The difference is that California does have the potential for quite a few different sources of water, but chose not to expand their reservoir or water transport systems as the population grew. Oklahoma had to face the fact that its water sources were always sparse, so they make an effort to capture as much as possible. There's still some degree of waste they need to address. They've also migrated to more drought-resistant crops, and the sorghum and canola crops seem to be providing a pretty fair revenue stream.

California, on the other hand, has neglected responsible water resource management, and as you point out, haven't paid attention to crop management adjustments. The Santa Clara valley used to be one of the nation's best sources of fruits, but now it's become "Silicon Valley", with zero agricultural industry.

I suspect we'll see some kind of Federal bailout for California, with a near-permanent FEMA-managed "Drought Disaster" team in place. Be prepared for "smart" water meters that will cut off your supply when you've exceeded your monthly allotment.

I have heard rumors and speculation that when the Water Compact is passed here, a lot of the water is slated to be (or has been) sold to Kalifornia. Whether true or not, the Compact is a huge land grab.

Definitely. Unless it works well in 30 degrees...

I think we should just shut down the aqueduct and see what happens. Market forces will drive people to where the water IS.. Or they will exist on cosmos & beer.

That stuff makes news, but it's not really part of the problem. The buzzword is "Delta Smelt"... we push a ton of water down the Sacramento River and out into the Pacific to keep the brine out of the Bay Delta so it doesn't kill the minnows or ruin the crop land. It would probably be cheaper at this point to just buy the crop land and move the people somewhere else.

While there is an obvious population differential between Oklahoma and California... maybe 20 to 1, I otherwise completely agree. Ag is 80% of our water usage in California, and it's a very wasteful industry. The farmers here love those high-value cash crops, like almonds, but it takes 2000 gallons to grow a pound of almonds. It may be time to change...

I live here in the People's Republic... I'm happy to share some factual information on the issue:

1.) $1 billion state bailout.. not a penny for desalinization. Why? The "shortage" is in southern California, which is a desert, we ship water from northern CA to southern via the California aqueduct 24x7x365. San Francisco gets its water from Hetch Hetchy (larger than Yosemite) and is fine, Sacramento has the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers and is fine.

The elephant in the room is California agriculture, which uses 80% of the water, but is 2% of the state's economy, but is unfortunately the lion's share of fresh produce for the entire country. However, I've never seen them use a hose.. only open-ditch irrigation with a wastefulness of at least 50% to ground & air loss compared to what gets to the crop.

2.) The ground water has been depleted so greatly by the ag industry, that the 'ground' in the Central Valley has subsided, as much as 7 feet in some places (it has dropped). In Sacramento, we pump water down into the aquifer from the river to try and recharge it some times of the year, but it seems like pumping desalinated water from the Pacific into the aquifer would work just peachy too I would think...

3.) They like to say its "climate change" - no, there is a ton of rain coming on from the coast, we have just had a high pressure zone hovering off the coast for a couple of years and its diverting rainfall north & south of California . Not a lack of rain, just not falling on us.. interestingly, we got a ton of rain, tornadoes, hail and snow yesterday - more than we had all winter I would think. If the high pressure zone subsides, we might get the tail end of the pineapple express in the jet stream for a month or so and make up for the dry winter.

4.) The last reservoir was built in the 60's, the population has gone from under 20 million to over 40 million in the same period of time. 'Buff said.

Nonetheless, my pool is green from all the dry air/wind & pollen. I'll need to drain & pressure wash it. Oh well on the drought.

Let's see. Let's build a huge human habitat in the desert of So. California and we will pipe in water to keep it green and flourishing. After a while we will become the biggest welfare state and attract every moocher to come live there. Eventually we will create a environmental catastrophe that will sink the rest of the country because we didn't have the forethought to plan for the eventual return of the desert. It isn't like Southern California was a desert because of a mistake climatically, it was a desert because that was what the environment supported there. So what did they expect? That miraculously the rain that never fell before would fall in the future? Or that the desert wouldn't be spread towards the areas where the water was stolen to maintain this false utopia. Looters and moochers are so short-sighted.

"It Always Rains in the Pacific Northwest", but I don't think we have a song for that. Hmmm, an opportunity for one of you song writers.

Too cold for cotton or rice or alfalfa?

Very interesting. We in the Pacific Northwest, usually have summer water shortages. But please don't jump to any conclusions on that statement, it still rains every day up here, it‘s still always mostly miserable and wet. We usually have a water shortage because some years we get less snow, but mostly because they let the water out of the dam’s too early supposedly to prevent possible flooding and to make room for all the coming snow melt. Last year, one of a few, they finally made the right decision and did not release most of the water in anticipation of a large snow fall. We’re actually expected to have sufficient water all summer. Hopefully they’ll continue to get it right.

It Always Rains in the Pacific Northwest

The saddest part is that if they had undertaken any serious efforts to provide for themselves over the past thirty years, they could have avoided this whole mess. It isn't as if their own water agencies haven't been warning them about this for more than a decade.

After the Dust Bowl disaster, Oklahoma set about to better manage its agriculture and water management. OK has had an ongoing drought for about as long as CA, but there's nowhere near the concern about water shortage for the Okies. Of course, most of their water management infrastructure was established before the existence of the EPA, including the largest artificial reservoir in the U.S. (Lake Eufaula). Governor Moonbeam is stuck with what he and others of his ilk have sown, and instead of trying to improve things, the solution is to punish the people who had little or nothing to do with creating the problem.

snail darters and kangaroo mice are more important than people.

Much of California's (and Arizona's) water supply is piped in, largely from the Colorado River. A fantastic feat of engineering, to be sure. But even a river is not inexhaustible, and relying on a remote watershed leads to one's water supply not only relying on rain locally, but on rain falling in every area that feeds into the aquifer. Basically, California has steadily made itself more dependent on the local weather in a growing part of the nation for quite some time.

And Is strongly suspect that management of the water supply has come under the "it'll last until tomorrow" school of thought. One cannot help but recall Dagny's question in AS: "but what about the day after tomorrow?"

Perhaps it is approaching, or already here.

On the other side of the coin, there is an astonishing business opportunity here for anyone with the means to build large scale desalination plants.

Looks interesting John. Thanks. It might help to post a review in the books category too.

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/pla...

you might want to check out the new book which
I just finished editing:::

http://www.amazon.com/Unsustainable-Tuck...

-- j

you might want to check out the new book which
I just finished editing:::

http://www.amazon.com/Unsustainable-Tuck...

-- j

Can you imagine all those refugees from California seeking water coming to your area?!

It Never Rains in Southern California

Ain't the consequences of liberalism a *itch.

I anticipate another huge lawsuit over water rights to the Colorado river.

Not sure the Feds can bail them out of this one. I know for sure another government agency is not going to help.