How ****ed is the Southwest?
 

I'm sure most people heard about the dead dude found in a barrel in Lake Mead. This underscores the crazy drought conditions that have been plaguing the southwest since 2000 or so. Now, **** appears to be getting real real.

Colorado River Reservoirs Are So Low, Government Will Delay Releases
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/03/c...r-drought.html

Groundbreaking Law Requires Businesses Replace Decorative Grass
https://www.nevadabusiness.com/2022/...orative-grass/

Etc.

Any CP folks actively dealing with this situation?

Build cities in the desert


What could go wrong?

I love living in the sunshine state, the Governors a bad ass and the weathers great, Dums come here to vacay, but we have real freedoms which they can’t equate.

Could have done it in a way that made sense for living in the climate instead of big sprawling oceans of pavement

Yep

Not worried.

They'll ration the agriculture and golf courses first before residential, those make up like 80% of the water usage in AZ.

Or we work on desalination at some point.

I ain't moving.

It's probably not quite as ridiculous as building a city on the coast below sea level in a very hurricane prone area

Maybe they should outlaw all grass watering everywhere because it's the biggest waste of water.

Desalinate first.

You are not getting Lake Superior

But I kind of like agriculture. I use it every day.

We're fine, but thanks for asking!

Doing my part with a synthetic grass and rock lawn

Recommended

we'll all be dead in 12 years amirite

yeah because our bags of frozen chicken will cost $1000 a bag by then and we'll all starve to death

If you're interested, here's where science is leading for agriculture.....Finding how to grow the most drought tolerant plants in a place like Phoenix.

This is my best friend from bum-**** Montana. We went to middle and high school together. Now he's a plant biologist looking to save mankind with his research.

https://thepaulilab.com/

Watch the video if you click on the black line about the "wall street journal" at the top.

You don't want to water your rocks. Over a period of several million years the water will erode them.

U ever take head from him?

Whose the southwest? Is this the southwest of America or is this another way of talking about another division labeled southwest?

Somebody was found dead? Why does that mean the southwest (whatever that is) is ****ed

I always get annoyed when I see someone watering their lawn while it’s raining.

Just saw someone doing it in my neighborhood yesterday. I know it’s an automatic timer thing but turn that bitch off if there’s a good chance of rain.

Only thing I ever took from him was his girlfriend once.

Water management in California is terrible. They waste tons of freshwater every year, all in the name of protecting the Delta Smelt.

Desalination, conservation, cycles of weather will change, we'll be fine.

He's talking about Southwest Airlines. They invested in a bunch of seaplanes to service small cities near lakes and rivers - like Lake Havasu - and they had to cancel the whole program due to the water in the rivers and lakes drying up.

They were going to hire sex workers as stewardesses on these seaplanes who were going to provide free oral sex to customers who paid the business class upgrade. One of the hooker-stewardesses was so distraught after finding out that the program had been cancelled that she died of a self-inflicted rattlesnake bite. Her family is suing Southwest Airlines for millions of dollars. That's why the Southwest is ****ed.

To be fair, it wasn't below sea level when it was built.

Couldn't agree more.

There is no reason to water your grass, other than the sole reason of making it look pretty.

You sound convincing, I liked the story

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Agriculture uses almost all of the water but it is actually a fairly small amount of the California economy.

Most Californians will be just fine. But the amount of produce that is available to Americans will shrink and/or will be more expensive.

Practice for moon living. On a serious note, thirsty would be a nasty way to go

You licked your best friend's GF pussy?

What's with you guys in AZ? ;)

Meh meh meeeeh I live in Arizona I can't staaaaaaaand cold weather cuz I'm a bitch! Look at meeeeeee!!!

This.

California has a salt and dumbshit politician problem. Build desalinization plants. You will need to build corresponding power plants to power them, as the state's grid is already overtaxed by lack of adequate power production.

A handful of desalinization plants and supporting nuclear power plants would eliminate this issue. They could then pipe and charge for water sent to the interior agricultural valleys and quit siphoning off of the Colorado river & their decimated aquifers.

Won't happen. They are more interested in building a ridiculous high speed rail through unstable mountain ranges over fault lines, and dumping $billions into shitty bridges that they fail to treat properly and are already rusting away (see: "new" Bay Bridge). :banghead:

Come on, dude. This isn't the place for these types of posts.

Can't build desalinization plants. They are environmentally unfriendly.

At least that is the answer I've gotten before on the topic. Apparently the salt is a nasty thing to dispose of.

Meet me at the Grand Canyon statue, pussy!!!!

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Why can’t they just dump it back into the massive ocean?

I can't stand the boarding groups system and find your seat free-for-alls.

:p

Because most ocean dwelling fish are now on a low sodium diet, according to the Sturgeon General.....

Boooooooo

Ok but I'm bringing Billay!

Most golf courses in AZ use reclaimed water and I’ve heard it’s getting to a point that could be safe for human consumption.

Several companies recently built data storage facilities in AZ that necessitate a lot of water. I’m not worried yet.

I knew lake powell was really low. I know it's low enough there are marinas that are closed and they had to pour new ramps to even access the lake on others.

Maybe we need to drink milk and not water so many almonds this year....

Flagstaff says hi!

It's not so much about water anymore, it is about electric power. Do you want to drink or keep the lights on?

I guess leaving Flagstaff in 1999 was a good move.

Purportedly creates dead zones in the ocean.

I would say unless you owned a Flagstaff house in 1999, because it's probably worth several times more now... but, I'm sure Austin is about the same or even crazier.

Seems like they could dump it in the desert. Or... use it. It's not like salt isn't useful.

If it's the Southwest, put it on nacho chips. Problem solved.

After I water my lawns Im going to pressure wash my driveway

Desalinization plants are economical as far as residents taking showers. But that, contrary to the hype, has never been the issue.

It takes over a gallon of water, depending on which web site you look at, to grow a single almond. Not one pound. Not one can.

One freaking almond.

You can't economically use desal for agriculture.

Wow. If true, that seems absurdly wasteful.

I'm willing to roll the dice

Chicago Had 1 Day Of Sunshine In The Past 43 Days

That's ridiculous. I think I've heard that before, but at what point do we accept that almond's aren't a good use of resources and move to better crops?

Israeli olive and sesame farmers would beg to differ ;)

Yeah, almonds come from seriously thirsty trees. Weed is a seriously thirsty plant. They will need multiple desal plants. Each will require way more power than the CA grid can support, so that means new power plants as well. Ain't gonna happen.

I had a dairy farm by my house until maybe a year ago. A milking cow drinks 30-50 gallons per day. It is probably worse than that due to how damn hot it is.

10 gallons of milk needs 50 gallons of water

Nuclear power plants on the moon. It's going to happen eventually.

I've seen that stat a lot and it kind of seems like a conspiracy from the dairy industry who hates nut milk just to call out almonds.. I mean, I did a quick Google and saw a graphic that it takes a 3rd of a gallon to produce one grape, a few gallons per walnut, a few gallons for a head of lettuce that's like 5 calories.

It makes me wonder how many gallons I use to water my peach tree, because it's a lot and wouldn't be negligible per peach.

So leave my almond milk alone! :cuss: ;)

I only drink human breast milk

It sounds like Waldorf salads are destroying the world.

I wonder how much water a hamburger requires.

First result happens to be from DenverWater.org..

https://www.denverwater.org/sites/de...intChart-1.jpg

I love Southwest Airlines! :thumb: I removed my front and back yard lawns about 15 years ago in North Hollywood, California. Best thing i ever did. Replaced it with bark. Dug up and threw it out then put weed fabric down then the bark. Did it all my self. Total cost was around $2,000 for both yards

Use as much as you want.

Any surplus left over goes to the farmers.

I may have to switch my go-to barbecue from beef brisket to pulled pork. For the planet, of course.

California isn't the bread basket growing wheat. It's the salad bowl.

Lettuce, strawberries and the like are also thirsty crops.

Sure, California could switch to something that uses less water and I suppose wheat would even be an option.

I expect the price of produce in this country to climb faster than inflation in the years ahead.

I know that Israel does use desal in agriculture.

But without researching it, I'm a little skeptical of whether they are really able to do that without government subsides and create a crop that could be exported at market value.

Oh, I'm sure it is subsidized. EVERYTHING there is subsidized. They were a socialist nation and have yet to break free of those shackles (if they ever will).

As for desal, open it up to the market to see what efficiencies can be developed. If there is any chance of making it wildly profitable, and being THE company/entity to fix CA's water problem and have exclusive rights to it for x number of years WOULD be insanely profitable, people will jump on it. Another Elon Musk type (I think he is pretty much DONE with CA).

Prepare to eat thy lawn

I guess if you served 1 pound of vegetables with the one pound of beef, it would average out to 943 gallons of water per pound of food.

One large watermelon is ~20 pounds, so the 21 pounds of food would average 197 gallons of water (apparently equal to a pound of cereal).... so, just eat a large watermelon for every pound of beef and the world will be saved.

How ****ed is the Southwest?
 

I dunno jack shit about The Southwest , but AFC West is ****ed for approximately 12-14 more years.


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How much water to produce a 12 pack of coors lites? Am I being environmentally friendly when I recycle right back into the ground in my back yard?

Here's a naive question about water.

We're a closed system. When we drink water it doesn't cease to exist. We sweat it out or we urinate in jdubya's back yard and it goes into that whole evaporate-rise-condense-fall cycle. So theoretically we should never run out of water; we should just cycle it faster, right?

I guess there are some practical issues. Maybe some sinks into the mantle or gets salty or something. But on the other hand, we know the recipe for water and as far as I know there's a lot of hydrogen and oxygen floating around.

That’s what’s really stupid about the water consumption graph. A steer will use that water and put it right back in the ground, just like your coors lights.

On a side note, I wasn’t aware they sold beer in smaller amounts than 24.

Lots of unnecessary CO2 will be produced to accomplish desalination. Since not a fix, but rather a bandaid, it will need to continue. The only true fix is to match the population with to the available resources. I’d suggest a thunder dome approach to see who gets to stay. Do you think we could get the authorities to televise the event for the rest of us? As long as we are not getting one of our many heavy duty thunderstorm rains here, I should be able to watch it with my satellite dish subscription. o:-)

I think I'm about ready to start a new gladiatorial tournament.

Yea, but some water is more useful than other water.

Requiring houses in my neighborhood to have low flow shower heads and low flow toilets don't serve much purpose.

The water comes out of the Sacramento river, it gets treated, it comes into the house, and it goes down the drain, it gets treated, it goes back into the Sacramento river, and it is available to be pumped south to grow almonds and strawberries. Sure, a little is lost to leaky pipes or shower humidity, but almost all of it gets back to the river.

The water that is used to water a lawn: that water doesn't disappear, but extremely little of it is going to show back up in the Sacramento river (in any reasonable time scale). It is going to turn into grass. Some of it will evapotranspirate. But it's not like you get any rain/precip in the spring/summer watering season so that moisture will blow away.

Now a community that is taking their water out of wells may be a different story, so I realize it is hard to have perfect policy everywhere. But during periods of drought when I hear an advertising campaign saying I should take a shorter shower:

If the average shower uses 17 gallons of water (random google result and that seems high for a low flow shower head). And say that 90% of those 17 gallons of makes it back to the Sacramento river so my shower consumes 1.7 gallons of water (the other 15.3 gallons makes it back to the river anyway).

If I cut my shower in half I save ~0.8 gallons. Not even enough to grow one additional almond...

And that is assuming that the entire 0.8 gallon makes it south, which isn't true. There are losses in the system, so you start with 0.8 gallon in the Sacramento delta but less than that will be available by the time you take it out further south due to evaporation in the canals and groundwater seepage, etc.

11.5 oz x 12= 138 oz

Within a few years environmentalists will have to accept the deleterious affects of diverting 100 million gallons of water per day to a climate that just evaporates it. They will have to drink their own piss. It is inevitable.

I spent a few years in Arizona doing research for the aerospace industry. During my time off I went on day trips to Native American sites. Very cool!

After doing research on why natives left the area about 700 years ago, it was drought. Not just drought, but a mega drought.

There's a pattern of mega droughts repeating in the SW and west coast. A mega drought can last decades/centuries.

Proceed with caution. It seems they are sudden and persistent.

Yeah, I've always thought the same. The problem is that we are too dumb to live and do agriculture in the areas that receive adequate rainfall. We keep stubbornly trying to build cities and farms in deserts.