Schwarzenegger declares drought emergency.

[Tim McG]

As I said before, we rely solely on irrigation to water the crops during the growing season. That would be when the rain doesn't fall at all. It is bone dry during that time. Dams and water tranfer via canals allow California farmers to grow their crops. Not rain.

The easy answer is to make jokes about Californians watering their lawns.

Just reading all this in puzzlement ... Can somebody fill me in on the actual and unavoidable link between watering PRODUCE grown by farmers for general food consumption and watering LAWNS as a personal luxury?

If you are short on water, limit it to the essentials. I daresay watered lawns aren't essential (at least not compared to water used for agricultural purposes). And that just MIGHT ease the situation ...

I'm not seeing the connection either, BB Steve.

I sincerely fail to see the connection between water for working farms [in the millions of gallons] which provide produce for this Nation/World and the insignificant amount of water it takes to green a lawn.

Perhaps someone with a better understanding of how farming works in California can explain it better.

Edited March 5, 2009 by GoodSpeak

[Tim McG]

As I said before, we rely solely on irrigation to water the crops during the growing season. That would be when the rain doesn't fall at all. It is bone dry during that time. Dams and water tranfer via canals allow California farmers to grow their crops. Not rain.

The easy answer is to make jokes about Californians watering their lawns.

Just reading all this in puzzlement ... Can somebody fill me in on the actual and unavoidable link between watering PRODUCE grown by farmers for general food consumption and watering LAWNS as a personal luxury?

If you are short on water, limit it to the essentials. I daresay watered lawns aren't essential (at least not compared to water used for agricultural purposes). And that just MIGHT ease the situation ...

You are not understanding.

There is no connection between watering a lawn and growing produce for an entire Nation or the World.

The levels of watering aren't even close to being compareable.

In short, with all due respect, you simply do not know what you are talking about.

Edited March 5, 2009 by GoodSpeak

[Big Beat Steve]

Then let me put it this way for you:

1) I did NOT dwell on the pricing aspect because I do not have an opinion and certainly not enough information on that matter. Besides, it would not be the only industry where consumables are priced much lower for producers than they are for consumers (cf. energy costs in a LOT of countries and industries). So the issue is wider one. And it also includes the aspect of whether you are willing to accept that lower pricing for producing industries is worth it because you want the produce that uses and needs that water. If you do, fine (but introducing saving measures to limit the effects of droughts might still make sense). If you don't, move the production where it really can be said that "food grows where water goes" (as you said), i.e. "where water GOES" and NOT "where water has to be carried piggyback". A drought is still a drought.

2) I did NOT say at all that the water use for irrigating agricultural fields and for watering private lawns is on the same level. BTW, do you have actual figures that underline the relationshsips of the consumption levels of the two "consumer groups"?

3) But if there is a drought then there is a drought and water needs to be saved. Because if water is in short supply it is in short supply for everyone. And limiting water use to really IMPORTANT use (defining what's important is something I'd leave to others but watering one's lawn sounds pretty unimportant to me in such a shortage situation) does not sound like the worst idea to me in such a situation - and even in urban areas there are bound to be more important uses than watering one's lawn - and I know my water bill DOES go up if I do lot of watering of my not so huge lawn during dry summer spell here. So in all logic every little bit should help, especially if you multiply the "insignificant" amount of water used watering ONE lawn by the certainly not quite so insignificant number of people who do this. Of course watering one's lawn would probably be only one such aspect. Washing your private car out in the street would be another one (if that is still legal there) - and sprinkling sidewalks too, of course.

4) Or is it that you insist on continuing to satisfy your own petty everyday whims (such as dousing your lawn regardless of whether insufficient water is available) on the premise that the "big users" are elsewehere and "what I do on top of this doesn't matter"? Or is it a "way of life" that you insist on keeping up? If everybody did this where would you be? Or is it that everybody DOES this and that's why you are where you are?

With all due respect, I doubt that I do not know what I am talking about (such shortage situations have occurred elsewhere too, you know, much closer to here, and the politicians' reactions on what water use to outlaw have been similar too), but are you sure that YOU are up to the task of contributing of easing that situation if what you said above describes your stance on EVERYONE contributing to saving water?

Edited March 5, 2009 by Big Beat Steve

[Adam]

I know a decent amount about water in California, having researched it a while ago for a class with mike Davis, but I've forgotten a lot.

Anyway, some elements:

1. Agriculture uses much more than lawns, but sometimes vast quantities of water are used to grow water-heavy crops such as rice & alfalfa in areas that are basically deserts. I think this is silly. But CA is the largest produce grower and has vast area of superior land for growing such things, and great climate for it as well. Not easy to just transfer all that production to other regions that have such things as cold winters.

2. Water rights go back to original claims to water, which are usually controlled by agricultural interests that go back 100 years or more. Much of what you get these days are cities charging their customers more to buy the water from the farmers.

3. Most of that city water for Southern California comes from the Colorado River. But the demands on the Colorado are so great now, due to the growth of Vegas, Phoenix, and so forth, that there isn't even water left for California to take all of the amounts that it used to take. and the Colorado is close to dry by the time it reaches Mexico, but it's a key source for northern Mexico as well. And it has nothing left by the time it reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

And CA has signed a more recent treaty with other western states about water. but the treaty is based on expected Colorado River levels which are proving to be unrealistically high.

Drought conditions are not really determined by the amount of rain, but by the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada.

las Vegas really used far too much water for a place built in a desert.

Lawns will be the first to go, then full swimming pools, then some farm lands. Ground water supplies are already toast, as in most of the USA.

Climate change will probably make things worse.

In the long term, we're probably screwed. :-)

But more seriously, fresh water will be one of the key global issues of the 21st century.

I'll think of more soon. The class was over a decade ago.