Any Californians here afraid of the drought problem?

[Craig234]

You Californians should blame your politicians. Saving stupid fish and shit. You have the ocean, create desalinization plants! Your not getting any more water from Colorado.

No, we should thank our politicians, saving good fish, and not listening to the ignorant and value-free people.

 

[McLovin]

I'd hope that it would be a public project as water is a requirement for life. But, you're probably correct to a degree if it were a private project. Sadly, a public project would still be rife with people trying to make some bucks out of it.

Exactly. People hardly ever do things anymore because it would benefit themselves or others. They do it because there is a profit to be had!

I'm all for trying to make an honest living, but sometimes doing something for your fellow man can be just as rewarding (maybe not monetarily, but that's not the point).

 

[Tommy2000GT]

no it's not a big deal. the media likes to sensationalize everything

 

[RPD]

No because the last 4-5 years they say we've been in a drought. I know rainfall was worse this year (skiing sucked the last 3 years and REALLY bad this year).

It's a monkey see monkey do thing. I see all these city ran landscaping, with water running down the gutter like a river, at 3pm in the blazing sun, yet they turn around and ask other people to conserve water?

If the people in charge could get their shit together maybe others would do more to conserve.

 

[NutBucket]

To be fair most cities of a reasonable size use reclaimed water for landscaping, parks, golf courses, etc. There's no shortage of reclaimed water.

 

[McLovin]

no it's not a big deal. the media likes to sensationalize everything

Da Fuq?

 

[NoTine42]

I'm worried in the sense that my job sort of depends on how well farming is doing here in the Central Valley. If the farmer's don't have money for projects, I run out of some work. I won't say all, because we have some long-range projects coming down the pipe, but I could eventually end up being p/t employed. I'm not too worried about not having enough water to drink just yet. I've cut back on watering the lawn and washing my cars voluntarily, as we don't have an emergency ordinance in Merced Co. like some cities are passing.

I think there's a solid case to keep some farming going...crops like oranges (that need warm weather..we need some balance with FL if they get hit by frost) and the salad crops where California weather allows much yearly greater production per acre.

But, I don't think there is much of a case for corn.

And if there was any measure of common sense both sides should agree on....cattle. It's not like cows have 2 calfs a year in Cali vs Wisconsin. It makes absolutely 0 sense to irrigate grow alfalfa and other cattle nourishment. Our nation has enough other places that can grow cattle with more natural water supplies.

 

[Ns1]

And if there was any measure of common sense both sides should agree on....cattle. It's not like cows have 2 calfs a year in Cali vs Wisconsin. It makes absolutely 0 sense to irrigate grow alfalfa and other cattle nourishment. Our nation has enough other places that can grow cattle with more natural water supplies.

Except the alfalfa is being shipped to china.

 

[NoTine42]

Except the alfalfa is being shipped to china.

And that makes even less sense for water usage.

If it were more affordable to ship, I know more Midwest farmers would love selling hay to Texas...meanwhile, Cali is taking advantage of empty cargo ships?

 

[Ns1]

And that makes even less sense for water usage.

If it were more affordable to ship, I know more Midwest farmers would love selling hay to Texas...meanwhile, Cali is taking advantage of empty cargo ships?

exactly, farmers claim it's more expensive to ship alfalfa from south CA -> central valley than it is to ship alfalfa from south CA -> china

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26124989

"We have more imports than exports so a lot of the steamship lines are looking to take something back," Glennon says. "And hay is one of the products which they take back."

It's now cheaper to send alfalfa from LA to Beijing than it is to send it from the Imperial Valley to the Central Valley.

 

[John Connor]

http://imgur.com/a/IgoUq

Wow! That's incredible.

 

[UglyCasanova]

If you want to fix the water shortage price it accordingly. The problem is (aside from the obvious lack of rain) that water is damned near given away. This results in people overusing it relative to the supply. The economics of supply and demand would solve California's water "shortage". People would still have enough to drink of course, but farmers may think twice about growing water intensive agricultural crops in an area where there is relatively little water to do it, people wouldn't plant so much water intensive landscaping, etc.

 

[ringtail]

Afraid? Not much makes me truly "afraid."

One of my jobs as a man is to NOT be "afraid," not to deal with stuff.

But I just got home from 6 weeks in Nova Scotia & Northern Maine...so beautiful here! If only brown California was that green!

Here we're growing browner...in several ways.

 

[Ns1]

Might have to leave CA for a decade or two, get past the drought AND the big one.

e chance of a "megadrought" gripping the Southwest for more than 30 years has increased to 50%, scientists say, which means bad news for California's already parched landscape.

The odds of a 10-year drought afflicting the southwestern U.S. have increased to 80%, according to a new study by Cornell University, the University of Arizona and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Whatever happens, California is likely to see prolonged drought and drier conditions, especially in the southern portion of the state, said Toby Ault, Cornell assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and lead author of the study, which will be published next month in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate.

The current drought, he said, is a preview of what will "happen in the future in climate change."

"I am not trying to say this is imminent," he said, "but the risk is high."

Nearly 82% of California is experiencing "extreme" drought -- the fourth harshest on a five-level scale measured in a weekly U.S. Drought Monitor reports. But roughly 58% of the state of facing worse, "exceptional" drought conditions.

Using climate model projections, researchers determined that prolonged drought would probably hit New Mexico and Arizona as well as California. On the other hand, the chances for the same conditions affecting parts of Idaho, Washington and Montana may actually decrease.

Megadrought conditions may also strike Australia, southern Africa and the Amazon, the researchers said.

The risk for a decadelong drought like the 1930s Dust Bowl is even more alarming because researchers say such events occur "on average once or twice per century."

According to researchers, the findings are important for governments to consider as they develop strategies for coping with the effects of climate change in densely populated areas where megadroughts — "worse than anything seen during the last 2,000 years" — would pose "unprecedented challenges" to water resources.

The severity of future droughts discussed in the report could also worsen as temperatures increase, which may be underestimated even with state-of-the-art global climate models, the scientists warned

 

[rpanic]

Driving around LA in the early morning hours watching sprinklers just watering streets and storm drains who would have thought we are in a drought.

 

[PliotronX]

If you want to fix the water shortage price it accordingly. The problem is (aside from the obvious lack of rain) that water is damned near given away. This results in people overusing it relative to the supply. The economics of supply and demand would solve California's water "shortage". People would still have enough to drink of course, but farmers may think twice about growing water intensive agricultural crops in an area where there is relatively little water to do it, people wouldn't plant so much water intensive landscaping, etc.

As for farming I agree because at least when I lived out there most of the fruit and veggies were shipped in from South America anyway. I see more Californian fruit in Colorado than when I actually lived there.. nucking futs.

 

[NutBucket]

If you want to fix the water shortage price it accordingly. The problem is (aside from the obvious lack of rain) that water is damned near given away. This results in people overusing it relative to the supply. The economics of supply and demand would solve California's water "shortage". People would still have enough to drink of course, but farmers may think twice about growing water intensive agricultural crops in an area where there is relatively little water to do it, people wouldn't plant so much water intensive landscaping, etc.

And farmers don't necessarily have to pay for water. Many of them have wells on their property and pull as much water out of the ground as they want.

 

[Ns1]

And farmers don't necessarily have to pay for water. Many of them have wells on their property and pull as much water out of the ground as they want.

which is a problem in and of itself.

 

[Leros]

They just recently passed a ruling in Austin that forces HOAs to allow drought tolerant landscaping. So far, I've seen a number of people pull up their lawns and xeriscape their yards.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

And farmers don't necessarily have to pay for water. Many of them have wells on their property and pull as much water out of the ground as they want.

True. From what I understand, well diggers are backed up about 5 months. The farmers that are in real trouble are the ones who decided to plant rows and rows of almonds along the foothill areas, relying on water from irrigation districts who don't have any more water to give. The ones who can afford to are paying $1k/acre ft. That's insane, and they're losing money. There's no way they're getting that much in return from almonds right now and the only way they're staying in the red is from other investments keeping them afloat. Those who have wells are going deeper and deeper. I've been hearing as far down as 900 ft. right now.

 

[NutBucket]

Really those farmers are just putting off the inevitable. Even if we have a wet winter there's no way those aquifers will be replenished.

 

[Leyawiin]

I had no idea of how bad the situation was until last week I saw a link to some pictures that showed before and after pics from several locations.

http://imgur.com/a/IgoUq

That's six miles from where I live (dad worked on the project back in the mid to late 60s). Its pretty depressing to see it looking like that, but in the end its a huge water storage facility, not necessarily a scenic spot. As far as Oroville goes, I'm not worried about our water supply. There aren't that many people in Butte County and even in this drought year we got 15-17" of rain (the San Joaquin Valley would have killed for that much). Usually we get around 29". We get our water from an aquifer and given our location next to the Feather River and the Fore Bay and After Bay (percolating water down to it constantly), I'm sure we'll be fine. Our water district hasn't said a thing about conserving.

 

[Svnla]

Things are bad, very bad = http://abcnews.go.com/US/racing-save-drought-threatened-species-salmon-california/story?id=25181345

 

[Ns1]

NASA Satellite Images Show Severity of California Water Storage Loss
The images use colorful satellite imagery to show the decline in California's water storage since 2002

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/c...lite-California-Drought-Images-278013292.html

he GRACE satellite images depict changes in mass related to changes in water amount on or below the Earth's surface. Those changes are represented by different colors in satellite imagery.
The most severe storage losses -- depicted by the most severe color changes in the images -- between 2002 and 2014 occurred in the Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins, including the Central Valley, because of increased groundwater pumping to support agricultural production, according to NASA. The images show a large swath of the central part of the state changing from green to orange to a blistering red, representing a severe reduction in mass due to declining water storage.



ooh man we screwed. almonds and avocados are gonna be luxury items soon =X

 

[MtnMan]

Where are the preachers blaming the drought on the "sinful ways" of Californians?

It worked for NO and Katrina, NJ and Sandy.