As if anyone actually needed another reason to move out of the crazy state of California, now it is being reported that conditions in some areas of the state “are like a third-world country” due to the multi-year megadrought that has hit the state. In one California county alone, more than 1,000 wells have gone dry as the groundwater has disappeared. The state is turning back into a desert, and an increasing number of homes no longer have any water coming out of their taps or showerheads. So if you weren’t scared away by the wildfires, mudslides, high taxes, crime, gang violence, traffic, insane political correctness, the nightmarish business environment or the constant threat of “the big one” reducing your home to a pile of rubble, perhaps the fact that much of the state could soon be facing Dust Bowl conditions may finally convince you to pack up and leave. And if you do decide to go, you won’t be alone. Millions of Californians have fled the state in recent years, and this water crisis could soon spark the greatest migration out of the state that we have ever seen.
Back in 1972, Albert Hammond released a song entitled “It Never Rains In Southern California“, and back then that was considered to be a good thing.
But today, years of very little rain are really starting to take a toll. In fact, one government official says that conditions in Tulare Country “are like a third-world country”…
Near California’s Success Lake, more than 1,000 water wells have failed. Farmers are spending $750,000 to drill 1,800 feet down to keep fields from going fallow. Makeshift showers have sprouted near the church parking lot.
“The conditions are like a third-world country,” said Andrew Lockman, a manager at the Office of Emergency Services in Tulare County, in the heart of the state’s agricultural Central Valley about 175 miles (282 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
As California enters the fourth year of a record drought, its residents and $43 billion agriculture industry have drawn groundwater so low that it’s beyond the reach of existing wells. That’s left thousands with dry taps and pushed farmers to dig deeper as Governor Jerry Brown, a 77-year-old Democrat, orders the first mandatory water rationing in state history.
The mandatory water restrictions that Governor Brown is imposing are going to be very painful for a lot of people. We have just learned that some California communities will be required to cut their water usage by up to 36 percent…
Californians are going to have to start preparing for a dry summer as the dehydrated state prepares for a water crackdown.
In a somewhat controversial move, California water officials drafted a set of mandatory conservation regulations outlining varying degrees to which communities will be required to cut back on water use, ranging from 8 to 36 percent, depending on their history of water consumption.
The regulations — slated for approval in early May — are part of California’s first-ever attempt at mandatory rationing. Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order requiring a 25 percent reduction in urban water use, a historic step in a series of measures aimed at conservation ahead of the state’s fourth consecutive year of drought.
And of course it isn’t just the state of California that is dealing with drought.
All over the southwest United States, we are seeing conditions that we have not witnessed since the days of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
In fact, the water level in Lake Mead is now the lowest that it has been since those days, and it is expected to drop even lower in the months ahead…
One of the most stunning places to see its impact is at the nation’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, near Las Vegas. At about 40 percent of capacity, it’s the lowest it’s been since it was built in the 1930s.
“Just to see the rings around it, it’s just … kind of scary, you know,” says Darlene Paige, a visitor from New York. She’s standing at a vista point above the Hoover Dam on the Arizona side of Lake Mead.
That “ring” is the infamous bathtub ring around the rim of the reservoir. The levels have dropped 140 feet over the past 15 years, exposing a white stain on the gravelly brown mountains above the water. The level is forecast to fall an additional 10 feet by this summer.
According to the Government Accountability Office, it is being projected that a total of 40 U.S. states will be dealing with a shortage of water by the end of the next decade.
It has been said that “water is the new oil”, and this is just the beginning. The truth is that as bad as things are here, we are actually in far better shape than almost everyone else in the world to deal with the emerging global water crisis. All over the planet supplies of fresh water are disappearing, and the availability of water is going to increasingly become a major geopolitical issue in the years to come.
And even now, the U.S. government is taking all of this very seriously. In fact, the EPA is already trying to train our kids to take showers instead of baths…
Parents across America who struggle to keep their young rambunctious kids clean now have a new obstacle: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As part of its effort to help save the planet from the dangers of taking too many baths, the EPA’s WaterSense program is trying to convince kids they should avoid bathtubs in favor of showers, which it says is a far more efficient use of water.
“To save even more water, keep your shower under five minutes long—try timing yourself with a clock next time you hop in!” the “WaterSense for Kids” website says.
For most of our lives, most of us have been able to take water for granted.
But now things are changing, and we are going to have to adjust to these new realities.
It is NOT the climate’s fault we are using more fresh water than the earth can/has provided in our SouthWest.
The freaking hubris of us is a sight to behold.
Once again we have the cart before the horse and declare the symptoms the illness.
Dry wells are because major water-needed agriculture is being grown in an environment that CANNOT support itself.
And their solution is to cut the people’s usage while continuing the farce of growing subtropical/tropical plants that require HUGE amounts of water in the middle of a desert.
This is a MAN made problem being blamed on everything except that.
Starvation and want maybe the only things that could truly, really, hope to fix what is wrong with us, this country.
Until then continue to believe that man cannot only control other men, he can control the very plants of the earth and cloud and weather of our skies.
We have totally forgotten the lesson of the story of Babel. Forgotten or totally misunderstood. So it goes…
TE,
Most of the rainfall in California is wasted and allowed to just run off into the ocean unused.
There is really no natural American agricultural zone that does not require trapping and storing water to use for crops and people outside of the East Coast and some coastal areas further down south. The great plains and west are naturally arid lands for the most part, which is why the plains Indians were nomads.
What we need is more realistic water management and less greenie foolishness running (and ruining) things out of some kind of perverted self hatred of mankind.
FWIW, since you bring up Biblical reference, Dominion over all the earth and all of its plants and animals was given man by God at his creation. Dominion over other men was not, that was reserved to God himself, something man seems to have come to ignore.
@Anon
What percentage of the world’s sweet oranges are grown in California? Of which 70% are grown for juice which is yet one more “healthy” thing that is both bad for the environment and our bodies.
Where did the sweet oranges originate?
I cannot find a reference on percentage of world’s crops, but needless to say it is a huge one.
Oranges are plants that grew in more temperate regions with MAXIMUM rainfall. The most common sweet orange came from the Azores, where they get up to FOUR times the rainfall as is common in the orange groves in California.
Dominion doesn’t give us the right to be idiots and bend the rules of nature/physics.
Besides, that was an OT thing and Jesus was pretty plain in stating the old rules had been corrupted by men and no longer had to be adhered to.
Hubris Anon, nothing but hubris to believe a couple hundred years of breaking the natural laws will equate to forever it being so. Reversion to mean is always a bitch.
I just don’t want these people coming to my state. They fucked up California, I can imagine them migrating to other states and fucking them up.
Let’s build the fence!
TE- Orange juice consumption is one of my favorite rants. Back in the day, orange juice was served in tiny little glasses at the breakfast meal only. (sometime in alcoholic beverages) Nothing spikes the insulin levels like a huge glass of OJ. I warn the kids to drink it in very small amounts or it would be very injurious to the body.
TE, juice oranges are grown in florida and brazil, not california
Well, no, climate change has nothing to do with it. It’s government’s fault, right?
Without regulation, all would be great… and well, without regulation (whatever that is) there would be no California in the first place…
Alex
Get ready for the dry tsunami. The gov to bail fanni and freddy so the waves of people from CA can purchase new homes all over the country. Viola’ new housing boom.
Dutchman says: I just don’t want these people coming to my state. They fucked up California, I can imagine them migrating to other states and fucking them up.
No one wants your sister or your state.
Re: Dutchman says:
I just don’t want these people coming to my state. They fucked up California, I can imagine them migrating to other states and fucking them up.
The people that ruined California came here from New York in the 1960s, and started leaving in the late 1980s once the job was finished. They’ve already moved on – mainly to Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas – to the places they are destroying right now.
California does not have any problems that deporting 20 million de facto illegal aliens wouldn’t solve.
All those nut cases are going to go somewhere to consume your or our resources and then tell us how to live. please rain. A lot. Keep them there
I hope all these people fleeing California take great big shit right in Admin backyard .Philadelphia,specifically 30 blocks. Poor blacks and a Godzillaion poor Hispanics.
I’ll sit back and watch the fireworks.. Give him something else to write about.
I must have missed an article somewhere. ‘Orange juice, the silent killer’. WHAT? Are you off your rockers? Now OJ is bad for you? Please. Cut off your fingers. Stop typing. You are insane. Bat shit crazy. Lord have mercy on this country.
Anonymous, whoever you are, great post
@Anon,
California must let at least 40% of its water run right off into the ocean – California has no choice.
See, if you do not continue to push the ocean out, that salt water can begin to work its way inland both above and below ground. I live in a small beach town and I have a neighbor that works for city water management and he explained that our overuse of our fresh ground water was allowing it to go brackish as the ocean works its way in. He explained that rivers are channels that can go both ways.
“‘Orange juice, the silent killer’. WHAT? Are you off your rockers? ” — starfcker
Try this: Get 6-8 juice oranges … you’ll need that many for a glass — squeeze ’em, and set aside. Get a glass of the best store bought orange juice you can buy. Do a taste test. The store bought stuff will taste fake … because it is.
The juice sold in stores juice is squeezed and stored in gigantic vats. Then they remove all the oxygen. Why? Because removing oxygen from the juice allows the liquid to keep for up to a year without spoiling. Woohoo!! But! Removing that oxygen also removes the natural flavors of oranges. It also doesn’t do the vitamins any favors. So in order to have OJ actually taste like oranges, drink companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make perfumes for Dior, to create these “flavor packs” to make juice taste like, well, juice again. Fuckin A !!! That’s why a Minute Maid OJ will taste EXACTLY the same, no matter what time of year you get it, and no matter what kind of oranges they use.
“Why Your Orange Juice Is Slowly Killing You” —— here,
OOOWWWWW. Nickel, stucky, you guys are making my head hurt. Lucky for you you have those nifty tin foil hats. Wouldn’t look right on me, my friends would laugh. Stucky, my family on my mom’s side have been growing oranges for longer than I’ve been alive, and selling them to tropicana in bradenton. They’re just oranges, simple, wonderful food
tropicana fresh squeezed is just that. One ingredient. Orange juice. You’re going to send me to some retards website that says drinking OJ will make you fat? The moron keeps interchanging OJ and corn syrup as if they are the same thing. Stupid. I’m 54. I’m not fat. I drink plenty of OJ. I don’t drink any corn syrup. Figure it out. Maybe I will get the hat
Stucky says:
“‘Orange juice, the silent killer’. WHAT? Are you off your rockers? ” — starfcker
Try this: Get 6-8 juice oranges … you’ll need that many for a glass — squeeze ‘em, and set aside. Get a glass of the best store bought orange juice you can buy. Do a taste test. The store bought stuff will taste fake … because it is.
The juice sold in stores juice is squeezed and stored in gigantic vats. Then they remove all the oxygen. Why? Because removing oxygen from the juice allows the liquid to keep for up to a year without spoiling. Woohoo!! But! Removing that oxygen also removes the natural flavors of oranges. It also doesn’t do the vitamins any favors. So in order to have OJ actually taste like oranges, drink companies hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that make perfumes for Dior, to create these “flavor packs” to make juice taste like, well, juice again. Fuckin A !!! That’s why a Minute Maid OJ will taste EXACTLY the same, no matter what time of year you get it, and no matter what kind of oranges they use.
“Why Your Orange Juice Is Slowly Killing You” —— here,
_________________________________________
Yes, of course. Fresh squeezed is always the best quality. Industrial processing is for those who don’t happen to live in Orange producing areas or who can’t afford to purchase fresh oranges for juice. Do you hate the poor?
Here are the facts. Preserving orange juice on an industrial scale requires deactivating the pectin enzyme, as well as killing yeast and mold in the juice. This requires heat treatment (pasteurization of some form). Rendering the juice more economical to transport requires concentration (water removal) which can be accomplished by several methods but the most common is evaporation. Since flavor compounds have a lower boiling point than water, they are lost first, but can be recovered and added back to the juice. This is why juice from concentrate is less tasty than fresh, but the nutritional content of both is similar. This is true of all fruit juices.
If you want to be a food snob and can afford to be, fine. But don’t blame industrial scale technology for creating and distributing products like orange juice in an economical form to the masses, even in god forsaken places like Canada.
Stucky, I don’t drink orange juice for the nutrition anyway, I get most of my vitamins from diet coke and Heineken. I do believe that eating as much fresh food as possible is the best you can do. Whatever it is. Last week someone compared chipolte to mcdonalds. Not even close. Chipolte is grilling real hunks of meat, and mashing avocados, right in front of you. Mcdonalds is frozen something delivered in a box
Kalifornia has enough water for a billion people. The states population has doubled in the last 50 years yet there hasn’t been one new reservoir nor water canal built in that time frame. Plus, the Nazi enviro judges are diverting 100’s of millions of galleons of water to a few bait fish. Droughts are common in the west and this is a totally man caused disaster.
Rainman……
Right on rainman. No new reservoirs. But they are building a gazillion dollar train from nowhere to nowhere. Save the baitfish. Liberalism is a mental disorder
I hear Chicago is in dire straits for a few extra taxpayers and they have plenty of water.
I don’t see how anyone knowledgeable would do the underwriting right now, give legal opinions, etc… What is the revenue stream that will pay these bonds back? Can’t be property taxes. No state help. City population shrinking. This is meltdown unfolding before our eyes.
A Frightening Week Awaits CPS and All of Chicago – WP Original
http://www.wirepoints.com/a-frightening-week-awaits-cps-and-all-of-chicago-wp-original/
By: Mark Glennon*
There’s no point in sugarcoating this. The financial crisis at the Chicago Public School District may come to a head this week, and the impact will extend beyond the school system. A CPS bond sale is scheduled for Tuesday, which is widely seen by financial markets as a test of whether it has a pulse. Here is a summary of key points from various sources:
• CPS is just about out of cash, and its cash could be entirely wiped out on 48-hour notice, according to the Sun-Times. Specifically, the banks owed on $228 million of swap agreements have the right to demand it with that two-day notice, which would just about deplete CPS’s cash reserves, unless a negotiated settlement is reached.
• CPS’ structural deficit is horrendous and ongoing. In its most recently reported year, it had a loss in net position of over $1.1 billion with an operating fund deficit of $513 million, and that’s on just $5.4 billion in total revenue. In addition, its pension’s unfunded liability grew by over $100 million in the last reported period, despite higher employer contributions and good market returns. Its unfunded liability stands at $5.5 billion and it’s 53% funded.
Fine! Drink your fuckin’ orange juice!
Fruit juice — even if the only ingredient is an orange — is more calorie-dense and has far less fiber. Two oranges have about the same number of calories as a cup of orange juice … but about 12 times the fiber … and more phytochemicals as well.
Call me nuts, but it seems logical that eating calories is better than drinking them. It also tastes better and you stay full longer.
No doubt fruit juice is better than soda and a lot of other shitty drinks. But, I just intended to point out it is NOT some magical cure all. Those infomercials about the ‘power of juicing’ .. which supposedly detox the body (no, the liver does that!!!) and cures everything from cancer to soft dicks …. is a bunch of fucking crock of shittery.
The reason there has not been one new reservoir built is because every site in CA and the west that can support a dam, already has one sitting on it, and every half- decent site has been built on, too. You cannot build these complex structures just anywhere where you happen to have a deep canyon and steep drop, especially if the cost of building the thing, then piping the water where it is needed, will too far exceed what people can afford to pay for it.
As it is, there are over 1400 dams and 1300 reservoirs in California, and many are stunningly uneconomical, costing the taxpayers many hundreds of dollars per acre foot for water that is made available to end-users for a fraction that cost. Building yet more water storage in the west may amount to the same thing as paying $200 a barrel to recover oil that can be sold for only $50. Many of the projects built since the 50s pay back only because they generate power, the sale of which partially offsets the cost of projects that could no way justify themselves economically otherwise
It just may be cheaper and easier for everyone, especially the taxpayers of the U.S., which have paid for most of the largest dams, to relocate to areas which are better supplied with the resource to begin with.
“a bunch of fucking crock of shittery”
People born on 2/27 are smart fuckers.
Stucky- FWIW your post was absolutely correct. Fruit juice is crap no matter if we are talking about orange or any other type. Any juice should be consumed within ten minutes of the juicing process or it will oxidize. Maximum enzymes and vitamin content only last a very short time.
Juicing is very beneficial to the body.