from Hacker News

California to impose permanent water restrictions on cities and towns

by lando2319 on 7/9/24, 11:20 AM with 99 comments

  • by _aavaa_ on 7/9/24, 11:46 AM

    Agriculture uses 80% of the water used for non-environmental reasons[0], with nuts and alfalfa being large culprits. Instead of limiting those, we're going to focus on the what, 10%, of people flushing toilets and watering their lawns?

    [0]: https://water.ca.gov/Programs/Water-Use-And-Efficiency/Agric...

  • by fmajid on 7/10/24, 7:23 AM

    California’s water problems cannot be solved without abolishing the absurd system of senior and junior water rights, where just because someone nailed a notice on a tree in the 19th Century, they get to take their fill of whatever river before the juniors can take their turn. This creates perverse incentives against water-saving efficiency methods like drip irrigation. Unfortunately, reforming water rights is like the third rail of California politics and no politician wants to endure the decades of lawsuits it would cause.

  • by jmclnx on 7/9/24, 12:56 PM

    I feel a bad for CA people, I cannot believe this is happening so soon after all the rain and snow I heard they got over the Winter.

    I remember years ago when they suggested 5 minute showers (maybe 15). My manager lived in that area, I lived in a are were water is coming out of our ears 365 days a year, so to speak.

    I said to her, "5 mins ? When I hop in the shower in the morning, 30 minutes go by before I even realize I am in the shower".

    That is one thing I need, a long hot shower. Living there would mean no one would not want to be near me. My managers would beg me to Work from Home. :)

  • by ExoticPearTree on 7/9/24, 11:52 AM

    California labels itself as the world's 7th or 10th largest economy, I think that if they wanted to, they could have invested in desalination plants across their coast to have all the water they need and more.

    My 2c.

  • by throwthrowuknow on 7/9/24, 12:13 PM

    Why don’t we move the water from where it is to where it’s needed? If we can build a transcontinental highway system for cars and freight and oil pipelines we can obviously handle plain old water just fine. We don’t think big enough anymore and it’s crippling us.