[quote=barnaby33]Over the course of my short (very handsome) life I’ve watched San Diego go from a massive exporter of fruit and veg to an almost total importer because of the cost of water. It’s not even subtle. That shift while maintaining supply was only possible because oil was cheap. Well now were running out of water and gas/oil/energy are relentlessly climbing in price. A lot of the bleating I hear about cost of living increases is food. That food all has to be imported because we don’t grow it here, why?
– Expensive land
– Expensive water
– Too many people (which is why the aforementioned are expensive)
Maybe dog will bless us and end the drought, but I doubt it. We should probably have a plan B.[/quote]
A Colorado River Doomsday is inevitably going to happen,…
The only way to avoid A Colorado River Doomsday is when elected political leadership and something like 90+% of the public at large admit and understand there are limits to growth (i.e. grasp water is a limited natural resource),… in addition to people taking into account the scientific idea of feedback loops
[quote] …faced with doomsday projections from the Bureau of Reclamation about major reservoirs, officials agreed that harmony has not yet extended to how best to address the shortfalls triggered by more than two decades of drought, which have dramatically constricted both the river’s flows and water storage
…Officials from seven states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming in the Upper Basin and Arizona, California and Nevada in the Lower Basin — spent three days publicly discussing which state or region must bear the brunt of any reductions, and privately deliberated on a multistate agreement.
Faced with a Feb. 1 [2023] deadline to provide an agreement to the Interior Department — and potentially circumvent a federally imposed fix — water managers acknowledged in interviews with E&E News they are still short of a deal.
[quote] In his time at the California State Water Resources Control Board, Max Gomberg has witnessed the state grapple with two devastating droughts and the accelerating effects of climate change.
Now, after 10 years of recommending strategies for making California more water resilient, the board’s climate and conservation manager is calling it quits. The reason: He no longer believes Gov. Gavin Newsom and his administration are willing to pursue the sorts of transformational changes necessary in an age of growing aridification.
[quote] Irrigation accounted for most total withdrawals in the CRB [Colorado River Basin], excluding instream use for hydroelectric power and interbasin transfers, averaging 85 percent from 1985 to 2010.
[quote] With agriculture responsible for roughly 80 percent of California’s water use, many question the practicality of crops that cannot be fallowed and the viability of producing food for export.
