One thing to bear in mind, is that the draining of the water tables in the western U.S. is completely artificial, as in we could easily refill them with correct management. The issue is a crazy, CRAZY amount of water (inefficient flood irrigation farming accounts for 75% of water use out west) is wasted on growing alfalfa for export, or almonds, and farmers are able to do this due to water rights from 100 years ago.
If we just stopped the farmers from wasting water alone, we’d have enough water to replenish and drastically refill our aquafers.
We could. It’s a totally solvable problem - until it isn’t. If an aquifer is dry and you’re already rationing the water, what can you do? Presumably ship in enough water to keep people alive, if not to sustain commercial needs too
Which is going to drain water from somewhere else, and what if they’re having the same issue? Take it from further. Salt lake City was looking into the idea of building a pipeline from the Mississippi, and I’m sure someone is looking into building a fleet of water tankers and checking if there’s profit to be had
Now, where’s the part in all this where we take back water rights? Where’s the part where we start to fix the problem?
Exactly what I mean. It’s a problem, a big one, but is my ‘city going to run dry’ as OP said it would? Is my Mom going to starve to death? When? For how long?
I think I’m a bit over the doom posting and I’m bummed that this community doesn’t actually have anything new to contribute. It’s the same stories from reddit brought over here. It’s just people repeating things they read on the internet. Oh well! Not my problem.
One thing to bear in mind, is that the draining of the water tables in the western U.S. is completely artificial, as in we could easily refill them with correct management. The issue is a crazy, CRAZY amount of water (inefficient flood irrigation farming accounts for 75% of water use out west) is wasted on growing alfalfa for export, or almonds, and farmers are able to do this due to water rights from 100 years ago.
If we just stopped the farmers from wasting water alone, we’d have enough water to replenish and drastically refill our aquafers.
We could. It’s a totally solvable problem - until it isn’t. If an aquifer is dry and you’re already rationing the water, what can you do? Presumably ship in enough water to keep people alive, if not to sustain commercial needs too
Which is going to drain water from somewhere else, and what if they’re having the same issue? Take it from further. Salt lake City was looking into the idea of building a pipeline from the Mississippi, and I’m sure someone is looking into building a fleet of water tankers and checking if there’s profit to be had
Now, where’s the part in all this where we take back water rights? Where’s the part where we start to fix the problem?
Exactly what I mean. It’s a problem, a big one, but is my ‘city going to run dry’ as OP said it would? Is my Mom going to starve to death? When? For how long?
I think I’m a bit over the doom posting and I’m bummed that this community doesn’t actually have anything new to contribute. It’s the same stories from reddit brought over here. It’s just people repeating things they read on the internet. Oh well! Not my problem.