According to Gov Abbott, by a bill he signed recently nobody needs a “water break” anyway.
This is a very tough issue. Everybody needs water. Most aren’t going to vacate Arizona to please the Navaho.
There are real villians in the water rights war, but that depends on your perspective. I think the worst offenders are the farmers of California’s central valley, especially the Amond farmers. But they would disagree.
The only way to deal with a limited resourse issue is to increase the resource. That is only possible if the coastal cities adopt desalinization. That requires a lot, I mean a lot, of energy. Find the energy and the water problem can be solved. Anything less than increasing water is going to mean somebody is going to be short sheeted.
We all know how dangerous this no water breaks bs is now.
Abbott still approved.
Isnt it the cruelty with these mofos!?
Just guessing here, but I’m guessing agriculture in the Central Valley will be forced to move before any solution for enough water is found. Desalination can work for coastal cities, although as you point out the energy requirement is intense, which doesn’t help with climate change mitigation. It’s also a local environmental problem with the salt and mineral waste products from seawater.
For the Central Valley, an additional problem would be having to pump the water from the coast uphill and over the intervening geography, a massive energy and infrastructure requirement. That’s a lot of pumping stations.
Central Valley farmers have squandered their water for years. The problem is they want to continue their same wasteful practices, like flood irrigation.
For example, it takes 3.2 gallons of water to produce one (1) almond. However, 50% of flood irrigation water — the method used in almond orchards — is lost through evaporation, etc. So in reality that single almond actually took 6.4 gallons to produce.
And that’s just one almond. Do the math and it quickly becomes nuts!
If San Joaquin Valley almond growers converted to drip irrigation their usage would be reduced spectacularly, and they’d likely also get better yields. Same goes for grapes.* But they don’t want to.
And therein lies the biggest problem: BigAg has brainwashed the farming community to believe they don’t have to change; legacy farmers are not much better at adapting.
Water rights are archaic and complicated. Until they’re reformed, they won’t get anywhere near sustainable.
*Grapes are the second largest California cash crop at $5.23 billion; almonds are third at $5.03 billion (2021).
A few thoughts on that:
All of these things probably will require engineering breakthroughs, but engineering skill is something we have
Cover the canals with solar panels!
I have seen photos of exactly that. Slows evaporation and provides energy.
The point is the Arizona is not trying to conserve their water by restricting use on a nearly worthless crop.
This one caught my eye. The Romans used tunnels in their aqueducts, and various cultures in S. and Central America over a millennia ago. Maybe it’s time to revisit the old to advance to the new ways?
Sure, but it costs money. For all the bitterness of the Westen water wars and all the hundreds of thousands spent on litigation, the annual cost of water to senior rights holders is far below the actual value. Until we fix those externalities, there’s no way the senior water rights holders will invest in sensible infrastructure upgrades and no way water will be used in anything like a rational manner.
Abbott, as well as all the other cruel assholes who run Texas could care less about anyone who is not in cahoots with what they are doing to this state. I will be leaving this hell hole next month to move to New Mexico. I cannot wait to leave.
Despite my username, I live in Colorado CO-3. I supported Adam Frisch who was within 500 votes of Boebert. Next election, I plan to post some altered signs that say “FREEDUMB”.
Why is the “Navajo Nation” (fake!) trying to go against the time-honored tradition of the white man to take whatever land and resources they want in the fulfillment of Manifest Destiny?
Arizona to the Navajo Nation - “Go back where you came from.”