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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:01pm PT
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Anybody that actually makes a living, or
Gasp!
a profit at it.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:08pm PT
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klk, taking my tongue out of my cheek for a moment, I understand your points, and generally agree.
What I was responding to more, was Chaz's position that he can use all the water that he wants on his land, but someone who owns other land should be held to another standard. We're all in this together.
The one way that I agree with that position is that I think that new construction should incorporate all the engineering advances possible, particularly when they involve little/no cost, or can even save the homeowner many many dollars over the life of ownership. For example, I'd require all new construction to incorporate level I and II graywater capture. I'd require all new homes to incorporate infiltration of 100% of rainwater from a 1" storm.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:11pm PT
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ken, no, i didn't misinterpret the graph. it begins in 1970, which was close to a tipping point for urban growth in the inland empire and sd. the stagnation or per capita decline in the graph is mostly a function of ag land getting converted to urban/residential. that growth was partly driven by the completion of stage 1 of the swp.
the graph is a time plot-- what you posted is a recent asynchronous slice-- i don't know the year or source.
and i'm not saying no one should conserve water. in certain distrcits, especially in the sierra and sac valley foothils, there are urban/residential districts in deep, deep trouble that will pull through only with drastic conservations. but in most of those cases, that's because the local water is getting bogarted by older or richer ag users who they and we are subsidizing.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:15pm PT
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Just one more thing to throw into the mix:
Reduced water usage in homes also translates into reduced sewer runoff.
The effect of this conservation can be considerable. In LA, for example, there had been planning for increasing sewer treatment capacity in line with population growth. But something happened.
Conservation.
As a result, that extra capacity did not have to be built, and will not be for the foreseeable future. It has saved having to spend approximately 1 BILLION dollars by the City of LA. True, in the big picture of spending in the state, that is not a lot, but it is a lot for the 4 million ratepayers in LA.
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John M
climber
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:16pm PT
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Anybody that actually makes a living, or
Gasp!
a profit at it.
sometimes they make a profit because they are subsidized by others.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:24pm PT
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What is "commercial" and "corporate" agriculture?
hi gene, that's actually a really good question. tgt's answer, anyone who makes a profit at it, isn't much help. no one in california or any state west of the 100th meridian-- and many fokls east of that-- makes a profit from farming without massive governmental subsidies. west of the 100th meridian, virtually all farming requires irrigation. irrigration requires large-scale political co-operative agreements, massive capital investments in infrastructure, and a variety of other subsidies
i used phrase like "commercial " or "corporate" ag in my posts to separate out folks like the resnicks, (who own paramount farms, in the southern sj, the world's largest almond and pistachio farm, a publicly subsidized megafarm that buys public water at below market rates, exports almonds to china at market rates, and uses the surplus to fund local republican candidates, diane feinstein's re-elections, and the resnick's own plutocrat lifestyle), from folks like chaz who are basically urbanites with a backyard that has avos and maybe veggies or some scruffy horses and chickens.
the reason i use those phrases is because cali ag was the world's first example of industrial ag, and we can't use phrase like "family farm" as easily as we once used them back in kentucky.
most of california's ag production comes from farms of 1,000 acres or more, which regardless of their organization, means publicly subsidized water irrigating luxury crops tended by imported armies of 3rd world landless serfs.
edit--
yeah, ken, both la and the greater mwd have actually been pretty good at water management. that's why chaz is right to be steamed about all the "conservation" bullshit that's about to hit the airwaves. urban/residential users-- who already massively subsidize san joaquin ag-- are being asked to quit flushing the toilet so that the resnicks can buy publicly-subsidized water below market and resell it at market for a profit. i'm not opposed to sending checks to farmers but let's just f*#kin do it.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:54pm PT
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klk,
I'll grant you that this stuff begins to get complex.
But some of these towns actually face having to truck water in, because they have no source available much longer.
They can conserve what they have severely, or they can look forward to the prospect of paying 1000 times as much for trucked in water. (based upon the average cost of MWD water of $862 af, compared with $1 million per af for bottled water.
personally, although MWD and LADWP have done a spectacular job of planning, and have abundant supplies (for now), we don't know what is going to happen. I would prefer that we institute some significant changes in rate structures to reward people who are conserving REASONABLY (not the crazies only), and really stick it to the people who are wasting huge amounts of water. I'd settle for it being revenue neutral, but it would be even better to raise capital to accelerate programs that would protect and insulate the region from further drought. The worst that happens is that we free up a lot of water that becomes available for agriculture, which drives the economy of the state.
I think the ag situation is shameful, but it is hard to understand how exactly to fix it.
I'd require farmers to use BMP's in water usage to be eligible for a lower tier rate like they have now, and reserve that tier for farms under 1000 ac. The next tier would be for larger farms that use BMP's, and the highest tier would be for large farms that use bad practices, if any water is left over.
(for the audience BMP=best management practices. Example might be drip irrigation)
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 20, 2014 - 10:58pm PT
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KLK writes:
"no one in california or any state west of the 100th meridian-- and many fokls east of that-- makes a profit from farming without massive governmental subsidies."
There are two ways the citrus and avocado farmers where I live get their water:
#1: From Bear Creek in the San Bernardino Mountains, via a 100+-year-old gravity-fed system of pipes and flumes delivering water directly to the groves. This system serves my neighborhood. This system pre-dates the government, and is privately run to this day.
#2: From a well on the grover's property.
( I guess a third way would be a combination of the two )
No one I know irrigates their grove with municipal drinking water. Even if they did, the city water comes half from the Santa Ana River / Mill Creek, and the other half from groundwater via wells. None from any further north than Big Bear.
Massive government subsidies? Where?
There's no way we can use the water from the Sierras here, or water from the Colorado River either, because water will not flow up-hill.
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bergbryce
Trad climber
South Lake Tahoe, CA
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:13pm PT
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I just happened to read a few of these comments and chaz's is an easy one to explain. that's because the farmers you are referring to represent about .00000001% of agricultural production in California. The mega farms that represent the other 99+% lie in places like the Central Valley, Salinas Valley, Inland Empire, etc and all those are entirely dependent upon water that comes from somewhere else and cheaply.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:14pm PT
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There's no way we can use the water from the Sierras here, or water from the Colorado River either, because water will not flow up-hill.
chaz, i can't speak to this post, cuz i don't know where yr at. there is a tiny slice of farmers-- who reprsenet even a tinier slice of total ca rpdocution-- not recieving subsidized water and not mining in ways that clusterf*#k the tax[ayers. but they are so small in number that none of us talk about them. yr neighbors might be examples. good on 'em/
again, 70-80% of all water state wide goes to agricultre at subsidized rates. and massively subsidized.
the exceptions are swell-- i'm all for 'em. khanom seems to be one. and one of the reasons i continue to post in these threads to an audience that includes folks who think water runs "downstream" from shasta to la, is that in the current conditions, we are going to see a frickin apocalypse for small ranchers and farmers who represent the old cali lifestyles and who engage in responsible ranching/farming and who help to create the kind of landscape that we need to have a functional democratic order.
longterm, the water is going to go from ag to urban. it's been going that way, the urban folks pay for it, and there's no other imaginable actionable political future.
the problem is that if we continue as we are, in the short term, we stand a real chance of destroying the small farmers, ranchers and mixed use folks. We are increasing the subsidies for folks like the resnicks and other westlands water hogs and encouraging more water mining of the kind that costs taxapyers a jillions more dollars to repair the infrastructure it damages.
geologically speaking, there's no trouble,. what the resnicks are doing is going to stop. but none of us lives in geological time.
if you or your neighbors are mwd, or live in a district that sometimes buys from mwd, some chunk of yr water is getting pumped over the 'tachapis' courtesy of the swp-- indeed, the main reason for the swp was to enable the kind of growth in the inland empire that local drainages and the co river couldn't support.
edit for typing.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:42pm PT
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#1: From Bear Creek in the San Bernardino Mountains, via a 100+-year-old gravity-fed system of pipes and flumes delivering water directly to the groves. This system serves my neighborhood. This system pre-dates the government, and is privately run to this day.
#2: From a well on the grover's property.
So what you are saying is a system that captures water off of public land, which would otherwise drain down into public aquifers.
From a well on private property, that accesses water that is NOT below the owner's property, but sucks water in from farther out.
Both are subsidized systems.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 20, 2014 - 11:49pm PT
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Look up the history of the Big Bear Lake water system. Tell me where the government subsidised anything.
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krahmes
Social climber
Stumptown
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:41am PT
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So what you are saying is a system that captures water off of public land, which would otherwise drain down into public aquifers.
From a well on private property, that accesses water that is NOT below the owner's property, but sucks water in from farther out.
Both are subsidized systems.
I don’t really see how you make the reach to call it subsidy. To subsidize is to support an activity financially.
Here’s the link to wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy
To my mind, using the term as you all use it, sounds like a propagandist trick to try and demonize a segment of society so you can justify imposing what you think the social order and water distribution should be.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 21, 2014 - 01:16am PT
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From your link:
A subsidy is a form of financial or in kind support
To pump water on your property to pump water that is NOT below your property,but from surrounding property, including public property, and to have that be legal, is to subsidize the capture of water that is legitimately yours, with water that is not yours.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 21, 2014 - 01:18am PT
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Tell me where the government subsidised anything.
The water coming down that stream is coming off of public land, and is public water. The gov't is allowing you to have that water for free. That is a subsidy.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Feb 21, 2014 - 01:20am PT
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Re: Big Bear water:
Water Demand
Since 2001, the annual water demand has been reduced 30% through an aggressive water conservation effort by the community
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 21, 2014 - 01:22am PT
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Ken M writes:
"The water coming down that stream is coming off of public land, and is public water. The gov't is allowing you to have that water for free. That is a subsidy."
Not in this instance.
Do your research, and you'll see how wrong your post is.
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John M
climber
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Feb 21, 2014 - 01:25am PT
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Do better research, and you'll see how wrong your post is.
come on Chaz.. just say what you mean. this hunt and peck stuff is for the birds.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Feb 21, 2014 - 11:18am PT
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There's no way we can use the water from the Sierras here, or water from the Colorado River either, because water will not flow up-hill.
Wow, you just insist on keeping that biblical mindset, don't you?
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:25pm PT
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look closely at the pic, and you can see bluering and the chief canoeing "downstream" to LA, documenting all the major reservoir sites that big government has been hiding form the farmers.
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