Alaska alone is more than half of the entire runoff of
the continental United States. Engineers realized that with a very long
aqueduct, they could pump this unused water thousands of miles to the parched
Southwest United States. They came up with a viable plan to make this happen.
At the cost of $100 billion (the same price as the US interstate system), the
aqueduct could pump _10 times the flow of the Colorado river_ , more than
enough to completely resolve the region's water problems. The aqueduct would
generate billions per year in hydroelectric power, an even more in added
economic value. Like the Hoover dam, it would pay for itself within 30 years.

Yet, due to objections from environmentalists, the project ended up going
nowhere and few people today have even heard of the project.

If you're interested, there's more on this topic on the Wiki page [1], as well
as two videos made in the 1960s about the benefits of NAWAPA.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Water_and_Power_Alliance)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MibzpJ54do](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MibzpJ54do)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0dsc-341O8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0dsc-341O8)

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sterl
Trump has stated he intends to bring this plan back... (just sayin' :) )

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stephenr
The plan is about as feasible as "I will make Apple produce all their products
in America", so it's not surprising.

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sterl
Agreed :)

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yeukhon
I was looking for just how expensive desalination would cost, using ocean
water.. Google says "[d]esalinated water typically costs about $2,000 an acre
foot -- roughly the amount of water a family of five uses in a year."

Here is an article from a few years back, targeting 17 deslination plants by
this year's July.

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/getting-clean-water-from-the-
sea...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/getting-clean-water-from-the-sea-at-a-
high-price/)

The ending is so sad. Earlier this year gasoline was at as low as $1.3 here
where I live in NYC (or even less I honestly can't remember how low!) Right
now the gasoline price is at 2.37 where I live.

> "I do see that water is the next oil," Webber notes, "that water is the
> great resource of the 21st century over which battles [will be] fought,
> money is invested."

So here is what we need to do. Please invest more into desalination process.
Make is so cheap we can produce water at a low cost.

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caf
Desalination is a bit like smelting aluminium - high energy requirements are
kind of built-in due to the basic chemistry.

If you want cheap desalination, look for cheap energy.

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tristanj
Desalination is all about cheap energy. Desalination plants produce fresh
water at sea level, and that water has to be pumped to higher elevations where
people live. It's a hidden, often overlooked, cost of desalination. That makes
desalination most economical in flat, low-elevation costal regions.

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craigyk
The Water Knife: [http://www.amazon.com/Water-Knife-Novel-Paolo-
Bacigalupi/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Water-Knife-Novel-Paolo-
Bacigalupi/dp/1469298325)

which repeatedly mentions the book Cadillac Desert (which my dad has been
trying to get me to read for 15+ years, dads are smart).

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TaylorGood
Just was fined $100 for going over recent usage standards set.. household
gallons per month. Was told fees go up should overuse continue. Already
swapped for low flush toilets.

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gruez
Funny how they're going after the residential users, who are responsible for a
miniscule amount of the overall usage.

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twelve40
I know, right? I keep reading about almonds and strawberries and whatnot. I'm
all for conserving the water, but if all 40 million of us humans here would
get wiped out and replaced by farmer robots, the water usage would not go down
by much.

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gavanwoolery
Worth noting is that Israel has gone through this already and largely handled
their problem. In fact, we have already begun collaboration with them:
[http://forward.com/news/national/318721/can-israel-help-
cali...](http://forward.com/news/national/318721/can-israel-help-californias-
desert-bloom/)

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rdl
Why can't cities buy the lower value/marginal farmers out (growing stuff like
Alfalfa, or possibly tree fruits at the end of the useful lifespan of the
trees)?

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jcoffland
The chicken-littles of this world just wont give up. Sure drought will always
be an issue in CA but we've had a ton of rain this year, the reservoirs (esp.
Shasta) are mostly full [0] and there is a good snow pack [1]. These
politicians need to quit their whining and let go of the little powers they
gained due to the recent drought.

[0]:
[http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.act...](http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action)

[1]:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160330-california...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160330-california-
snow-survey-snowpack-water-drought/)

