The Official Drought Thread

[falafel]

Join the club.

The Friend with a Boat Club or the I Wish I Had a Friend with a Boat Club?

[Pelado]

The Friend with a Boat Club or the I Wish I Had a Friend with a Boat Club?

Yip.

[fusnik]

You were absolutely correct. It turns out the people I rented from explicitly stated the cut was off limits so me needing to decide was a moot point. But I went to take a peek because I was curious and it looked treacherous. I don't think I would have tried even if it had been my choice.

We had a couple of spectacular days on the lake. The channel was relatively calm and super empty all day Wednesday. Tuesday we went down to Lone Rock and let the kids swim for a bit. Wednesday we spent the morning at dune of spirits in Navajo Canyon and then the afternoon in Warm Creek bay swimming and tubing. We hope to get back to a houseboat excursion next year but I need to get a friend with a multimillion dollar boat.

My good buddy has a timeshare that isnt a timeshare but is a timeshare on a multi million dollar boat at AP. We've done it a couple of times, its legit incredible, but at this point in my life I prefer staying in Page and getting completely off the water.

I hate anchoring, I hate battling monsoons, I hate planning meals for other families, I hate the awkward sharing of communal food and even though there's nothing that beats a calm night on the top of a houseboat, I value the peace I get not having to worry about the perils of LP.

Couple years ago we battled monsoons for a couple of days and I told my wife, this is the last time I'm doing this. The following year, our friends invited us again to which we declined, but rallied with them on the water. The second day a huge monsoon hit early in the morning which was odd, so we audibled and drove to Monument Valley for the day. I value the freedom to do that more than the amazing night I get on the water when the stars are out and its calm.

[Northwestcoug]

This is fairly alarming:

As the planet gets hotter and its reservoirs shrink and its glaciers melt, people have increasingly drilled into a largely ungoverned, invisible cache of fresh water: the vast, hidden pools found deep underground.

Now, a new study that examines the world’s total supply of fresh water — accounting for its rivers and rain, ice and aquifers together — warns that Earth’s most essential resource is quickly disappearing, signaling what the paper’s authors describe as “a critical, emerging threat to humanity.” The landmasses of the planet are drying. In most places there is less precipitation even as moisture evaporates from the soil faster. More than anything, Earth is being slowly dehydrated by the unmitigated mining of groundwater, which underlies vast proportions of every continent. Nearly 6 billion people, or three quarters of humanity, live in the 101 countries that the study identified as confronting a net decline in water supply — portending enormous challenges for food production and a heightening risk of conflict and instability.

The paper “provides a glimpse of what the future is going to be,” said Hrishikesh Chandanpurkar, an earth systems scientist working with Arizona State University and the lead author of the study. “We are already dipping from a trust fund. We don’t actually know how much the account has.”

That's just great. I just bought a house with a well

https://www.propublica.org/article/w...m_content=7-25

[Pelado]

This is fairly alarming:



That's just great. I just bought a house with a well

https://www.propublica.org/article/w...m_content=7-25

Is this peer reviewed?

[USUC]

Water pipelines from large desalination plants on the coasts powered by nuclear reactors?

[Northwestcoug]

Is this peer reviewed?

I'll let our resident water expert judge the merits of the paper that the article references.

[LVAllen]

Water pipelines from large desalination plants on the coasts powered by nuclear reactors?

Environmental catastrophes on the East coast (no point in discussing the West Coast since the Rockies are not friendly the idea) to get water.. where, exactly?

[USUC]

Environmental catastrophes on the East coast (no point in discussing the West Coast since the Rockies are not friendly the idea) to get water.. where, exactly?

This was tongue in cheek btw.

BUT... if we are talking Texas from the Gulf for the central Valley of California, terrain isn't insurmountable. Although the amount of water needed most places probably couldn't be transported via pipelines.

[Omaha 680]

Stop growing alfalfa in the great basin and California deserts. Buy out agriculture water rights in the west and dont resell them. This is an eminent domain issue at this point in the colorado basin and in southern california. I am not minimizing the planning that would need to go into this approach to avoid major disruptions of the food supply chain but shifting away from massive farming in the desert in the 21st century will do more to buy us time to figure out water issues than anything else we could try.

[Omaha 680]

This was tongue in cheek btw.

BUT... if we are talking Texas from the Gulf for the central Valley of California, terrain isn't insurmountable. Although the amount of water needed most places probably couldn't be transported via pipelines.

It's not the terrain it's the elevation change. Moving water to much higher elevations for mass use is astronomically expensive, not only in the capital expenditure but in the ongoing maintenance and power costs to run the pumps that would be needed. Almost anything is possible with enough time and money but massive shifts of desert water usage make much more sense.

[Northwestcoug]

Stop growing alfalfa in the great basin and California deserts. Buy out agriculture water rights in the west and dont resell them. This is an eminent domain issue at this point in the colorado basin and in southern california. I am not minimizing the planning that would need to go into this approach to avoid major disruptions of the food supply chain but shifting away from massive farming in the desert in the 21st century will do more to buy us time to figure out water issues than anything else we could try.

A Manhattan project for future water is absolutely needed. Absent doing it via eminent domain, the amount of money to 'bribe' western US agriculture and the central California valley to stop food production would be obscene.

[Jeff Lebowski]

A Manhattan project for future water is absolutely needed. Absent doing it via eminent domain, the amount of money to 'bribe' western US agriculture and the central California valley to stop food production would be obscene.

Yeesh. You don’t need to stop food production in the Central Valley. Stop growing water hungry foods like almonds (1 gallon per almond) and let the delta smelt die and you would solve the problem overnight.

Change your water laws amd charge a sensible rate for water usage is another way to solve the problem overnight.

I am not at all worried about the US. We will adapt and survive just fine. Going to be a rougher ride for other nations however.

[Northwestcoug]

Yeesh. You don’t need to stop food production in the Central Valley. Stop growing water hungry foods like almonds (1 gallon per almond) and let the delta smelt die and you would solve the problem overnight.

Change your water laws amd charge a sensible rate for water usage is another way to solve the problem overnight.

I am not at all worried about the US. We will adapt and survive just fine. Going to be a rougher ride for other nations however.

Well that's some hyperbole on my part. It does my soul good to drive through the agricultural fields near Salinas. Of course there will be some amount of agriculture there in the future. But the paper raises the alarm of unchecked aquifer use in this era of warming. Apparently some areas in the Central Valley have shrunk 30 feet since the turn of the 20th century due to land collapsing above emptying aquifers.

Yeah, get rid of almonds there and be more smart with water usage. But it still seems like the best days of California agriculture are in the past.

[BigFatMeanie]

In Utah agriculture is the #1 water consumer statewide[1] (I think golf might be #2). Water state-wide, and especially agricultural water, is taxpayer subsidized[4]. For agriculture, alfalfa is the top crop in Utah consuming over 50% of all agricultural water use [1] and is a heavy water user [2]. A large percentage of Utah-grown alfalfa is not used in state but is instead sold/shipped to Asian countries, mainly China [3]

[1] https://utahwaterfacts.com/
[2] https://www.sustainablewaters.org/wh...-much-alfalfa/
[3] https://hayandforage.com/article-338...y-exports.html
[4] https://gopb.utah.gov/waterfunding/#agriculture

So, to sum up Utah is:

• Subsidizing the cost of one of our most precious natural resources
• Using that precious natural resource to grow a water-intensive silage crop in a frigging desert
• Shipping the bulk of that silage-crop to China

We're basically selling off our water to the Chinese. All this is done to "preserve the agricultural way of life and agricultural economy" of the state - basically subsidizing farmers and farms.

Like the Dude says, this problem would be solved overnight if we a) stopped growing water-hungry crops, or b) stopped subsidizing the water used to grow water-hungry crops. Without the subsidies it would be economically unfeasible to grow alfalfa and ship it to China.

I generally like Spencer Cox but I don't like how he perpetuates the myth of "preserving the heritage of family farms" with water policy/law in the state. It's a bunch of BS.