This

Drought is almost over

Seriously

Most is good. But, the no flush and low flush toilets are not the answer. Look at the City of San Francisco and how much bleach they had to dump in the sewer after installing low flow toilets

Recycling water is key

And this is also key. California IS a dry state. Even in a "wet" year, there isn't sufficient water.

By suggesting that I'm also seeking to attack what's often called the "water-energy nexus". It takes energy (around 2kW/1,000 gallons) to produce water - extraction, treatment, distribution, etc. It also takes water to produce energy (about 2 gallons / 1 kW). You can't really "fix" one problem without doing something about the other... So yea, nuke plants and desal plants kind of go hand-in-hand as I see it. Also seems to fit CA's culture and style - high tech, big solutions to big problems, etc. Lots of potential employment of people in good, technical jobs too.

But it's CA. Let's be serious. They'll roll over and suck the wangs of the irrational greenies and the self-important NIMBYs with too much money and influence out there and instead "invest" in do-nothing, contribute-nothing illegals and bullet trains that'll never pay for themselves and will be about as efficiently run as the ACA website, the Postal Service and Amtrak.

CA is it's own worst enemy, sadly. It could be such a great place. It was once.

You just drove a knife through the heart of the argument, yet people keep posting as if they can't wrap their heads around what you've said.

Agriculture is a low level economic concern, but is our biggest polluter by far. They are poor stewards of a valuable resource because they get their water for FREE. That's right. 80% of California's water is given away.

Every time an acre of farmland is converted to housing, water consumption and pollution decrease and state tax revenues increase. Oh well...

Moses WTF Farmers are bad stewards of the land and they get water for FREE??, WTF have you been smoking? Farmers are the best stewards of the land and we pay a bundle for your SORRY ARSE!! You Free s@*t TURD...

Ag in California is a big deal for the whole country and beyond. The Central Valley, aka San Joaquin Valley, grows an overwhelming percentage of the veg consumed in the U.S., and almost all of the almonds. Like it or not, it just is not possible to take that fact off of the table.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mary-manning-cleveland/whose-water-ours-how-to-e_b_4967944.html

Why? Because California farmers get their water free, or close to free. Any of us who have taken elementary economics should be shouting from the rooftops or blasting through cyberspace: if you make something free, you will get waste and shortages!

California Drought: State's Flawed Water System Can't Track Usage

In California, Agriculture Takes Center Stage in Pollution Debate

California farmers, ecologists square off over drinking water pollution | Greenspace | Los Angeles Times

"Inexplicably, irrigated agriculture remains exempt from requirements to monitor discharges and identify measure to reduce pollution," the groups said, adding that such rules have "long been applicable to every other segment of society..."

Pot farms take a lot of water, kill the pot farms. As much as I hate to say it, we don't really need some of the nut farms in the valley, they take a lot of water.
There have been a few desalinization plants tried in California, San Luis Obispo. really short of water, they have to truck water in, them and the Sierra club canceled the plans for desalinization plants there. The same with Huntington Beach, Monterey built a couple. Baja California has built a few, it works for them, who knew, the Mexicans are smarter than the Californians.
SoCal has always been a desert, the only reason there is green here is because we import water. No matter what happens, it might rain for five years straight but the government of California will still screw the people here, from now on there will be a lot more government regulations that mean nothing but to keep the people under the government thumb.
We were in Prescott Az again a week or so ago, while it was raining heavy in Phoenix, I wish I could get my wife to agree to a move.

How water efficient is California agriculture?

I'd be interested in actual data.

Is it the most water efficient in the world, more than Israel? If not, shouldn't it be?

Absolutely. California agriculture needs Israel farming standards. Also alfalfa to feed cattle for hamburger production consumes large amount of water.

Take the billions being misspent on high speed rail through the Central Valley and spend it on desalinization plants along the coast, then connect new pipelines or aquaducts to the existing network of aqueducts. Realistically nobody really needs the high speed rail, but they really need water!

Just building desalination plants is not the end of the story. Running them is highly expensive. Water from desalination plants costs several times as much as conventional water. And nuclear power has no future because of financial liabilities and unresolved waste problems.

Yup. We no longer let nature take its course, then are shocked when we have immense forest fires. We spend decades preventing little forest fires, all the while building up fuel for big ones.

Please. I can't think of a single group in this nation that gets more free handouts than farmers. The number of tax breaks and incentives given is insane. Want a good tax write-off? Get enough land and plant enough of something to be considered a farm, you'll be showing a net loss in no time.

As for stewards of the land, most farmers will plant whatever they can grow that will make them the most money. If it's a crop that isn't indigenous to the area and requires massive irrigation, so be it.

There is no denying that the tax laws favor those who farm and ranch. The incentive structure, both in direct subsidies and tax policies is well established.

As for stewards of the land, it really depends, I've seen it go both ways. But here there is little irrigation so the range of crops is limited and new farming procedures that are beneficial have been adopted. Farming here has also evolved tremendously in terms of best practices wrt fertilizing, pesticide usage, etc. the state has also been very forward leaning of fertilizer application near the bay and marshes.

Good article below.

Farms are gigantic now. Even the “family-owned” ones. - The Washington Post

To the OP, measuring water usage is the first step in a long journey. I was surprised to read that water usage cannot be accurately tracked.

From an unmanned vehicle perspective, my company is heavily involved in precision agriculture. We are in fact flying a vineyard in Napa in two weeks to begin to establish a cheaper best practices for vineyards in terms of irrigation, soil indices, etc. The goal is to quickly, accurately and cheaply focus on the parts of the vineyard that needs irrigation, fertilizer and other health indices rather than broadcast indecriminately. UAVs will be very important in changing ag practices, saving water lessening the pollution impact of farming.

We are moving out in other ag areas as well.

But, you have to measure usage and price water usage for all...there has to be an incentive for the farmers to adopt best practices. If water is essentially free, good luck changing behavior.

Lastly, an honest assessment of the water infrastructure is required.

If you confused Californians are going to regulate everything that doesn't matter and ignore the most important things that do, then you don't deserve a solution. And I do realize that some on this board do care, but unfortunately your legislative record disagrees.

For farmers, charge them a fixed rate per acre if they don't have a meter. For homeowners, charge them on a formula of home sf times the number of bathrooms. In both cases, move to a metered rate when the homeowner purchases and has a water meter installed. Simple solution.

This has been interesting to read. Not so much because of the topic itself, but because it reveals how little the general population in this country understands the world around them. The OP's original intent was obviously aimed at ag, and what he must feel is a wasteful and unjust system, where a relative few control a precious resource. But he (and some of the others who posted) are truly blind.

It is correct to point out that ag uses many many times more water than residential consumption. Although, the M&I use in California, due to the general affluence of the population and its fixation on a luxurious (water intensive) lifestyle, is much larger in proportion to ag than most other places on the planet. The point not commonly understood is that ag is not the final consumer, but the middle-man in water consumption. When JYL bites into a tomato, he is consuming all the water that went into producing it. When Moses gets the munchies and goes out for a midnight cheeseburger, he is consuming all the water that went into producing it. The farmer just directed it from the source to the crop, to produce the food products that our population consumes. Roughly 2% of our population is involved in agriculture today, so roughly 2% of water consumed by humans (more on that later) is consumed by ag, and the remainder is mostly M&I (urban population).

This is a wealthy nation, with immense economic output. Agriculture is an important part, but numerically in many parts of the country a relatively small component of the economy. So why is it so zealously subsidized? Because all wealth has its underpinnings in either agriculture, or extractive resources. Of those two, ag is renewable. If you are not a farmer, or logger, or a miner, or an oilman you are not producing wealth. You are re-arranging, re-distributing, or somehow manipulating the wealth produced by others. You may be producing a marvelous product, or providing an important service, but ultimately whatever you make or do is only valuable because others produce wealth from the sun and earth. Without ag, civilization stops.

As disgusted as I am with our government and politics these days, I have to concede that there are still some pretty smart people involved in it. There are enough guys at the top that understand, and ag is always quietly supported even when majority opinion appears against it. There is also a significant national security angle. We are a still a net exporter of food. Ag represents income for our nation from beyond our borders, but more importantly gives us a strategic advantage in dealing with many other potential friends and enemies. A nation that can feed others is strong and powerful. A nation that has to depend on others for food is enslaved. California ag is a very large part of this equation. It is a conscious and explicit decision on the part of federal, state, and even local governments to subsidize ag, because it is in the public interest, even though much of the general public doesn't see it.

Ag efficiency is always desirable. You will find very few farmers not in favor of it. But it can be a double edged sword, and sometimes a case of "be careful what you wish for". The irrigation miracle in the Middle East is a remarkable technological achievement. Unfortunately it originated as a desperate measure, and is not sustainable. Israel developed extremely high efficiencies, putting darn near every last molecule of water into food production. The salt left behind will kill them. As California is to the US, Egypt is to Europe. The expansion of Egyptian ag from the Nile valley out into the desert is also similarly doomed. For a time it can be highly productive, but eventually the salt will doom it. California has many areas that could easily suffer a similar fate. Extremely high efficiency (the "drip" systems suggested by some) will hasten that fate, or tip the balance towards salt death in areas that could be otherwise be managed sustainably.

The definition of efficiency is also important. To the general public, it is often assumed to mean doing with less. Producing that tomato with less water, freeing up some of the resource for some other purpose. In reality it often takes the form of producing more with the same or more of water. The ag view of efficiency is 1.5 tomatoes from the same amount of water as before. Or using 25% more water and producing 2 tomatoes. The "efficiency paradox" has appeared in recent years. In some places where investments have been made in agricultural efficiency, wetlands have disappeared and aquifers have started to decline.

Producing food requires a lot of water. But a very substantial portion of the water ag uses is not "consumptive use" and in fact returns to the natural system. The fact compilers (Sierra club, and other enviro groups being prime examples) have a habit of counting all the water that ag handles as "consumption" and do not consider that which is returned to the system. The natural system (forests, riparian vegetation, simple evaporation) also consumes quite a bit of water. More often than not, naturally occurring river system consumption gets lumped in with ag. Another big component of ag "consumption" is water which recharges aquifers. In many areas the application of water to farm ground, or the conveyance system to deliver it there, results in the infiltration of surface water to ground water. Somebody else then pumps it from the ground and uses it. Sometimes this is another farmer, but often it is a city (or individual). It may appear somewhere as a natural spring or seep (many of these are wildlife refuges). So, even more water actually "consumed" by either M&I or the natural system gets incorrectly attributed to agricultural consumption. I'm not saying that ag doesn't use a lot of water. It does. But both the M&I folks, and the Enviro groups do a really good PR job, smearing ag while minimizing the impacts of their own particular interests.

BE911 had the most profound comment in this whole thread. The resource is limited, and there are increasingly more humans trying to use it. I recall maybe 15 or 20 years back a big fight in the Sierra club over population growth. Eventually politics trumped science and they chose to stick their head in the sand over the issue. In my opinion this destroyed any credibility they might have had and missing a chance to address the real problem head-on. There were over 3 billion people on the planet when I was born. I think there are what, some 8 billion now? And I'm pretty sure that the average daily calorie intake for that population is higher now than 50 years ago. We are going to eat ourselves out of existence.

Also thanks to porsch-o-phile for mentioning the "energy-water-nexus". The two go hand in hand. There is no free ride. Energy production is always a trade-off, and generally the trade involves water. But water production (de-sal, or other things) requires energy. Typically lots of it. Which in turn requires more water. Yet we continue to create larger energy needs with an ever growing and more affluent population. We are going to electrify ourselves out of existence too.

For those of you who suggest trucking, trains, and pipelines, do the math on energy required to lift a gallon of water 500 ft, or 5000 ft above sea level. Then multiply that by the gallons used. Then subtract the water consumed by the energy production required by the lift. It will be a sobering equation, matched sadly only by the water-into-corn-into-gasoline-into-politics calculation.

By way of disclosure, I'm not a Californian, or a farmer. One grandfather was a farmer, and I have 3 uncles who still farm in the upper mid-west. I am thankful every day for the 2% of our population who feeds the remaining 98%, and they feed us extremely well. There are bad farmers of course, just as with any profession. They usually don't make it very long. The great majority are good stewards of the land, and carefully care for the tools and resources on which their business depends.

Farming is a business, and I have to say that as a group farmers are some of the sharpest business people I have ever met. They have to be. Economics drive the crop produced. Nuts in California today are the result of market forces, not the farmer saying "hey I like to grow nuts". Crops produced were different a few decades ago, and they will be different a few decades from now, responding to market forces. Alfalfa in the desert is a particularly easy target for the critics, until it is considered as a business driven by markets. Do you realize how much hay can be produced in the desert? It can be hard to produce hay in the lush farmland of Wisconsin. Sure, it grows naturally and beautifully, and in that relatively cool and wet climate you can't depend on a week of dry weather to get it cut, baled, and stored. Maybe you can get one good crop in a summer, two if you are lucky (I'm guessing, someone in Wisconsin correct me)? Out in the desert of California maybe 8 crops per year (again, I'm guessing based on our local climate, where 5 is common)? With irrigation the farmer can precisely control the moisture and nutrient content. Both in the hay production, and the animal feeding end of it, that is highly efficient agriculture for the final product consumed in New York, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

DG

This is a political problem which will be solved by figuring out more ways to import more illegal <strike>aliens</strike> immigrants and by building a high-speed rail line between LA and SF.

Priorities, doncha know.

Daves911L,

Well thought out, concise post. Thank you for taking the time to put down your thoughts.
Continue to be amazed at the diversity of expertise on our board.

I grew up on a farm.
Beef (Angus and Herefords), hogs (Duroc and China Whites) and capons.
My Dad and other local farmers (mainly dairy) had a saying, "don't complain about farmers with your mouth full."

Farming continues to evolve just as any business.
Regionally, the farmers face different challenges and change to become more efficient.
All of the farmers I know show great respect for their land and water resources.
For them to do anything that would negatively effect either would be counter productive.

Matt

Dave911L, mattf,

Well said and I hope everyone posting here takes the time to read Dave911L Post.

What Daves911L said. Well done.

For those of you in CA, most local water agencies will give you for free a "Smart" sprinkler controller. I got one, but found in the "Smart" mode it was killing everything.