California's Water Crisis. Why?

I'll admit I don't know much about growing avocado trees. We always had citrus in the yard.

Why doesn't drip work? If they have a 20' diameter root structure, why can't you make a large drip loop around each tree and water them that way?


Or does the periodic stumping keep the trees healthy and provide more fruit the years they bear?

This seems to me to be on a large scale the same as what's going on with residents on a small scale. No one is looking at the efficiency of water use or what you've done in the past to years to reduce water. Just a one size fits all "reduce by this much". It almost pays to waste water, since then you have to cut back less to make your goal.

 

California's Water Crisis: Why?

Maybe they'd believe there's a crisis, if the 100's of thousands of acrefeet of water weren't being thrown away on all the golf courses from the Imperial Valley through Vegas, and on up the I.15 Right? As long as a game is more important, forget about it ... it's not real ... yet. So the OP is presuming facts not yet proven.

 

the local water district. i believe that most water district/municipalities in the state have reduced the water available to agriculture due to the Judge Wanger rulings (Delta fish). google Judge Wanger and you'll get a good read!

so each month i have an allocated amount based on the 06-07 year. i get to roll-over any saved amount to the next month. if i go over the allocated amount (whic i have not thus far), they'll install a flow restrictor.

the water officials went to agriculture first because we receive a volume discount on our water. in exchange for that discount, we're the first to get reduced/allocated.

presently, the residential customer is not under any type of allocation. however, the story goes that if residential is required to reduce by 10% in 2009, our reduction will increase further to 40%.

it's the nature of our soil. it's very sandy soil so the drip will not spread enough. however, if you know something that the avocado agricultural experts don't, i suggest you get involved and discuss your ideas.

i'm not here to argue with you about what's best, i just know what all the other avo farmers do throughout San Diego county.
i've heard that in central Calif, some groves are successful w/ drip. but not in san diego county.

bottom line, agriculture throughout the state will produce less in the next 12 months due to less available water. that will result in a price increase at your retail stores.

 

I don't mean individual drippers. I mean make a circle of a soaker hose the optimum diameter for the roots.

 

avocadoman1 - Thanks for joining and relating realities. I have said little but have followed closely since I'm the one getting educated. Any ideas on what the sustainable solution should be?

One little titbit of California history I found interesting. In 1913 the Bill Mulholland designed Los Angeles Aqueduct began taking water from the Owens River and began irrigating orchards in the San Fernando Valley. Now this flow is half a billion gallons a day. Unfortunately, all the orchards in the Owen River were killed off and the Owens Lake dried up. Sadly this resulted in dynamite attacks on the aqueduct. Nothing good came of this de-facto water war.

Let's hope we can do better.

 

Now I will be hoping for a first hand report of what is working and what is not. Real reports from real people just have more influence in a lot of cases.

 

When you get those "quotes," make sure you aren't talking to someone who works for LAWP or benefits in some other way. They are a MAJOR employer in that area.

"With the water goes the power."
And many of the people in that area feel subserviant to LA.

 

Just say a commerical on the water shortage put on by CA gov. Didn't catch exactly who.

Little girl and Daddy are at the beach. Little girl asks with all that water out there, why is there a water shortage. Daddys says....we can't use it. We can't use it? Well, I guess that means no desalination in our future.

Oh, and it says the average person uses 100 gallons of water a day. I use 60. According to our Mayor I'm supposed to cut that down to 40. (Everyone use 20 gallons less per day.)

One size fits all and conservation only. That's his plan.

 

It's all informal talk of conservation. There are no mandates. No numbers. No specifics. So I'm just going by what I'm picking up from commercials and the Mayor's speeches.

The Mayor doesn't say whether he wants every household to reduce by 10% or every household. But I don't think they know how many people are in each household so a per person reduction would be hard to calculate or enforce.

The commercial did say the average person uses 100 gallons. I live alone so I know what *I* use. It's on my water bill. I have this month's compared to last month and compared to the same month last year. I look at that data. And I save my bills. Both water and utility, which has the same information.

Personally, I don't think anyone has thought far enough in advance to figure any of this stuff out. They just hope that all together we'll cut by 10% and then they can avoid having to work out the details. I just know when the details are worked out, they probably won't look at how you've conserved over the years and are already under average. They just say cut more. I'm not sure how much more I can cut.

 

If you were mayor, what would be your statement?

You certainly do what you can do, so your viewpoint counts more than others. However, his only immediate option is to stress conservation. If the microphone was in your face, you would find what you feel and what is responsible to say may not be the same. I think that is his situation as well.

Building big plants and changing the California water system is really not something he controls to the extent you infer....and we both know he has virtually no control on how people use water. Right now, I'm drinking water that is partially from a desal plant. Unfortunately, the increases in water consumption continue to exceed what can be provided, so even desal plants will not eliminate the need for personnel reductions.

 

We just have to build them faster. Water at $0.01 per gallon is better than a mandatory 20% reduction.

 

It's always a delicate balancing act. The largest consumer of water in my community is the local brewery. Somehow, I don't think a public cry for less beer is going to happen anytime soon.

 

The simple answer is to charge what the water's worth. Water is probably artificially cheap and that's why there's so much waste. The mayor is stressing simple conservation because it's the most expedient method to make an impact. There's a massive amount of low hanging fruit. Pulling peoples' heads out of their arses will have an immediate impact on water consumption. The other way is to increase the cost, which will have the same effect, probably more quickly, but with a lot more whinging.

 

It's very unlikely that a Desal plant can make potable water at that price considering future energy costs. Keep in mind that it is very unlikely that agriculture can be economically viable on Desal water, so the there must be intelligent management of the resources regardless of how many plants were to be built.