13 thoughts on “California And Water”

  2. Interesting, I didn’t know that 80% of the water in California goes to farming.

    p.s. Are you going to put a title on this post?

  3. I probably quoted too much. This article is brilliant with regards to the drought. Again, it’s the coast of California determining what is morally correct while the central valley gets screwed.

    http://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/the-drought-california-apocalypto/

    In the drought finger-pointing, it is now de rigeur to damn “Big Ag,” and to decry the use of water for things like almond trees. But why are almonds less important to our collective lives than are iPhones? Can you eat an app? Drink a search engine?

    If one massages statistics and lumps environmental and recreational use of state and federal reservoir water under “agricultural use,” one then can claim that only 4 to 8% of state GNP is generated by agriculture and does not warrant “75%” of our water usage. Again, it’s the coast determining what is “morally right.”

    But where does “Big Facebook” get its water — if not from far distant water projects? Which is more unnatural, to farm corporate almonds outside of Tranquility where the water table is at 1,000 feet, or to cram millions of people into the arid Bay Area corridor where there is no aquifer to speak of, and thus water must be transferred from the north and east over vast distances to ensure the viability of Big Apple and Big Google?

  4. ” California is running through its water supply because, for complicated historical and climatological reasons, it has taken on the burden of feeding the rest of the country.”

    California didn’t take on any burdens, they engaged in commerce. And talk about being dismissive of the rest of the country, like no other states practice agriculture.

    It should be interesting to see what protectionist measures are taken to insure that California still has cheap food while gutting their agriculture industry. Who knows how other states will respond?

  5. I thought that one of the benefits of stories on the web is that the author could enrich the material by adding links and citations inline to support their statistical claims?

    Specifically, it would have been nice to have references to support the 80% of water to Ag, half of all fruits or nuts (not sure what the “or” in that phrase even means), 25% of all food for the country, etc.

    Further, as a resident of the MidWest, ostensibly the “breadbasket” of the nation, I take umbrage with the idea that California has “taken on the burden of feeding the rest of the country”, as a claim that is specious at best (25% of the nation’s food supply doesn’t sound like the bulk of the burden, to me), and self-aggrandizing at worst. Actually, self-aggrandizing explains everything about that claim now that I think about it…

  7. Is “smelt ranching” something to do with fish? It doesn’t come up on google.

    “The Central Valley takes up only 1% of the landmass of the United States, but it produces 25% of the food we eat”

    I find that claim surprising, wiki has a list of the major US crops by value, none of the top 10 strike me as major products of California.

    In terms of tonnage: corn, milk, soybean and wheat top the table, and I wouldn’t have thought any of those were major Californian products.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States#Crops

    Looking up California, agriculture and mining contribute just 2% the the states economy.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California#/media/File:Gross_Domestic_Product_of_California_2008_(millions_of_current_dollars).svg

    Does anyone know what source and metric the author, Steven Johnson is using?

    1. Is “smelt ranching” something to do with fish? It doesn’t come up on google.

      Nice to know I’ve invented a phrase.

      The article was actually quite stupid.

      I may have to rebut it, but it would take a lot of work.

    3. “Is “smelt ranching” something to do with fish? It doesn’t come up on google.”

      Since Rand didn’t actually answer you, I will. He means all the water they waste dumping into the ocean for the delta smelt.

  8. I would guess at least 10% of my water use comes from washing/rinsing all the recyclables I am required to separate out from the regular trash

    Totally unscientific. Or, maybe it is scientific, in which case I have to wonder if that writer is bathing often enough. Seriously, who would accept that number with zero data supporting it?

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