Vice recently published this video report on the dwindling water level in the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It's interesting viewing.
We've also seen innumerable reports about the drought out West, and the dwindling water levels of the Colorado River and the dams it feeds. All around gloom, doom and disaster reporting.
What bugs me is that the reason for the lack of water is plain to see, out in the open in everyone's faces. Consider these numbers from the most affected states:
California population in 1970: 19,971,069. In 2020: 39,501,653. Increase: 97.8%.
Nevada population in 1970: 488,738. In 2020: 3,115,648. Increase: 537.5%.
Arizona population in 1970: 1,775,399. In 2020: 7,179,943. Increase: 304.4%.
Utah population in 1970: 1,059,273. In 2020: 3,283,785. Increase: 210.0%.
New Mexico population in 1970: 1,017,055. In 2020: 2,118,390. Increase: 108.3%.
Colorado population in 1970: 2,209,596. In 2020: 5,784,865. Increase: 161.8%.
(All figures courtesy of Microtrends.)
That population increase alone will account for a huge increase in water consumption. Add to it the extra water needed for factories to provide employment, farming to provide food, housing construction, and all the other factors that go with increased population, and there's not much doubt about why the Great Salt Lake and the Colorado River are running dry. Sure, there's an historic drought in progress as well, which isn't helping: but with or without the drought, we're simply consuming too much water that isn't being - and probably can never be - replenished by Mother Nature.
How to deal with it? The only way I can see is swingeing water restrictions on domestic and industrial consumption, and investment in more water-efficient methods of farming. There's probably also going to have to be a serious ban on the construction of yet more suburbs to expand yet more cities. Basically, if a developer can't show where the water for his development will come from, and guarantee that it's already there and waiting to be used, and won't deprive others of their water - he doesn't get a development permit. It's as simple as that. The politicians will hate it, because they make money out of population growth (through federal subsidies) and "growing" their states' economies to match: but if they can't provide the water, they don't have much choice in the matter.
This is also going to suck bricks for water consumers. Rationing on a permit system won't work - it's too easy to simply use more water, then apologize, or pretend to have a leak somewhere. The only way I know that will work to reduce consumption is to charge increasing rates per unit of water, depending on how much you use. A basic monthly allowance is reasonably priced; exceed that, and your water bill goes up by the percentage you exceed your allotted quantity of water. If you use 400% more one month, you'll pay four times per unit (or more) as much as you would have. If that doesn't produce enough savings in water use, the surcharges can be increased.
If anyone can see any other way, I'd like to hear it. Let us know in Comments.
Peter
23 comments:
pools, green lawns and golf courses in the desert, clean cars in a dusty land. those places deserve to die of thirst.
A lot of waste water could be recycled into uses which do not require fresh, potable water.
E.g.: domestic toilets could be flushed with used bathwater. A simple reed bed can purify the same so it's fine for irrigation. Shower heads with cut-offs are available - stop the wasteful flow except when rinsing off. More efficient washing machines are available, reducing their usage. Dishwashers are generally more efficient than hand washing plates, so they're already fit for the modern world. Crops which require a lot of water will be unsuitable for dry areas - adjust the subsidies to steer farmers towards less thirsty crops. Etc.
California's Preserve The Fish!!! stupidity must also stop. This has forced water away from consumption by humans and farmers and into the Pacific Ocean instead--all to preserve some damn fish or other.
But there may be a better option: simply remove California from the Union and force them to find their own water supply, not stealing it from the rest of the West.
If you let the market price of water float, this problem will solve itself. Some people (and companies) simply won't move there because their expenses will be higher than they want them to be.
Interestingly enough, farming hasn't increased much in those areas in the last 50 years, and in some of them it has decreased...
The bigger issue is not more people but more luxuries per person - as mentioned above: golf courses, pools, car washing, etc especially in several resort areas in that region. That and environmentalists who waste water in the name of saving something or other.
Historically desert populations have been small to fit the available water; this is an expensive aberration that at some point will revert to the mean (and I say that as someone who lives in the desert and works with water rights among other environmental issues).
It turns out you can't print water any more than you can print more gold.
What cannot continue, will not.
@Dad 29,
You mean all those states that weren't any such thing until 50-100 years later, most of whom still have more livestock within their borders than humans?
Crack a history book: California is "the West".
Most everything between St. Louis and the Sierras are the actual johnny-come-latelies.
Y'all want to move back east of Big Muddy, go on ahead.
Most (75%) of California's water comes from California.
What it takes from the Colorado River is a fraction of what it uses overall. What that feeds is about 1/3 of the demand for the 80% of the state's population that lives in SoCal.
Please, take that water away.
Then all the Other 47's toothless, banjo-playing kinfolk can move back where they came from, and I'm certain both regions will be happier and better off.
In California, the water shortage is intentional.
California does not have "average" rainfall years. It has El Niño/drought or La Niña/soggy rainfall years. On average, there is sufficient rainfall, but the last new reservoir was built in 1980, and there are a few more folks here now.
That despite Prop 1 of 2014 with $2.7B voted specifically for new reservoirs, but they are stalled in "planning" and environmental lawsuits.
As for desalinization? Ask the EPA about the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permitting process. Seems desalinization plants discharge water more salty than they intake.
The YT channel "Real Life Lore" did a vid about Las Vegas relatively recently, calling it "The City That Shouldn't Exist." He pointed out that the water issues plague the entire southwest, though, not simply Vegas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U1TkIdDbRA
FWIW, it's been a very wet winter in Utah this year. In early January I was seeing infographics saying that our snowpack is anywhere from 170% to 200% of normal everywhere in the state. Currently having a pretty solid storm also -- schools are closed, business are doing remote work, my daughter's math tutor won't be coming today, etc etc, so anyway, hopefully the water situation will be a little better this year, at least.
Yes. The days of freedom of movement, to move permanently to a new home, or even to tourist travel, with the government’s permission are coming to an end.
No one can visit Vegas unless another visitor leaves; likewise with permanent settlement .
Like air travel. If there ain’t a slot for your arrival, you can’t take off.
This problem has been foreseen and discussed for over a century.
Politicians have known about it for that long - they chose to ignore it, knowing they'd be out of office when the problem couldn't be kicked down the road any further.
Those few politicians who have tried to do something about it have tried to take water from others to give it to cities, see, for example, the multi decade attempt to take water from Northern Nevada for Las Vegas.
Ed P. Those super-efficient washers need more electricity to run, because loads agitate longer (two to three times, based on my observation.) To make that power requires water, unless you use solar, and that's intermittent. Can powerplant water be recaptured? It should be, in my opinion, but I don't know enough about how modern plants work to know how.
TXRed
As suggested above, using non-potable water for other purposes, including watering plants, etc. would go a long way toward easing water usage. Planting more water-wise landscapes would help; most water usage in suburbia comes from trying to achieve Astro-turf perfection in lawns. Also, many western states are moving toward allowing water catchment residentially, which should have been happening 50 years ago. I'm working on my folks to turn our gutters into a water catchment system, as it is now legal to do so.
It would be nice if the Californians stopped moving here, stressing our water supply to the max. Maybe our unusually wet winter this year will scare them off. I doubt it.
Planting native grass lawns (lots of improved varieties with leaf structure and durability similar to popular introduced/invasives) and native trees, or xeriscaping, or native wildscaping all serve to reduce water use by at least 30-40%.
Add in rainwater harvesting strategies -- slow, spread, and sink rainwater that falls on you property combo-ed with above should reduce irrigating water use further, by 80%+. The "rainwater harvesting for drylands and beyond" is a great series for practical techniques for such. Its author, Brad Lancaster on youtube vids and maybe books (can't reference, loaned to a neighbor) estimated that water falling and running off the arid AZ city where he lives (Tuscon) is greater than annual water use of city so capturing it would both provide for all water needs and recharge groundwater -- effectively highlighting the need to treat water as a resource to keep around as long as possible, instead of a nuisance to get rid of ASAP.
There are a variety of more advanced techniques involving livestock (and rotation between species), soil building, creating/exploiting micro and macroclimates including by/for food forests, companion planting of fruit/veg crops and trees, etc.
The food-water-energy sustainable ag nexus is a really basic way to understand much of this -- and maxing efficiencies of natural processes is much more prudent than all the current focus on artificial "green energy" (just for starters, chickens are how God intended to convert insect protein into edible protein for humans, same for grass via rabbits, sheep, cows, etc., and trees and brush via goats, etc.)
There are solutions to this -- but not top-down gov't ones; mega projects won't solve, so since not profitable to elites and cronies prob won't be encouraged or enforced...
When it rains in SoCal all the water flushes into the ocean. Cut California off from the Colorado river and make them keep and store their own water. The other thing is 90% of the water is used by farming and industry. You can have everyone stop watering their lawns but it only is 10% of the problem.
Shut down immigration entirely, and deport all illegals, and we have zero problem with water resources. Seal the border, sink the ships, execute the coyotes and traitors. Problem solved.
One answer will set all the Lefties in the West screaming off a cliff like Thelma and Louise, but its the only option I see.... desalination plants run by Thorium reactors. Everyone gets nutz when you say " nuclear ", but there's no way otherwise.
Build new desalination plants, and make Mexico foot the bill.
A really good source that explains the problem is the book "Beyond the Hundredth Meridian" by Wallace Stenger.
They did just that in Portland. And every year the hippy paper would print a story about the biggest water users and the fines they paid. Multiple repeat winners!
What's funny about Portland is that they actually have plenty of water. A century ago the city founders set aside an entire forest, the Bull Run Watershed, to provide water. Until recently they didn't even filter or treat it.
The biggest water users should actually be called the biggest financial supporters of the water system.
Don in Oregon
How about importing water from where there is plenty of it: Canada? If you can build a pipeline for oil then you can build one for water. Build the thing far to the east of the fault lines, of course.
Keep in mind that increased water prices for farmers, means increased food prices.
As a farmer, I adapt to increased costs of production by producing something different - which may not be your favourite food. What I won’t do, is keep on producing food at a loss.
Eventually, the market will find a new level. Less food at a higher price. Just think about what that means. Food riots? Higher taxes to pay for increased welfare? Your superannuation suddenly not paying for everything you want?
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