The Official Drought Thread

[beefytee]

Is stopping water use in isolated areas helpful to make water available in urban areas? Are the aquifers that connected that they would make a big difference far away?

[Jeff Lebowski]

Really weird discussion. Why is producing and selling stuff to the Chinese such a bad thing? Walk me through the logic here. It is a big business in the state and it helps reduce our trade imbalance.

[Pelado]

What is alfalfa even good for? Feeding livestock? Anything else?

[beefytee]

Our first home came at the expense of an alfalfa field. It was tough to get rid of the alfalfa when we were putting in off back lawn. Super tough plant. Killing it with round up was fine, but trying to pull it out or dig it up prior to that was near impossible.

[Copelius]

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.

Yet the propaganda has penetrated deeply into the populace. Everytime we drive past a farm being turned into a housing development, I have to hear the bemoaning cries, "But what will we do for food?" and "Where will the water come from?"

I have given up trying to explain that the farms we are seeing are generally the alfalfa types described above and that overall 20 acres of housing development uses less water than 20 acres of alfalfa, because the farm heritage crapola is deeply embeded.

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[Northwestcoug]

Is this peer reviewed?

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

[USUC]

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