Sierra Snowpack 2015

Page Not Found

I assume this is the map being referenced?
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/01/us/water-use-in-california.html

But isn't residential use trivial compared to industrial and agricultural use? Domestic use in the U.S. is <10%, whereas agricultural use alone is almost 40%, and thermoelectric plants consume another 40% or so. I always thought that prohibiting me from watering my lawn was farcical when welfare farmers are buying water from the Bureau of Reclamation for pennies an acre-foot.

(Clearly, I am engaging in hyperbole, but you get my point.)

I agree Dean, and first brought this up in the thread. Conservation on the individual level is great but to take from the those that use the least so that the highest users can continue turning a profit, while subsidized by us – seems outrageous to me.

"whereas agricultural use alone is almost 40%, and thermoelectric plants consume another 40% or so. I always thought that prohibiting me from watering my lawn was farcical when welfare farmers are buying water from the Bureau of Reclamation for pennies an acre-foot."

I can see where farmers might have priority, given that we all have to eat. That said, I also think they should be held to extremely strict standards for efficiency in the use of the water. To me, this means not growing water intensive crops in areas of low precipitation, thinking rice and cotton in the CA Central Valley here, mandatory use of drip irrigation for all row crops and orchards, priority given in water allocation to those who grow for the domestic market. They should also be charged market rates for the water they use-no subsidies. The quid pro quo for this approach is that end consumers will pay more for their produce and grain. A related health issue is that consumers would probably turn to rice produced in Louisiana and Texas, which contains very high levels of arsenic, due to the land where it is grown formerly being used for cotton, which was heavily sprayed with arsenic based pesticides. No easy answers there, because rice grown in CA contains less arsenic, as does rice grown in India.

"I can see where farmers might have priority, given that we all have to eat"

I would agree if most of the water went to growing the crops we eat here, instead of specialty nuts or as here on the coast, Brussel spouts that are shipped out of state. Small time farmers that grow for local consumption, as some CSA's , will be hit much harder than big farms that contributed to local and state wide elections.

almonds

> A related health issue is that consumers would probably turn to rice produced in
> Louisiana and Texas, which contains very high levels of arsenic, due to the land
> where it is grown formerly being used for cotton, which was heavily sprayed with
> arsenic based pesticides. No easy answers there,
I fail totally to see why this should be hard to manage.
The EPA exists, the FDA exists.
Just set mandatory legal thresholds for contamination on foods for human consumption (and check produce!).

No, of course it is not really that easy – politics and big-Farm will intefere. But today, with easy access to data through the internet, citizens CAN force the system to act. All it takes is will-power by citizens.

Get with it.

Cheers

I have an idea. California produce farmers can set a price of their products in terms of gallons of water. The Illinois consumer pipes so many gallons of water to California, and then they get their Brussels Sprouts or whatever.

–B.G.–

"I fail totally to see why this should be hard to manage.
The EPA exists, the FDA exists."

ROTFLMAO You seem to forget, Cher Roger, that we have the best government money can buy; and Big Agriculture most definitely has the money. ;0))

Roger, have you spent anytime at all in the good ole' USA? Do you get all your info from the news?

Yes Big Ag consumes a lot of water today. Yes many Southern Calif towns get their water from NorCal rivers.

But this is all the result of decades if not a century of wrong headed public policy out of Washington and Sacramento that encouraged settlement and high water use agriculture in low rainfall regions of the American West.

I recommend Mark Reis's book Cadillac Desert.
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition Paperback – June 1, 1993
by Marc Reisner (Author)

The US is way behind in saving water consumption. Germany – where there is no water shortage whatsoever – has a daily per capita consumption of 121 litres. Most European countries have similar numbers. In the US average water consumption is more than double than that: 295 litres (and some statistics quote an even higher water consumption than that….)

In Germany the average water consumption has been steadily declining over the last decades. Reasons for that are higher water prices and the introduction of water efficient EU standards for dishwashers, washing machines and even toilet flushes. And it has worked. If Europeans can do it, Americans could do it, too……

"Reasons for that are higher water prices and the introduction of water efficient EU standards for dishwashers, washing machines and even toilet flushes."

Yup that's a lot of what drives that. Same goes for gas. Every time I drive across the border to Canada, it seems like I see a higher percentage of fuel sipping cars.

I suspect we won't change our behavior until we really start paying for our water.

" If Europeans can do it, Americans could do it, too……"

actually, we ARE doing it… at least some of us…

got to remember though the Euros are socialist countries compared to us 'Merican rugged individualists… makes it a bit harder to get us all in 'lock-step'.

Besides, we shower every day. Euros don't :)

billy

Last year at this time our water usage for a house with a yard and 3 adults averaged 145 gallons per day. Our latest water bill, same house and adults, shows average use of 80 gallons per day. That's 27 gallons for each of us for a month, less than a gallon per day each. Granted we do buy some drinking water from a machine at the grocery store, but it's still pretty low water usage. We aren't the gluttonous Americans you all want to believe in. We have fruit trees, too.

Piper.. that's obscenely water frugal… dang right un'Merican I'd say…

Maybe you guys should take a shower more that once every two months :)

billy

Seriously… Piper, you're doing a great job with the water… can you tell please us all the things you do (or don't do) to get your water consumption down so much???

thanks,
Billy

"Last year at this time our water usage for a house with a yard and 3 adults averaged 145 gallons per day. Our latest water bill, same house and adults, shows average use of 80 gallons per day. That's 27 gallons for each of us for a month, less than a gallon per day each."

Uhh, do you want to check this? It doesn't compute.

–B.G.–

Check out the NY Times article: California Drought Tests History of Endless Growth

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/us/california-drought-tests-history-of-endless-growth.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

Just to update the big picture:

Hiked in from the Ostrander Lake Trailhead, since Glacier Point Road is now open. Only tiny patches of snow visible all the way to Grouse Lake, where we camped. Not a single mosquito–but it was cold! Water frozen in our bottles overnight. We decided we'd rather sleep in a warm cabin than a snowbank near Buena Vista Lake…so headed back out the next day.

Here's a shot of Chilnualna Creek, to give you an idea of the flow:

[img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-EAKv3K834m8/VSCHLM2T9XI/AAAAAAAAyG4/vbmTNoLY8z0/s640/IMG_0344.JPG[/img]

As some of the first people on the trail, we saw a lot of downed trees, but nothing that kept us from staying the course.

Now let's hope that this next week brings us tons of rain and snow…

"'Last year at this time our water usage for a house with a yard and 3 adults averaged 145 gallons per day. Our latest water bill, same house and adults, shows average use of 80 gallons per day. That's 27 gallons for each of us for a month, less than a gallon per day each.'

Uhh, do you want to check this? It doesn't compute.

–B.G.–"

^Reminds me of computer code that just stops when it encounters an error. Here's the clean version for those of us who don't have built in error remediation. ;)

Last year at this time our water usage for a house with a yard and 3 adults averaged 145 gallons per day. Our latest water bill, same house and adults, shows average use of 80 gallons per day. That's less than 27 gallons per day for each of us.

Rain and hail here today. We'll take it.

sorry drew!

you got Grossed Out ™.

(but without needless nitpicking, no needless nits will be picked, and then where will we be?)

I don't think Bob was nit picking. The text posted didn't make sense as written. If you're going to get into flaunting the number of how low a water consumption you have, you should get the numbers right… other wise you are misleading people.

Billy