Re: Ca. folks in for serious trouble???
Lipp, are you suggesting that trying to build cites and grow crops in the desert is DUMB? You may have something there...
All I know is I flew over the pictured reservoir two or three years ago and when I seen this photo I couldn't believe it was the same place.
No I don't think it is dumb, dumb doesn't have enough teeth, growing things in an area where they do not naturally grow is dumb, mother nature has been at this for a long time, maybe we should learn from her. The Imperial Valley is a huge area of excellent agricultural potential, problem is there isn't enough water, so Mother Nature doesn't grow much there naturally, go figure..
The Southern California area has out grown its natural resources(water) so they need to get it from somewhere, The Colorado River isn't the answer anymore, Tapping the ocean is the only answer that doesn't effect anyone else, it is an untapped natural resource with enormous potential, as Boathooked stated this could be the end of California as a a single state.
But if you really want to look at wasteful practices check out Las Vegas, a city that size in the middle of the desert, Yeah it is a beautiful city, they make the most of using water multiple times, no natural rivers or ground water, if Mead hadn't been built Las Vegas would never have reached the size it is.
I know it's not popular to use the words "climate change" but it's getting harder to pretend it's not real. I was kind of surprised when the US military said climate change and the loss of fresh water resources is one of it not the biggest threat to US security in the next decade.
Climate change is a reality, get over it, Mother Nature changes continuously, I do not subscribe to Man made Global Warming, I do believe we need to limit the greenhouse gasses we produce, but I also believe that Mother Nature will adapt, what we cannot do is change Mother Nature, she is simply to powerful she will do whatever she wants and wink at us in the aftermath. I do however believe we need more storage capacity, we need more lakes, store it when it comes, I have no doubt that those dry lakes in California will fill up again someday, people need to limit their use, don't like it, move.
Build a city in the desert and it will grow until it can no longer support itself, increase pricing will help, stop trying to artificially support it. Growing produce is another story, much more use of Water, meanwhile we are paying farmers in the greenbelt of our country to not grow. We as a nation need to be smarter in how we produce the products we need as a nation.
A long time ago water rights ruled our nation, to me it is no surprise that we are now back where we were 100 years ago, arguing the same points.
I always go back to this story about Mother Natures power, as most of you know I am a Wildland firefighter, we worked the Black Forest fire for 4 days, the most destructive Wildland fire in Colorado History, we had multiple heavy air tankers, the third largest helicopter deployment in US history to drop water on this fire that destroyed 500 homes and over 18,000 acres.
On the fourth day of the fire, Mother Nature came in and dropped 13 million gallons(I would love to see how they figured that out) on the fire and killed it in 2 hours.
We have to be smarter. It drives me nuts that there are so many people out there that cry foul when we want more storage capacity, and then whine that we have a water shortage, what hypocrites, you live in a desert for god sakes.
opcorn:
