This map of CA doesn’t include Lake Skinner or Diamond Valley Lake. Both are huge and as I understand both are 85%. I’m near both, so no worries. And our water comes from wells at present.
Chicago999444
September 2, 2014 10:24 pm
Too many people and too much agriculture for too little water- even though CA has claims on some of the water in Mead and Powell, as well as many other distant places.
Water subsidized by the taxpayers and sold at a rate far below market to major growing operations- which tells you how the demand materialized AFTER an impressive fleet of large dams and aquaducts were constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation, far in advance of actual need or demand, with the express goal of “making the desert bloom” and making it possible to cultivate land- and build immense cities- in the vast arid west, a place naturally hostile to human habitation and agriculture. BuRec uses the sale of power generated by these dams to offset the subsidized water.
Thus, tens of millions of people were lured to a region whose native water supply could barely support 10% of the population, while the large growers reliant upon irrigation increasingly must deal with soil destroyed by irrigation, and less and less water available to anybody from any source. There just is not enough out there and never will be, and what there is now costs many times as much per person as it would in a part of the country better endowed, due to the steep costs of the water infrastructure necessary.
If you live out there and have a reliable well, and the nearest reservoir is still at least half full, you are among the lucky. If not, I’d clear out now and go grab some good farmland in one of the many midwestern and southeastern states that have ample native water supplies.
This map of CA doesn’t include Lake Skinner or Diamond Valley Lake. Both are huge and as I understand both are 85%. I’m near both, so no worries. And our water comes from wells at present.
Too many people and too much agriculture for too little water- even though CA has claims on some of the water in Mead and Powell, as well as many other distant places.
Water subsidized by the taxpayers and sold at a rate far below market to major growing operations- which tells you how the demand materialized AFTER an impressive fleet of large dams and aquaducts were constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation, far in advance of actual need or demand, with the express goal of “making the desert bloom” and making it possible to cultivate land- and build immense cities- in the vast arid west, a place naturally hostile to human habitation and agriculture. BuRec uses the sale of power generated by these dams to offset the subsidized water.
Thus, tens of millions of people were lured to a region whose native water supply could barely support 10% of the population, while the large growers reliant upon irrigation increasingly must deal with soil destroyed by irrigation, and less and less water available to anybody from any source. There just is not enough out there and never will be, and what there is now costs many times as much per person as it would in a part of the country better endowed, due to the steep costs of the water infrastructure necessary.
If you live out there and have a reliable well, and the nearest reservoir is still at least half full, you are among the lucky. If not, I’d clear out now and go grab some good farmland in one of the many midwestern and southeastern states that have ample native water supplies.