Water in California and the rest of the western USA - going, going, gone...

[Tony617]

It is balancing act in Southern California since you need be sure that underground aquifers are replenished otherwise salt water can get into fresh water aquifers.

https://www.americangeosciences.org/geoscience-currents/managed-aquifer-recharge-california

 

[Member 52301]

Did anyone see the movie or read the book The Big Short. It's about a handful of people who could see the '08 crash coming and made billions shorting banks.The first to see it coming was Micheal Burry (played by Christian Bale) and everyone else was using his playbook. He was sued by the people he made rich and investigate (harassed) by the government he tried to warn. He gave up on traditional investing. His ONLY investment now is water.

Good post! Thank you.

I saw it and many of those other financial related movies.

Plus a lot of actual footage from old news and hearings years ago and not too long ago. They were on YT and Bit Chute.

We donated ALL of those financial movies to our county library too.

I think that people should watch some of those films and read some of those books too.

YEARS ago, the BUSH family, 'Poppy' (!) Bush aka Bush 1 or Bush 2 or the 'BUSH FAMILY' BOUGHT a whole bunch of land with a HUGE aquifer in South America.

So far 300,000 acres or so of LAND in Paraguay.

Why Did George Bush Buy Nearly 300,000 acres in Paraguay?

The real reason George W. Bush bought land in Paraguay. Plus, Jim Rickards isn’t just focused on currency wars.

5minforecast.com

SNIPPET:

Water.

That's right, blue gold. Bush bought the rights to a veritable ocean of fresh, clear-as-glass, Grade A water.

His land rests atop one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the world: Acuifero Guarani, by name.

According to Jody, "Acuifero Guarani covers roughly 460,000 square miles under parts of Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina. It is estimated to contain about
8,900 cubic miles of water."

If you can't quite imagine 8,900 miles of water, picture a pool nearly three times the size of California. That should give you a decent idea.
~~~

THERE are many other links - real news stories about this and I wrote about this elsewhere some time ago. I do not think that I ever mentioned it here but I could be wrong. CRS time.

The land that was originally bought has been added to in SIZE if you read more, follow the trail and connect the dots.

Anyway, a lot of people said that what I wrote or the news stories were FAKE but they did not use the words 'FAKE NEWS' at the time ala Trump era versus the Faux x, y or z News stations comments.

Old man Bush and the rest of his family had HUGE TIES with other people in other countries PLUS with all of that drug money that was flowing in and out of MENA - the Clintons.

Working for the CIA, being in the WH and tons more sure increased their wealth.

I wonder if the CLINTON family, the OBAMA family and the BIDEN family have land down there too? ALL of them are super tight and close with one another no matter if they try to look like enemies (LOL) or are in different parties. And that includes Trump too.

It is one big smoke/mirrors game.

"It's a big club and you ain't in it!" as GEORGE CARLIN said.

Cate
PS: Poster, did you read a lot about BARRY SEAL, the CIA, the drug money, the airports, trips, etc. in books and in news stories plus see the movie called AMERICAN MADE?

 

[Member 52301]

Two words.....DESALINATION

I have said that for a long time too.

Cate

 

[Member 52301]

Any solutions?

STOP having so many children in this nation and across the world.

STOP WATERING THOSE 'SOD - TURF' LAWNS and STOP USING POISON TO KILL THOSE 'WEEDS' ON LAWNS.

Do not try to make your high or low desert home/land LOOK like some Eastern or Great lakes state that gets a LOT of water, ice and snow most of the time.

Keep a lot of the natural vegetation that you can going on your town lot or in the boonies.

PLANT crops that work for your area and climate that use LESS WATER.

Don't FLUSH YOUR TOILET every single time that you tinkle aka urinate. Use LESS water per day IF you can do this. Do this whether you are on a WELL or on county/city water supply pipe line.

I believe that DE SALINATION PLANTS will work even if they cost money to build them.

Other countries have built them.

Some golf courses could put in FAKE TURF and even though some of it MAY BE PETROLEUM BASED or not - in the LONG RUN it would save MONEY on upkeep and use LESS WATER. This has been done in places that even have ENOUGH WATER from what I have read in the news - Eastern states.

By the way, some swimming pools and hot tubs have different systems now from what I have read when it comes to filling them and keeping them CLEAN and safe to swim in. I do not know all of those details but I have been looking at some of them online.

Etc.

That is a start.

Cate

 

[Member 52301]

Have a clue about forest management and your own land management from a to z.

HARVEST your trees and clean up an area. Healthy and diseased trees!

Plant tree seedlings.

USE seeds that are natural for your area - climate and try to prevent soil erosion on all areas of your land.

STOP using so much water unless it is for your seedlings and natural grasses to grow and get a GOOD START that is for your specific area.

Let nature take it's course.

Fire season? OMG!

Let the harvesting begin on public and private lands.

THIN some of it out. CLEAN IT UP!

When some CA ding dong does not want A HUGE BRUSH PILE mowed or cut down and IT catches fire - send the ding dong a bill PLUS for all of the burned out houses.

What a waste of water fighting some of those CA fires IF they had only PREVENTED THEM FROM THE GITGO.

PROSECUTE ALL ARSONISTS and stupid camp fire starters that CAUSE all of those things.

I wonder what punishment that one FED - female forest worker lady got for burning her old love letters and causing that HUGE FIRE years ago? Did she get to keep her job, bennies and retirement?

Cate

 

[nehalemguy]

So I am currently typing this from Ambergris Caye in Belize. There are roughly 20,000 souls who live here and all of their potable water is by way of desalinization. However, many here are not connected to the public water system. Instead they rely on water cisterns that capture rain water. The house I am in has a 25k gallon cistern which supplies showers, toilets', and washing machines. Potable water is delivered by truck to a separate holding tank at a cost of $160 US per 1200 gallons. Very expensive.

-E-

 

[Certaindeaf]

So I am currently typing this from Ambergris Caye in Belize. There are roughly 20,000 souls who live here and all of their potable water is by way of desalinization. However, many here are not connected to the public water system. Instead they rely on water cisterns that capture rain water. The house I am in has a 25k gallon cistern which supplies showers, toilets', and washing machines. Potable water is delivered by truck to a separate holding tank at a cost of $160 US per 1200 gallons. Very expensive.

-E-

If I had a water delivery service there I'd call it "Better Call Desal".

 

[The Heretic]

I have a well and twice as much precip as the valley gets. Most of the rain flows down the mountain creeks into the rivers and out to the ocean, but a lot of it does soak into the ground and is also held by the 100'+ tall trees (think of the trees as big columns of water). I get rain when the valley gets nothing but clouds that pass over.

Most farmers this high (mostly vineyards, but also wheat, etc.) do not irrigate much, if at all.

If I can sell and move, I plan to move closer to the coastal range, maybe up by Mist/Jewell, but certainly where there is plenty of precip, but just flatter ground with a southern exposure.

I do expect the climate to dry up somewhat, but with fewer people sucking on the aquifer and still enough rain/snow, I think I and my kids would do ok.

 

[The Heretic]

On an anecdotal level; my neighbors have their wells drilled to 250' to 450' deep. Mine is 120' and I have not problems with water supply. One at 250' just had to have his well pump lowered because his water level dropped 40' in the last decade. Here on the mountain we get 50% more rain than the valley, but most of it runs off down into the valley. This was a pretty dry year for us too - we had to be very careful about fire danger.

FWIW - I was wrong about the depth of our wells, since I posted this I was able to go look at our well depths online (state/county has these records). My well depth is twice what I thought it was. They first hit water at 120' but kept drilling deeper to 250'.

Same with neighbor's wells; they drilled twice as deep as I thought, and first hit water a lot deeper than I thought.

 

[Longwalkhome]

I hesitate to offer an opinion because it stirs a pot and I just ain't one to argue an opinion. I will argue a stone cold right listed in our constitution but won't argue on the way people choose to live that are civil.

Its my opinion that the elite that run the world have done a poor job in the management of resources. I don't think they have the intelligence to solve the problems they created much less take on nature and our climate.

I guess we will see what they are going to do.

 

[Provincial]

One of the consequences of the California water projects that expanded agriculture to the Central Valley is that agriculture in Western Oregon lost out to the new California competition. We used to have thriving Italian Prune orchards, for one thing. California didn't lose crops to late freezes, so the growers moved there. Other crops were affected, too.

 

[The Heretic]

Its my opinion that the elite that run the world have done a poor job in the management of resources. I don't think they have the intelligence to solve the problems they created much less take on nature and our climate.

Intelligence? Maybe - I don't think the PTB (Powers That Be) are stupid, so I don't think intelligence is the issue. I also do not think most are uninformed - but maybe they are not cognizant enough of the issues, or don't care to be.

What I think is the problem with the PTB is one of wisdom (proper use of intelligence and information) and corruption (in the sense of greed and lust for power) combined with an intentional short term view caused by corruption and a lack of wisdom.

Then there is majority of the general populace that chooses to believe what they are told by the PTB, instead of determining it for themselves.

A fatal combination.

 

[Longwalkhome]

Intelligence? Maybe - I don't think the PTB (Powers That Be) are stupid, so I don't think intelligence is the issue. I also do not think most are uninformed - but maybe they are not cognizant enough of the issues, or don't care to be.

What I think is the problem with the PTB is one of wisdom (proper use of intelligence and information) and corruption (in the sense of greed and lust for power) combined with an intentional short term view caused by corruption and a lack of wisdom.

I see no fault in your opinion and its stated better than mine was.

 

[The Heretic]

One of the consequences of the California water projects that expanded agriculture to the Central Valley is that agriculture in Western Oregon lost out to the new California competition. We used to have thriving Italian Prune orchards, for one thing. California didn't lose crops to late freezes, so the growers moved there. Other crops were affected, too.

Ditto with Walnuts; here Walnuts drop in the rainy season and it requires mostly manual hand labor to harvest them as machines (like those used for filberts, which drop before the rainy season) cannot get into the orchards and pickup the walnuts from the mud. So California walnuts, while being smaller and maybe not was tasty, are less expensive because in California they are harvested by machine since the orchards do not get muddy during the harvesting.

 

[gmerkt]

I just saw an article that was about the water level in Lake Mead, behind the Hoover Dam. At lowest level since the 1930's when the dam was first filled. This information is fact, not scare mongering. It's the result of a decades-long draught, plus growing demand on water resources.

When the water runs low in Lake Mead, it's not only a water issue. It's also a power issue. As the water level drops, they must throttle back on power generation. If the water gets low enough, they cannot generate any power. And it doesn't take a lowering of the water level to the penstock intakes to shut it down. It takes a certain amount of head pressure to run the generator turbines.

When the area in the Bonneville Power Authority gets dry, they have to maintain a certain level of water release for purposes of fisheries preservation. Which may or may not be effective in the big picture, so long as the Russians, Chinese and Japanese poach and over-fish as they have been doing. Removing dams is also under consideration for the same reason. Some day, decisions will have to be made, which is more important, water for humanity or for fish?

 

[Longwalkhome]

This may sound cynical but I am just a little. Without a crisis you can't make draconian climate laws. Empty the reservoirs and you have a drought. Who controls the dams?

 

[arakboss]

A reservoir shutdown pits neighbor against neighbor. One group is threatening to reopen it by force

Amid historic, climate change-driven drought, the federal government shut down the water supply from the Upper Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon border.

www.cnn.com

 

[arakboss]

I'm not sure what you mean by cubic acre, When discussing water, there are acre feet and there are cubic feet.

A single almond takes 1.1 gallons to produce. In 2015 the almond crop consumed 637.56 billion gallons of water in California. Other nut crops like walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, and cashews all use roughly the same amount of water to grow as well, but it is the almond which is in such high demand at this time and since 2015 more acreage has been put into almonds.

Fun factoid...Agriculture in California drinks up 80% of its water, while accounting for only 2% of the economy.

-E-

We really should start planting and eating less water intensive crops. That seems like a rediculous amount of water for one almond.

Edit: This chart list the average water footprint of some food sources. I would like to see it broke down further between irrgation requirements and precipitation supplied. For example if ranchers are running cows on non irrigated range land that should reduce irrigated water footprint.

What can consumers do? – Water Footprint Network

waterfootprint.org

 

[Idaho44]

A bit more info for anyone interested. Read "Cadillac Desert" first and then watch this or read the book "Floodpath" :

 

[arakboss]

The American West is drying out. Things will get ugly | CNN Politics

The incredible pictures of a depleted Lake Mead, on the Nevada-Arizona border, illustrate the effects of drought brought on by climate change.

www.cnn.com