California: Less water, more saving - With the water surplus gone, the state will have to conserve

The Orange County Register ^ | Wednesday, January 1, 2003 | PAT BRENNAN

[BullDog108]

No problemo. I did live in Reno back in 1980 - 81. Have spent many days enjoying the Lake and the Desolation Valley Wilderness.

Haven't heard of Ernie. I don't get out much, tho. I moved here a year before Y2K. The remnants of the cabin are still up on Ruby Ridge. Randy Weaver shows up every now and then at the Spokane County Gun Show and autographs books.

[SierraWasp]

"Have spent many days enjoying the Lake and the Desolation Valley Wilderness."

Ok, you're a good one to ask... What did you think of the other comment I made about storing water in the Desolation Valley Wilderness that could be wheeled through tunnels with generator/pumps to both CA & NV. In your opinion would that destroy any or all of the recreational/spiritual/esthetic value of that protected area?

I also pinged GVgirl here as she was once very alarmed and involved when the local government was dealing rather heavy handedly with that family of young children who wouldn't come out of their home in your neck of the woods.

[BullDog108]

I personally would have no problem with that plan, but it would never happen because of the Wilderness Area designation. Desolation Valley is anything but desolate, it is one of the heaviest travelled backpacking areas in the Sierras. (Altho the little used cross-country path down Horsetail Falls is pretty nice).

Most of the West and East slope watersheds are already heavily dammed. But the Clean Water Act regs require so much to be left to flow into the Delta. And then there is the Peripheral Canal...

California's best bet is desalination/nuclear plants. But it will never happen until all the Greens turn brown.

[SierraWasp]

The Consumnes isn't dammed at all. The So. Fork of the Yuba could use another solar powered time machine and of course the dam for the No. Fork American was never completed although 2/3rds built. I'm not as aware of eastern slope possibilities.

Some people happen to like flat water recreation, clean inexpensive energy and lots of fresh water that has innumerable uses and re-uses, rather than just letting it run back out to sea as usless stuff.

Which do you think the greenies would allow first... Nuclear desalinization or a few more on stream reservoirs?

[Carry_Okie]

California has plenty of water in the Northern part of the state that could be diverted to the Southern part, look at the Russian River, Feather River, all pouring out into the ocean. Only reason it is not being used now is the Greenies.

Water is so cheap in Southern California that there are many communities that don't even have meters. Per capita consumption of water is nearly three times what it is in Northern communities. They still spray the water for irrigation in the middle of the day (when it damages the grass) into hot dry winds. They are using so much it is salinating the soil.

They're used to stealing water from farmers and for once they didn't win. They have plenty, they just have to stop whining and price it correctly.

[BullDog108]

With the greenies I don't think it is an either/or situation. They want nothing less than bringing us back to the stone age and some mythical garden of eden paradise. They don't have any real plans or clues. Utopians all.

[okie01]

"Water is so cheap in Southern California that there are many communities that don't even have meters."

Stunning.

Absolutely stunning.

[GVnana]

involved when the local government was dealing rather heavy handedly with that family of young children who wouldn't come out of their home in your neck of the woods.

Some of my better fund-raising work (if I do say so myself.)

So Sierra. What did you get me into this time? :-).

Dear So Cal,
The Feds giveth and the Feds taketh away. Tough breaks. You need a better contract.

Dearest WaspMan,
Storing water in the Desolation Valley? You're not going to like this, but I'm still heartbroken over Hetch Hetchy. With all this damnable shist and manzanita-covered foothill canyon country going to waste, don't you think if So Cal ponied-up the bucks we'd be selling water if there was money in it? By golly. With all that money, we could afford to become a separate state and God's Country would be Bush Country for sure!

[A CA Guy]

I've been using a lot of water because I know they will ask me to rashion compared to my last year of use.

[koax]

i'll believe it when i see it. in my 20 years here, i've never seen anyone conserve water.

in contrast, denver since the 70s has had a conservation system that works. homeowners can water only on prescribed days, and violations incur tickets.

[lewislynn]

With the water surplus gone, the state will have to conserve

The Imperial Valley, San Diego or Southern California is not "the state".

Water Watch

"Statewide, the department estimates that about 60 percent more water than normal is locked within Sierra snow, the solid reservoir that eventually supplies much of California's water and powers its hydroelectric plants.

Much to the dismay of self loathing Californians and other haters of California/ns.

BTW, you'll notice that the complainers (Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming etc.) have access to the Colorado River way before the water ever reaches California's Imperial Valley.

The Bush administration seems to have an obsession for restricting water to patriotic American farmers...Or maybe they've decided their NAFTA farmers in Mexico need the water more than you.

[SierraWasp]

"You're not going to like this, but I'm still heartbroken over Hetch Hetchy."

I like it fine. I just wonder why Yosemite isn't enough preservation in that area that Hetch Hetchy couldn't be used as is. What breaks my heart is the way SFO just takes their system for granted, just like Sacto who took all our water, gripes at us for not conserving, yet refuses to put in water meters down there while we conserve at great expense!!!

The Hypocrisy is even out of balance!!!

[Timm]

Freedom, when it comes to various goods, is provided by availability and choice. These are sometimes enhanced by larger companies producing and distributing goods, and not by smaller ones. WalMart provides lower prices and greater choice than a small local retailer. Food, again, is produced and distributed by large companies, yet is of high quality and abundant in the U.S. Why, then, should we think that what you are calling "local control" is required for freedom generally?

Water may be different than food, you're right, because of the costly infrastructure in place to deliver water to indoor plumbing. But in this respect water is like local phone service. Local phone companies may be, at worst, natural monopolies. This speaks in favor of greater regulation, but not necessarily in favor of public ownership. And long distance service and other wholesale phone services can be provided privately and competitively. Similarly, large scale water supplies can be privately owned without disaster. Oil and natural gas are so provided at the wholesale level, notice, even where local gas utilities are monopolies.

I'm not convinced that water is a natural monopoly, however, despite the plumbing costs. It might be possible for several companies to lay pipe, just as several private railroads built tracks.

In any event, it's hard to understand the complaint about remote ownership of water as something distinct from a complaint about large companies selling hardware, or, again, food, or whatever.

[hedgetrimmer]

This isn't just about remote ownership, its about FOREIGN ownership, NAFTA, GATT and the World Bank.

Foreign interests don't care if you don't have enough water or don't have clean water. The sovereign people do not have dominion over foreign companies as they do over a constitutionally formed municipal water department. You understand that, but you seem to want to play naive for some reason.

Don't forget in California and the West, "Whiskey's for drinking, waters for fighting!"

[GVnana]

What breaks my heart is the way SFO just takes their system for granted

I know. We have a civilization of people who won't take an axe to a chicken to save their own lives. Our grandchildren may never learn how to tie shoelaces -- let alone how to bait a hook. (But they'll have the SUV!) The cities are not going to protect our backyard. Look at the politics the eco-fascists are shoving at us. We're supposed to be the Bay Area's playground and natural resource cow. Perhaps we should take a chapter from their playbook, and make them pay. On our terms.

[SierraWasp]

"and make them pay. On our terms"

Can't be done until you, or one of your colleagues takes a challenge to the US Supremes to reconsider their 45+ year old "Cows Don't Vote" decision. Until then, we're out-voted and grossly under-represented!

The initiative process puts us rurals at a further disadvantage and the city slickers know they can put a virtual "milking machine" on our resources/property rights and anyother assets we used to be able to control.

It's heads they win and tails we lose!!!