Refreshing honesty

"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo) 08/12/2019 at 14:23 • Filed to: None

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Although the part that they leave out is that they are denying farms more water than is necessary to keep the delta from becoming brackish. One of the reasons that SF demands that there be higher outflows of fresh water is that they need it to wash their poop out into the Bay. There is horrible sewage pollution in the Bay from the city, and large freshwater outflows dilute the pollution. So they take water (that farmers already paid for, by the way) to flush that literal crap out to the Bay, and to keep bad test results down.  But it is refreshing to see a publication like Mother Jones wanting to have a real discussion of how to manage our resources.

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So if we are going to have a discussion about pumping water to grow food, then we should probably have a discussion about using that same water to wash away the filth generated by millions of people living in a very small footprint. Big cities are the least green places on earth, San Francisco, even yours. Oh yeah, and you are happy to oppose new dam construction that might capture and store fresh water in our “new normal” of scarcity, as long as no one touches Hetch Hetchy.

MrDakka > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 14:36

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He who controls water controls the universe?

Future next gen S2000 owner > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 14:42

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I’m in the hydro industry, specifically working with fish bypass among other things. I’m pretty sure water is going to trigger a world war at some point.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 14:44

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Big cities are the least green places on earth

Citation needed.

While on a whole cities pump out more waste and pollution, when you look  on a per capita basis they are generally cleaner and more efficient than elsewhere.

TheRevanchist > MrDakka 08/12/2019 at 14:45

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functionoverfashion > MrDakka 08/12/2019 at 14:45

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... who controls the water now... controls the future

dumpsterfire! > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 14:49

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As the saying goes in the American west- whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.

Sovande > MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s 08/12/2019 at 14:49

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Citation needed.

Cash Rewards > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 14:51

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A great book to read is The Water  Knife, by Paulo Bacigalupi. It's fiction, but the future it it takes place in is terrifyingly close

Cash Rewards > Sovande 08/12/2019 at 14:53

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Citation on all counts, but the idea is more mass transit, less carbon emissions, more efficiency. Fed ex going to one building for a hundred packages instead of driving around a neighborhood, for example. I can walk down the street for groceries instead of driving into town. 

Sovande > Cash Rewards 08/12/2019 at 14:56

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That is a good book.  His others are interesting too.  

Sovande > Cash Rewards 08/12/2019 at 14:57

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Understood, I was just being pedantic and pointing out the poster for calling for a citation and then making a statement to the contrary without any citation .

Cash Rewards > Sovande 08/12/2019 at 14:58

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I liked wind-up girl, particularly

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 15:01

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This is has a few familiar overtones to water in NM. Right now, most of NM’s water is used to grow crops (everyone loves their Hatch green chile) in the middle of the desert along the river valleys, with a lesser amount supporting the major population centers (there’s lots of ground water use here, but it’s all hydro logically tied to the river basins). NM law gives these senior agricultural water rights holders priory (along with native american users holding the highest water rights, although quantifying those has been being litigated since the 50's to present in a variety of cases), and their livelihood depends on in it. But, this isn’t a sustainable model for the long-term. There will be increasingly not enough water to go around, and something will have to give. At some point we will have to decide to either stop growing food in the desert, or to somehow depopulate the state’s major cities.

While the agricultural users legally hold the senior rights, I contend that they are going to lose at some point in my lifetime. Whether they finally get stripped of their water rights at the hand of legislative bodies that they are increasingly starting to lose relevance in, or at gun point in some kind of a rebellion, I wouldn’t want to be planning my families long-term future around growing chile, onions or pecans in the middle Rio Grande Valley. After they lose, they’re going to be out a livelihood and owners of a bunch of land that will be primarily worthless.  

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Sovande 08/12/2019 at 15:01

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I knew that was coming lol

https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/04/why-bigger-cities-are-greener/863/

Probably a biased source since it’s the first one I found, but a source

wafflesnfalafel > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 15:22

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W e have had a similar issue up here with Victoria, the capital of the BC province - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/victoria-sewage-treatment-plant-construction-regulations-1.5123974

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 18:15

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This is the space I used to play in. Storages is only viable if there are safe, efficient and effective places to put them, there are sufficient catchment areas and rainfall above them to fill them and punters prepared to pay for the water they generate...and a bunch of other things besides.

It’s this combination of factors that’s behind the reason for Australia not building a water storage of significant size anywhere for nigh on 30 years.

We do however have water sharing plans and a very different approach to water management than in California...still we have scarcity especially now in our current drought.

DipodomysDeserti > ImmoralMinority 08/12/2019 at 23:21

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When you really look at our water situation the world over, you realize that we’re truly fucked, as society seems to ignore the one thing that actually sustains us.

I’m about to start my hydrology program, but I’ll probably continue teaching when I’m done, as no amount of management will help if society doesn’t understand what’s going on.

jimz > DipodomysDeserti 08/13/2019 at 07:07

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Not me. I love the Great Lakes.

DipodomysDeserti > jimz 08/13/2019 at 09:13

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The Great Lakes are a pretty good example. Largest supply of freshwater in the world outside of the ice caps, and there’s old ass oil pipelines running underneath them.