
California Is Drilling for Water That Fell to Earth 20,000 Years Ago - molecule
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/03/california-pumping-water-fell-earth-20000-years-ago
======
pyrocat
All of this reminds me of a trip I took about 10 years ago to Palm Desert.
Even then I was stunned by opulence of their water use and the utter disregard
for sustainability. It's a city built in the desert that regularly reaches
100+ degrees, and yet every house had a bright green grass with sprinklers
running constantly. One of the main attractions was their huge amounts of golf
courses, that were of course always kept green and watered. I guess it makes
sense, a third of the population is 65+, they won't be around when the
consequences of their unconscionable actions really hit.

~~~
analog31
_I guess it makes sense, a third of the population is 65+, they won 't be
around when the consequences of their unconscionable actions really hit._
Oddly enough, I live in a university town in the Midwest, in a neighborhood
with quite a few elderly residents. I've noticed quite a few elderly people
driving hybrid cars.

~~~
Terr_
There might be a little overlap there with elderly drivers looking for cars
that have more assistive features. (In other words, newer and more
computerized.)

------
tempestn
One major problem that needs to be tackled is that much of California (and the
world) is still using flood irrigation[1], which wastes massive amounts of
water to runoff and evaporation. Fortunately this is starting to be tackled
due to higher water costs and government subsidies. (But of course it's only
part of the problem, and these subsidies carry some moral hazard[2]. Also,
it's interesting to note that not all of the water "wasted" in less efficient
methods of irrigation is actually wasted.[3])

[1]
[http://www.mullerranch.com/making_news/sacbee_drip_2_2014.ht...](http://www.mullerranch.com/making_news/sacbee_drip_2_2014.html)

[2] [http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2014/world/conserve-
wa...](http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2014/world/conserve-water-
california-not-increase-supply/)

[3] [http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5942](http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5942)

~~~
jefurii
I was in the Central Valley the other week and asked my dad about these little
tanks that had popped up on farms in the area. He told me they were part of
new drip irrigation systems. So things are changing slowly.

------
nawitus
One solution to producing water is desalination. You can effectively get
unlimited amount of water, but you pay for it in energy. A quick Google search
finds that there's a desalination plant under construction in Carlsbad,
California.

~~~
fletchowns
There's also the problem of what to do with the high salinity waste water that
is generated from the process. Simply dumping it back into the ocean can cause
environmental problems.

~~~
ptaipale
I have a hard time understanding this would be a problem, considering the
scale, i.e. how much water there is in an ocean.

Let's say we take the amount of water mentioned in a link in another comment,
and desalinate 54 million cubic feet of clean water per day in a single plant.
That is 204 400 cubic meters per day. It is a huge amount, but we're talking
about operating this plant at depth of 1 km. 204 400 cubic meters is 0.0002
cubic kilometers. The California Current flows at around 0.25 m/s which means
that the cubic kilometer of water around the desalination plant will be
completely exchanged almost once per hour, 21.6 times in a day.

I would say that the salt that you take from desalinated water is an entirely
insignificant problem when just left in the ocean, even locally. It's a drop
in the ocean. Most likely the saltiness of water will vary a lot more due to
other reasons (e.g. how much water evaporates locally).

Other aspects of access to more water in places like California are probably a
much more relevant environmental problem. That water is mostly going to be
used as irrigation water in agriculture. This will flush a huge amount of
earth particles to the ocean. Literally, it will eventually wash away the
agricultural land, unless it is used sparingly. When doing that, it puts
additional earth material in streams and rivers.

And then there are the issues of fertilizers, pesticides etc for the ever
increased volume of agricultural production.

------
uptown
Water waste is everywhere. In deserts we water golf courses. In cities we hose
down sidewalks to reduce dust and dirt. A huge percentage of the food we
produce that uses water to generate gets disposed of. Then there's this:

"Initial estimates are that when fully operational, the Utah NSA Data Center
will use as much as 1.7 million gallons of water per day."

~~~
pokpokpok
where does that water go? evaporated?

~~~
Filligree
Yes

------
tw04
And South Dakota is injecting toxic chemicals into theirs because "we won't
ever need that water anyways".

------
ck2
All these companies are buying up rights to fresh water sources - it's like
the next oil crisis.

Maybe instead of the US invading other countries for oil we will have people
coming to us for water.

------
srameshc
Wonder what it would be like 30 years from now with all the water problems.

~~~
woodchuck64
Julian Simon: Bumping against any limit will increase the price of any
resource in short supply, leading ingenious humans to find new supply sources
or substitutes.

~~~
bitJericho
Nothing like paying $4/gallon for water.

------
xbeta
Reminds me of the film "Interstellar" with dust storm. And this is already
happening every year in Beijing and its neighboring towns. Does this "bad"
human cultural behavior push our scientific researcher further? It certainly
does for the 200 yrs of technological advances.

~~~
yeukhon
Well desertification is a very interesting problem. But basically there is
natural desertification and there is accelerated desertification caused by the
growth of population (misuse of lands, overuse of farm lands, deforestation,
rapid growth of population, etc). In northern part of China, the government
and locals plant trees to slow down and even able to recover lands from
desertification. But the progress is slow...

although South America is still full of trees, scientists are already seeing
rapid desertification because we are destroying the nature.

~~~
IndianAstronaut
Our appetite for beef is causing the destruction of forests. If we could tone
down our meat consumption, we stand a chance to save tue environment.

------
yeukhon
Not a secret. Scientists have already found that there are more water
underneath the deep earth of Earth if you just search "water under earth".
However, digging is very hard. But essentially deep in the Earth there are
copious amount of water.

------
ausjke
Strangely I am concerned about the dryness will more likely trigger an
earthquake there.

Can they somehow transport sea water to inland? if there is a need for that
I'm sure CA will have some startup working on that.

~~~
bronson
Only if there's a social angle.

------
stephengillie
And this means that soon, many of us will be eating food grown with 20,000
year old water.

~~~
leppr
if water in bottles expires in a few years i can't even imagine how bad this
unpackaged water will have turned. this is totaly outragous

~~~
pyrocat
pretty sure water in water bottles only 'expire' because of the plastic
leaching into the water over time. "Unpackaged" water has been sitting in the
earth for thousands of years, as evidenced by this article, and is perfectly
safe to drink.

~~~
pault
I think your humor detector needs tuning.

~~~
pyrocat
Oh, yeah, you're probably right. I just thought they were bad at English.

