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Elcapinyoazz
Social climber
Joshua Tree
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Rice. Why do we need to grow rice in CA? How about growing it in the naturally flooded/wet parts of the world? Seems beyond silly. But I'm not a farmer, so maybe there's a good reason.
There are weird anomalies in groundwater basins. In the Box Springs/Moreno Valley area (Perris Valley south watershed) the groundwater table is rising at between 6"-3' per year over the last few decades. Over near Lake Perris, it's only at 10-12' below surface at points.
MoVal used to be ag lands, and some of the local entities used to pump groundwater for their water supply. Those wells have been out of service for about 30-50 years and supply is now imported, and the ag irrigation pumping is almost entirely gone. With the lack of pumping, recharge off lake perris, and inflow from the Box Springs area, this little patch of IE desert is going to be a lake in another 20 years.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Tx, Khanom. The 2 key pts in that Hansen presentation neatly summarize what everyone in the field has known for years:
First, nn all of the arid west, beef production is the single-largest user of water. That's where the alfalfa goes. folks usually cite the 2600 gallons of water for each 6 oz steak metric. In Cali, alfalfa now also appears to be going to the new megadairies in the southern San Joqauin.
Second, on a statewide basis, no amount of conservation or tunneling will be enough, even if we aren't (as Lynn INgram and many others believe) in a mega-drought. Ag land is going to have to come out of production.
And that's why the almonds are such a ripe example of the corruption of our water distribution in the state. Virtually all of that almond use on that chart has emerged in the last ten years. Almonds have been going in-- often on land that wasn't getting irrigated-- during the height of a drought. That can happen only because 1. CVP and some of the SWP water subsidizes growers (no one pays anything like market for the water) and 2; folks are water mining. Growers are rapidly pumping the groundwater out of the Sac and SJ valleys in order to export almonds to China.
The acceleration of subsidence in the last ten years correlates almost perfectly with the increase in almond pumping in those areas. We are literally paying farmers to pump the Sac and Sj dry, then we're paying again to fix the infrastructure-- including the publicly subsidized irrigation canals --getting damaged by subsidence. And we're going to pay again when the next flood hits with more damage and greater floodzone because the ground is lower.
I'm not crazy about the way the US has chosen to subsidize obesity through subsidizing irrigation water for alfalfa and massive subsidies for corn for beef feed. But unlike almonds, alfalfa is a row crop and can easily get trimmed back during dry years.
And I don't have any problem, in principle, with pasture watering. I'm more than happy to subsidize open range preservation, especially of foothill and coastal range grasslands. I have no difficulty mounting strong historical and environmental arguments in defense of pasturage in many places in the state.
I also don't have any problem, in principle, with subsidizing, even directly, small family farms and ranches. Frankly, there's no other choice. If farming were actually subjected to the free market, it would disappear, and we'd all starve. The problem is that we are currently directly incentivizing black-market profiteering and rent-seeking of the kind that is dramatically increasing the public debt and putting state infrastructure at risk.
Meanwhile, the nightly news tells you to quit flushing yr toilet.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Barker Dam had water in it on my last visit to Jtree. Your welcome LA.
Don't know what the water level in Barker dam has to do with LA.
Barker dam has periodically gone dry and refilled several times in the last forty years.
It's now permanently dry because about five years ago the dam developed a leak.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Meanwhile, the nightly news tells you to quit flushing yr toilet. I woke up at 4 a.m. this morning with this thought in mind. When I was little during the 70s, they'd tell to put a brick in the toilet, which is almost laughable.
Some thoughts:
I had posted a while up about water use for alfalfa, which is just ludicrous. I had a buddy from college who lived in El Centro, which is pretty much the desert east of San Diego. He said if he ever dropped out of school (he did sadly), that the only thing to do there would be to make alfalfa cubes. From that time onward, I never understood the purpose of growing out there, especially such a water intensive crop.
On a drive back from Vegas a couple of weeks ago, I heard a news story about that city's water use. While the fountains and pools on the Strip seem an excessive use of water, it only accounts for 3% of the city's water use, though 75% of its revenue. 70% of the city's water use goes to suburban lawns.
In LA they've started a program where they pay homeowners $2 a square foot to replace their lawns with a water wise alternative. While that's attractive, most are not going to want to go through the hassle and cost of replacing a lawn, especially since the rebate would not completely cover your costs.
Frankly, if the drought continues as it has, I see politics playing almost no significant role in reducing use. Just too much money and too many interests at stake. Until the State summons the will to appoint a water czar or some similar post with the authority to mandate limits and fine for overuse, everyone will just be arguing about what to do until there's very little left. People may not like dead lawns, but they'd prefer that to being told the have limited allotments for bathing, drinking, etc.
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nita
Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
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February is looking so much better....Lassen Park, 6,700ft.
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John M
climber
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It won't be enough to end the drought, but I'm sure happy about this current storm. Poor Badger Pass though. It looks like the snow levels are really going to rise. Over 8000 feet tonight. I hope that they are wrong about that
Let it snow at Badger…
Badger Pass Webcam
http://www.yosemitepark.com/badger-webcam.aspx
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nita
Social climber
chica de chico, I don't claim to be a daisy.
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Moosie
Looks like the workers are getting it ready to... open tomorrow!!!!..cool.
Great News! We now have enough snow to open Badger Pass Yosemite Ski Area for the winter season starting tomorrow, Saturday February 8th! All downhill runs will be open with the Eagle, Bruin and Badger chair lifts. Badger Pass rentals, dining, sports shop and Ski School will all be available for a fun day of skiing in Yosemite. Grab your skis, board, boots and come on up to Badger Pass! More info here: http://bit.ly/eosWe2
Pretty cool especially since it looked like this on~ Jan 6th
Jan 30th..
dumping rain all day here in C-Town...
Hi Moosie, good to hear from you..(-;....Is Karl in India?
Fatdad, Durning the 70's drought, no showers were allowed at my parents house, only baths. The bath water was bailed and used for the garden veggies and flowers.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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yeah chaz, co, city and homeowner assoc. requirements for lawns are one of the biggest problems in urban areas.
all the midwesterners who moved to california and brought their lawn fetishes with them. worse now, because over the course of the last century, americans have grown especially found of imported grasses that are watered right up to the edge of dying in order to get that particular shade of green that scott & co. hold out as the ideal.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 16, 2014 - 12:52pm PT
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The President was out here last week, preaching how we need to re-think the way we use water.
Then, to demonstrate, he went golfing in Palm Desert.
No problem here, eh Mr President.
Instead of using water to grow food, it's best used to irrigate grass in a desert.
He should have found one of those mostly-dirt links courses to play on.
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Patrick Sawyer
climber
Originally California now Ireland
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 19, 2014 - 08:37am PT
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Okay, I was almost going to start a new thread concerning this issue (and several other related issues) but this thread will suffice.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26124989
NB Be warned, some of the photos are "scary", disconcerting in the least.
California drought: Why some farmers are 'exporting water' to China
While historic winter storms have battered much of the US, California is suffering its worst drought on record. So why is America's most valuable farming state using billions of gallons of water to grow hay - specifically alfalfa - which is then shipped to China?
The reservoirs of California are just a fraction of capacity amid the worst drought in the state's history.
"This should be like Eden right now," farmer John Dofflemyer says, looking out over a brutally dry, brown valley as his remaining cows feed on the hay he's had to buy in to keep them healthy.
In the dried-up fields of California's Central Valley, farmers like Dofflemyer are selling their cattle. Others have to choose which crops get the scarce irrigation water and which will wither.
"These dry times, this drought, has a far-reaching impact well beyond California," he said as the cattle fell in line behind his small tractor following the single hay bale on the back.
"We have never seen anything like this before - it's new ground for everybody."
California is the biggest agricultural state in the US - half the nation's fruit and vegetables are grown here.
Farmers are calling for urgent help, people in cities are being told to conserve water and the governor is warning of record drought.
But at the other end of the state the water is flowing as the sprinklers are making it rain in at least one part of southern California.
The farmers are making hay while the year-round sun shines, and they are exporting cattle-feed to China.
The southern Imperial Valley, which borders Mexico, draws its water from the Colorado river along the blue liquid lifeline of the All American Canal.
It brings the desert alive with hundreds of hectares of lush green fields - much of it alfalfa hay, a water-hungry but nutritious animal feed which once propped up the dairy industry here, and is now doing a similar job in China.
"A hundred billion gallons of water per year is being exported in the form of alfalfa from California," argues Professor Robert Glennon from Arizona College of Law.
"It's a huge amount. It's enough for a year's supply for a million families - it's a lot of water, particularly when you're looking at the dreadful drought throughout the south-west."
Manuel Ramirez from K&M Press is an exporter in the Imperial Valley, and his barns are full of hay to be compressed, plastic-wrapped, packed directly into containers and driven straight to port where they are shipped to Asia and the Middle East.
"The last few years there has been an increase in exports to China. We started five years back and the demand for alfalfa hay has increased," he says.
"It's cost effective. We have abundance of water here which allows us to grow hay for the foreign market."
Cheap water rights and America's trade imbalance with China make this not just viable, but profitable.
"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.
"We need to treat the resource as finite, which it is," he says. "Instead, most of us in the states, we think of water like the air, it's infinite and inexhaustible, when for all practical purposes it's finite and it's exhaustible."
Piles of hay behind 'Product for China only' sign
Alfalfa farmer Ronnie Langrueber believes he's doing his bit to help the American economy out of recession.
"In my opinion it's part of the global economy," he says, adding that only a fraction of the hay goes to China.
"We have to do something to balance that trade imbalance, and alfalfa is a small part we can do in the Imperial Valley to help that."
He believes the whole "exporting water" argument is nonsense - that all agricultural exports contain water - and that there are few better uses for it.
"Is it more efficient to use water for a golf course for the movie stars?" Langrueber said.
"Or is it more efficient for farmers to use it to grow a crop and export it and create this mass economic engine that drives the country?"
Japan, Korea and the United Arab Emirates all buy Californian hay. The price is now so high that many local dairy farmers and cattle ranchers can't afford the cost when the rains fail and their usual supplies are insufficient.
But they have to buy what they can.
Cattle rancher John Dofflemyer certainly sees it as exporting water abroad - he resents the fact hay is sent overseas.
Hay trucks are a common sight heading north up the road from the Imperial Valley - despite the high prices, the cattle farmers have to buy what they can.
Even with recent rains in northern California there's still a critical shortage of water.
Drought is often an excuse for politicians to build dams or reduce environmental controls, but it's no long-term fix.
In those places awash with water - where global trade distorts the local market - decisions need to be made by those without something to gain.
That's where it gets even more complicated.
ENDS
So again, is it a case of big agribusiness sucking up the water or is it more like hundreds of small-time farmers?
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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Feb 19, 2014 - 11:45am PT
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^^^^^^
I can tell you're not in it.
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Splater
climber
Grey Matter
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Feb 19, 2014 - 12:55pm PT
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There is no drought in the dryest desert, the Imperial Valley. As the primary water rights holder to 3.85 million acre-feet, which is most of California's 4.4 million acre-feet per year from the Colorado river, the desert farmers are unaffected by the reality of most. $20 per acre foot is the delivered price that grows the alfalfa.
Cadillac Desert by Reisner is a superb book.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Feb 19, 2014 - 01:12pm PT
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Cadillac Desert is a terrific book. It is somewhat ominous though in that it very clearly discusses the West's limited water resources over the next couple of decades, which is really just a nice way of saying there will not be enough to go around given our current consumption.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 19, 2014 - 01:44pm PT
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I wouldn't be so quick to assign a California (western U.S.) drought to global warming or even climate change. Drought IS THE NORM here. It has been for a long time. Global warming might induce climate change here in California but projection models have been fuzzy on what sort of change... warmer, wetter winters, perhaps. Warmer drier winters not as likely but either way the projections are not solid.
yeah, none of the folks I know and respect who are top-tier climate/earth science researchers are eager to point to anthropogenic warming as the cause of any particular storm or drought (aside from those involving rising sea levels). that said, every major model i've seen for southwest regions (including most of cali) have projected increased volatility but warmer and drier averages. and i don't know anyone who believes that having more carbon in the atmosphere is going to make the next megadrought better than the last one.
the Obama photo-op tour was really painful to watch. Amateur hour climate change speech followed by photo-ops of him golfing on subsidized lawns.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 19, 2014 - 02:16pm PT
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the one way that global warming (and anthropogenic warming) interact with the drought is, ironically, the increased chances of catastrophic flooding.
warmer (and more temp-volatile) storm events are strongly correlated with past catastrophic flooding. and the higher sea levels produced by the polar ice cap melt are putting more pressure both on potential catastrophic flood events and on lowered levels of water in the bay and the delta.
higher sea levels mean more salt water intrusion farther up river, as well as more water available for flood events.
barnette, das, and dettinger have been the leaders in doing that research-- it's really sobering. so far as norcal specifically goes, i don't think anyone claims to have a predictive model that can focus down to that fine of a level, but most of the papers on sierra nevada is actually on the northern end because that's where most of the water comes from.
have you read lynn's book? she's the major figure on recovering and periodizxing the mega-droughts, and the new book is the best review of the lit that i know. it's a popular book, not a scholarly one, but folks can chase the bibliography.
http://www.amazon.com/The-West-without-Water-Droughts/dp/0520268555
our post-literate friends can watch lectures online. time-consuming, less detail, not the way i'd go. but the entire 2007 colloquium on water was youtubed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10TALq2Kirc
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 19, 2014 - 06:16pm PT
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Cattle rancher John Dofflemyer certainly sees it as exporting water abroad - he resents the fact hay is sent overseas.
You wonder if he would be as resentful, if he discovered that he could double his profit by selling overseas.
This is a good thing, having a robust export market. It is good for the economy, and it is good for the country.
Maybe Dofflemyer should consider growing alfalfa instead of beef, which I understand is considerably more water intensive to grow.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 19, 2014 - 06:18pm PT
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which is most of California's 4.4 million acre-feet per year from the Colorado river, the desert farmers are unaffected by the reality of most. $20 per acre foot is the delivered price that grows the alfalfa.
I was at a meeting of LADWP this morning, in which the cost of that same water to the city of LA was quoted as $862 per acre foot.
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