It takes a gallon of water to grow an almond. So eating a single almond, grown in California, is like opening one of these (<a href="https://hornstrafarms.com/product_images/large/monadnock_gallon_water.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://hornstrafarms.com/product_images/large/monadnock_gal...</a>) and pouring it down the drain.<p>California grows 99% of the almonds in the United States, and 80% of all the almonds in the world.<p>This is only financially possible because we give almond farmers (and agriculture in general) gigantic subsidies on their water bills.<p>Sources:<p><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-californias-water-going" rel="nofollow">http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/02/wheres-califo...</a><p><a href="http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/07/almonds-are-sucking-the-life-out-of-california/374373/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/07/almonds-are-sucking-...</a>
The hair-shirt environmentalism of laws like "restaurants can only serve you water if you ask" is... it's really kind of appalling. It's like if you came into an emergency room with one of your arms literally torn off your body and they wouldn't, you know, triage you, but instead sent you to talk to a doctor about how you're ten pounds overweight and how you really need to lose that weight or else god think of the negative health consequences.
This article doesn't address why the California government is being so stupid about water rationing.<p>Why isn't it reforming these broken water laws that are mentioned in the article?<p>The CA govt just dodges the question, every time. Why? Are the agriculture lobbyists really that powerful? Or is something else going on here?
"the Central Valley, which is, geologically speaking, a desert"<p>Source? It seems contrary to what wikipedia says on the subject:<p>"The northern Central Valley has a hot Mediterranean climate; the more southerly parts in rainshadow zones are dry enough to be Mediterranean steppe or even low-latitude desert." -- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_%28California%29#Climate" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_%28California%29...</a>
Previous conversation on this topic [1] yielded about the same results that we've had in the past 30 minutes here. Doesn't seem like anything's going to change; we'll all just continue posting about it to our favorite blogs and meta-blogs, and (almond|alfalfa|whatever) farmers will continue to eat subsidies and turn them into drought.<p>[1] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9175649" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9175649</a>
Charge market prices for water, and let the tech industry help with efficiency.<p>That's how Australia did it: <a href="http://irrigation.org.au/documents/publications-resources/conference_papers_2008/200508_Stream1_RMaskey1.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://irrigation.org.au/documents/publications-resources/co...</a>
If you live in California, and you're not registered to vote by mail, please do so. It only takes five minutes.<p>Here are step by step instructions:<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/housingforsf/comments/22xoht/help_hfsf_register_to_vote_by_mail_and_tell_us/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/housingforsf/comments/22xoht/help_h...</a>
More and more the US is starting to look like one of those countries full of corrupt and incompetent politicians and their cronies who enrich themselves from the sweat of the general population and are untouchable.
Fortunately we in California have a well-established means of circumventing partisan bickering and political gridlock. Granted it usually ends in disaster, but I am counting the minutes until one or more water-rights related voter initiatives show up on the ballot. Considering how the numbers stack up, I would be very weary indeed if I were a Central Valley farmer.
Things I don't understand as a California:<p>- Why we continue to sell (nationally) bottled water from California<p>- Why public golf courses are green<p>- Why my public officials nag us not to water our lawns as often, when that's not the problem. (FWIW, yes, I replaced my own lawn with drought resistant plants a few years ago.)
California and water wars go back a long time.<p>Water law is incredibly complicated (grants, rights, etc).<p>It's wikipedia, but still a good read:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Water_Wars</a>
Issues like this aren't resolved until enough people are personally effected. When a community or two wakes up and turns on their faucet and nothing comes out, then there will be change.
Israel is/will be producing one-third of its water from desalinization. The largest plant produces 165 million gallons per day. The firm that runs that plant is building a plant in Carlsbad, CA which in 2016 will produce about 50 million gallons per day. Other plants will be built.<p><a href="http://www.haaretz.com/business/1.575985" rel="nofollow">http://www.haaretz.com/business/1.575985</a>