Carly Fiorina blames environmentalists for California drought

Politico ^ | 4-6-15 | Kendall Breitman

[Vaquero]

Carly Fiorina is blaming liberal environmentalists for what she calls a “man-made” drought in California

[9YearLurker]

She’s actually been right and articulate about pretty much everything she has been asked about or given a speech on.

She’s only polling around 1% and many of those who know who she is don’t like her because of HP, but she may well get her day to shine given how mature and insightful her responses are to about anything.

[Vaquero]

to quote the late Sam Kinison....(edited for language)

You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don't send them another bite, send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, “You know, we've been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn't BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS! YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A F***ING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING'S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it's gonna be 100 years from now? IT'S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A F***ING DESERT! We have deserts in America, we just don't LIVE in them, a**holes!”

well he was wrong about Americans not living in deserts

[bt-99]

There is water within 50 miles of the vast bulk of the California population. Its called the pacific ocean. They can build 50 state of the art desalination plants for 1 billion each. At 4 cents a gallon they are unbelievably profitable. If they would just get the environmentalists to stop blocking their construction and let private enterprise charge what the market demands for water the problem would fix itself.

[erlayman]

Well the country was an exaggeration but in California alfalfa and hay and pasturage account for approximately half of all water used in the state.

[samtheman]

Cabinet post in a Cruz/Walker administration.

[Vaquero]

and that feeds the animals that feeds US.

[agere_contra]

Israel is largely a desert. It supports its population by using desalination plants - by using human ingenuity and the workings of the free market.

The environazis in California (on the other hand) actively refuse to allow any solution to the water problem. This is why it is not being solved.

Socialism and Environmentalism are unsustainable - because they refuse to allow human ingenuity to function.

[erlayman]

But it isn’t something environmentalists should be supporting was the point, and arguably not anyone but that is a different issue.

[Paul R.]

well, so far as the fish go, I’ll bet the fish in the lake appreciate that.

Instead of tearing down the dam, build a salmon run & have the best of both worlds.

Idiots...

[9YearLurker]

Unfortunately, they’re all bad on illegal immigration—which will do in the country.

[NorthstarMom]

“I suggest it’s a conservative principle to not initiate settlement or agricultural patterns that are not sustainable in the long run. It’s the “progressive” mindset that believes we can or should ignore the constraints of the real world”

Bingo...my husband has been saying that for years.

[outinyellowdogcountry]

In every Communist dictatorship they force the people to leave their land and move to the city where it is easy to control them. Then they have a famine because no one is working the land. Most recently Venezuela for example. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

[rjsimmon]

The drought in Cali started in 1963 when the Aqueduct was started. Draining the farmlands of the central valley so Los Angelinos could have pools was foolish.

[BlackAdderess]

I think the drought is God’s way of breaking up a toxic gathering of people, and the bad news for us is they will have to go somewhere. Nobody climbed up those mountains and stole the snowpack.

[Ben Ficklin]

"No major water infrastructure has been completed in California since the 1960s due to environmental obsessions"

That is partially true

But you need to be more specific.

The enviros have very specific tools that they use to block dams:
Endangered Species Act(Nixon)
Clean Water Act(Nixon)
California Environmental Quality Act(Gov Reagan)

Also, financing is a problem.
Prop 13 makes it harder to raise money
The federal govt reduced spending on dam building. For many, many decades beginning early in the 20th century the feds heavily subsidized not just the dams but also the irrigation projects that distributed impounded water to the growers. Prez Reagan played a big role in reducing the federal money.

The third and biggest reason is that California already has 1400 dams so most all of the good locations to build a dam already has a dam. So the cost benefit ratio is higher on new dams. More money per gallon impounded.

[Paul R.]

Average rainfall in CA is 23”/yr, according to the LA Times. Let’s figure humans can collect 5” per year. That’s 163,696 sq. miles. (We’ll assume “wet” Oregon is not helping out, and no other outside sources contribute.)

That is, assuming I’ve not mis-punched my calculator, roughly 1.9e+12 cubic feet of water, or (again roughly) 1.42e+13 gallons of water.

The entire US used approx. 1.12e+12 gal. of fresh water in 2010, according to USGS, and usage has been declining. (That’s the most recent data I found in a quick search.) This does not include saline water drawn for mining.

The biggest “draw”, usage for thermoelectric power plants was 1.61e+11 gal, in 2010, which figure I find slightly hard to interpret without further research — I believe most of that water gets cycled back into it’s source(s). But, even assuming no reuse in any categories, CA alone theoretically has more than an order of magnitude more water “available” than is needed by the entire US.

Part of CA’s problem of course is drought, so I suppose a more pertinent question is how much storage could be built to carry the state through droughts. More likely, new source capacity (see below) and storage is the answer. A lot of the present storage lakes are very low, and I don’t know how many could be replenished readily from anything but their present source streams or rivers.

Ultimately, population growth COULD surpass natural sources and man-made storage, assuming no desalinization (again, see below.)

For comparative purposes, I would add that the Mississippi River on an average year carries something like 1.58e+14 gal. of water to the sea each year.

I suppose a good question would be the cost of desalinization plants in CA vs. the cost of pumping a tiny fraction of the Mississippi’s excesses (flooding) to CA.

Some of the above assumptions are probably “off”, but, then again, we have more than an order of magnitude to work with...

[Paul R.]

Yes, but those “good locations” assume a ready natural source of the water. There are plenty of other potential locations if the water can get there. For example:

Find an appropriate bay, close it off, build a big desalinization plant, or pump the water from Midwest floods...

Inland, section off part of the Central Valley and use it for water storage and aquaculture. (More Californians might learn to enjoy Southern fried catfish!) :-)

I realize environmentalists will not allow this - I am merely saying the problems ARE solvable.

[Paul R.]

Should have said “That’s 5” multiplied by 163,696 sq. miles.”

[Paul R.]

Another interesting figure:

To really dent a major flood on the Mississippi, we’d have to pump, oh, maybe 1 million cfs of water. That is a LOT of water. Standing at the riverfront during a Mississippi (or Ohio) river flood, or even going over one of the bridges in an area where one can get a good look at the moving flood, is pretty impressive.

CA would get a lot of good farming soil with the water...

http://www.americaswetlandresources.com/background_facts/detailedstory/MississippiRiverAnatomy.html

[Sherman Logan]

“human ingenuity and the workings of the free market.”

Now that’s funny! Free market, indeed.

The Israelis are stuck with the land they’ve got and have to make the most of it despite its limitations.

The USA has immense amounts of well-watered land suitable for growing crops without massive irrigation.

Doesn’t make sense to spend immense amounts of taxpayer money to allow a few farmers to grow crops in places where they won’t grow by themselves.

It is rather amusing to observe conservatives devoted to smaller government decrying the fact that government didn’t expand in these areas for the last few decades.

If farmers were paying the real costs of their irrigation systems, without taxpayer subsidy, most of the land would lie vacant.

Some of the irrigation systems on the east side of the Central Valley precede massive government involvement. Most other irrigated CA areas would not exist without the government and its subsidies.