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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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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:50pm PT
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statewide, urban water users subsidize agricultural water users thourhg a variety of obvious and inobvious ways. the most obvious is the differet pricing of water for urban and ag use: urban users pay way more for state water and federal water than do ag users.
in the numbers i have for (i think) 2005, you can see the disparity: the state water project charged major users in the smaller Westlands districts $30/af. Kern Co Water District paid $45/af.
Folks up north (where the water actually came from) around Feather River, were paying $144/sf. And the water that went to the MWD cost $298/af.
Moreover, urban users bear the bulk of the cost of the project-- because the contractors are paid from property taxes collected statewide, and urban land assess higher than ag land and is more frequently reassessed. THe usual figure folks hand out is that MWD has paid about 2/3 the cost of the SWP, while receiving about a quarter of the water. I haven't run the numbers, but they are in the ballpark of what one would expect, given the structure of the deal.
Moreover, since many of the SWP ag clients have export rights, they can take their 30 or 45 dollar water and then turn around and sell it to folks willing to pay that 298. Or they can take their delivery and simply pump the living crap out of the aquifer and then sell that water at market rates. As they mine that aquifer (California being the only state in the union that doesn't regulate that kind of thing), the Valley floor subsides damaging highways, railroads, buildings, and even the SWP canals that deliver the subsidized water. California taxpayers (mostly urban ones) then pony up more dough to repair the damage that the Valley pumpers have inflicted on the public infrastructure.
The real bonus here is that the Central Valley Project-- and the various Colorado Fed Projects, have traditionally subsidized at much higher rates than the SWP.
The biggest, least responsible, and most recent farmers are precisely the ones we've been subsidizing most heavily.
Jerry Brown is going to tell all the urban users to quit flushing their toilets so that we can continue this kind of thing. There are individual residential districts where conservation can have a huge impact, but statewide, more urban conservation isn't going to have that much effect.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Feb 21, 2014 - 12:56pm PT
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Thanks for the information klk.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Feb 21, 2014 - 01:02pm PT
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A quick look at a topo map, Mr Milktoast, will show why none of that water makes it to where I'm at.
I suppose if they wanted to, they could tap into Lake Silverwood and use that water. Silverwood has sufficient altitude. But that would require transporting it across the Santa Ana River / Mill Creek drainage, and there's no point doing that because S.A.R and M.C provide plenty of water.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Feb 21, 2014 - 03:36pm PT
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yeah, wes, that giant sucking sound you hear are all those megawells firing up in the valley.
it's going to be a race to the bottom. the big growers are going to compete to sink the deepest jumbo wells as fast as possible because it's tough to imagine a situation where there isn't some kind of pumping moratorium in effect, maybe as early as this fall, if it gets bad enough. residential and small farm/ranches users who depend on well water could get really f*#ked. half of modesto's water comes from wells, and they're competing with a host of new jumbos.
folks driving to yosemite from the bay area can stop outside oakdale and listen to the sound of the ground subsiding-- the stueves were among those bringing in the new jumbo wells to convert all that old rangeland into almond orchards.
a whole ot of folks in westside sierra drainages are going to get shafted, too, because if you live in a place (like a west-side sierra drainage) where the groundwater below your property flows, it gets treated as riparian and you can get denied the right to drill or expand wells. once that water flows down into the valley aquifer, of course, the almond growers have no trouble getting new well permits to suck it all up.
a lot of rural folks in eastern conco and western tuco are going to feel some real pain.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Feb 21, 2014 - 07:52pm PT
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HO LEE FUK. My bad. I said $678 thousand bucks upthread. No politician, republican but especially democrat ones, can do a $678,000 project, much too small. I should have said $678 million. Crap, missed a bunch of Zeros. I will admit to voting democrat on multiple occasions, and thus my poor math skills no doubt. Apologies extended.
DMT said: Couchy, that Governor Brown announcement is all President Bush's fault. Hhaha! .....Dingus you bastard, I'm afraid with that well placed blame assessment comment the thread is about to go all global warming and "why republicans are always wrong" here, and thus another 20000 posts will be hitting soon. Real mean bitchy self-righteous acrimonious ones too.
You know, typical politics.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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Feb 22, 2014 - 04:15am PT
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hey there say, Ken M... wow, as to the rainfall collecting, wow who would have thought... oh my, it just seems so natural... (i am kind of invisioning those old water-barrel type towers--you know, like on the beginging part of that old 'petticoat junction' show that folks used to watch)...
rain barrels, etc...
here, i was just thinking, after my MOM told me of her trip down to santa maria, with my sis-in-law, to see mom's sister:
she said:
"all the hills were bone dry... just bone dry... it was like an ominous bad feeling, seeing that..."
it made me wish all these PILES upon PILES of snow, could 'at melt' drained into tanker trucks to use for crops, or something, :O
i may not be a calif gal, now that i had to move, due to marriage, first (to south texas--where we did see a few sad bits of drought and dying animals) :( AND NOW to michigan, but my heart still 'knows the feel' and has that worry, concern and compassion for 'how it could be'...
well, it is too sad, it seems about not being able to keep rainwater, however, i will go read the article, at the link, IN CASE i am missing a
'key part' (like if that water, needs to flow somewhere else, that it is needed at???? but still ... keeping some, seems so minor??
thanks for sharing...
oh, say, khanom, yep, please email when you see this...
i know you been busy, :)
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