California moves to cut off water to thousands of farmers

Could someone chime in with how these farmers physically get this water?<p>The article says &quot;tap in&quot; to the streams. Does that mean the farmers themselves drop a hose with a pump (or some other means of limited diversion) into the stream? Do they own the land the steam is on or does the government own the streams and provide permits for access? Is it generally the farmers themselves doing this or is there some middleman (public&#x2F;private?) water distributor?<p>If there&#x27;s any suggested reading on this I&#x27;d be curious. I would have expected the state to simply charge more and more for this access rather than cut it off all at once.

&gt; “We have really tried to walk that line of not wanting to invoke new measures that are going to have a significant effect ... unless it’s absolutely necessary,”<p>This isn&#x27;t exactly an unusual stance, but I&#x27;m increasingly convinced it&#x27;s a terribly ineffective way to handle a crisis.

This is a scary situation. Personally, I would like to see allocation of agricultural water for maximum human nutrition value per gallon: chicken (much, much, much less water per ounce than beef, and much less than pork), soybeans and peas (less than chickpeas), kale, Brussels sprouts, carrots, etc. that take relatively little water. There are good web sites that break down nutrients vs. water used.<p>It seems like we are approaching two problems: economic collapse for middle class and poor people, and problems with food production. I wish that news media would cover these topics.<p>The problem is that the only things on the table for discussion by our governments and news media is the promotion of things that maximize corporate profits or otherwise cater to special interests.

Can we start to talk about massive desalination projects? The Israelis seem to have made it work.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scientificamerican.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;israel-proves-the-desalination-era-is-here&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scientificamerican.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;israel-proves-the...</a>

The entire california water drama boils down to just two things: the delta smelt and the resnick family (Paramount farms, FIJI water, POM&#x2F;Wonderful). 1&#x2F;3 of californias freshwater is diverted back to the ocean to &quot;protect&quot; the delta smelt, the resnicks control and use an additional 1&#x2F;3 including the kern water bank. Everything else is window dressing and about moving money into and out of various pockets. There is no actual shortage of freshwater in any meaningful way in california.<p>Should one very political and well connected family control 1&#x2F;3 of the massive states entire irrigation water? How could they abuse that to enrich themselves and california&#x27;s elite? Who are the largest donors to newsom in the recall?

Almonds use like what, 10% of CA water? How is the war on almonds going?

I have to imagine this will increase global food costs, but there’s opportunity here to make farming high water crops more efficient:<p>- reclaim runoff<p>- more efficient growing methods<p>The capex and research are there. I wonder how the Boise startup scene is handling it?

In Texas, you’re not allowed to robo-water (hoses are fine) your lawn outside of your two specific days (at least, in the city we were in). Seems like a common sense strategy to me, yet I know Oregon doesn’t do that and I’m guessing CA is the same way. I know residents can be weird about water but surely after years and years of droughts, everyone would understand.

I would like to know what the alternatives are. What are the negatives to a decrease in the fish population?

The number of people here ok with destroying agriculture is alarming.

We need a national water grid.<p>I suggested this in another thread and got a mix of responses:<p>- You can&#x27;t touch the Great Lakes.<p>- You can&#x27;t steal another region&#x27;s water.<p>- Pumps consume electricity.<p>- Grids are a security vulnerability.<p>to which I&#x27;d say:<p>- Water would be drawn from a number of sources, and having a grid would allow the draw to be distributed, lessening the impact to any single source.<p>- No one complains that the rest of the US is stealing CA&#x27;s agriculture. If there is an exchange of funds, there should be no objection to an ecologically responsible exchange of water for local funding.<p>- Desalination also consumes electricity. Shipping imported food from other countries also uses energy(and has inherent national security risks above a certain level).<p>- Insecurity is not an inherent quality of a grid. Poor implementation of our electrical grid is not sufficient evidence against a national water grid. In fact, they enhance regional security by allowing us to cope with climate change and unforeseen weather events.<p>We could draw the water from regional flood control systems and the mouths of great waterways (St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Columbia, etc). We could leverage a larger system of reservoirs for gravity based energy storage systems.<p>I don&#x27;t know, it just seems to make perfect sense to me. Right now, we treat water as a regional issue and have an antiquated system of treaties and agreements that favors entrenched parties and fails to serve the needs of society.

Fish over crops? We already have crazy shortages of corn and grains world wide [1] (ignore the conspiratorial tone in the video if you don&#x27;t like it, there are still plenty of objective observations).<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HNry6K908xw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=HNry6K908xw</a>