Interesting CA water info......

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Found on Dan Blanton's message board:

Posted by Bob R. on 2014-04-14 01:33:16

"Beverly Hills agri-billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick are the newest and oddest landlords in Californias Oligarch Valley. You might not recognize the name, but...Levi Johnston hawking the Resnicks Paramount brand pistachio nuts on TV. If nothing else, you have eaten their Sunkist oranges."


About 80% if water used in california goes to agriculture:

http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media/images/water-fig1-lrg.jpg

But agriculture is less than 2% of the economy (mining makes up part of the 2% according to source below)

Percent of California Gross Domestic Product

Agriculture and mining: 2%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gross_Domestic_Product_of_California_2008_(mi llions_of_current_dollars).svg



What's wrong with this picture?

Lakes in state water project

Northern California

Shasta: 52%
Oroville: 51%
Fulsom: 51%

Southern California:

Pyramid: 93%
Castaic: 82%


Don't think they are using it for frivolous reasons though!
It's life or death!


There are 87 golf courses in Orange County alone

https://www.golfnow.com/orangecounty/courses/course-map


...It's a rich man's game, and when we see its stewards, they're always in military blazers and they're stuffy and pompous

Audubon International estimates that the average American golf course uses 312,000 gallons per day. In a place like Palm Springs, where 57 golf courses challenge the desert, each course eats up a million gallons a day. That is, each course each day in Palm Springs consumes as much water as an American family of four uses in four years.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91363837

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[SeanO]

I wholeheartedly agree that water in this state is misappropriated.

But, I think that graph is inaccurate, Ag must contribute much more than just 2% to the economy... Wine, dairy, nuts, fruit, veggies, etc.?

Also, does the government or education really contribute to GDP? Maybe the graph is referring to different numbers.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Gross_Domestic_Product_of_California_2008_%28milli ons_of_current_dollars%29.svg/690px-Gross_Domestic_Product_of_California_2008_%28milli ons_of_current_dollars%29.svg.png

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

How does "Trade, Transportation and Utilities" fit together?

If there is any gain to be had most reported data is massaged.

[SeanO]

Yeah, Bill, I'm now thinking that the Ag number of 2% may just be at the primary or producer level?

Maybe once the farm products get put on the rice and tomato trucks, or onto ships at the West Sac port they get counted in the Transportation sector? If the Ag products are milled, put into a box, pressed into wine, or get dried as nuts they are deemed to be in the manufacturing sector, and so on. I'm just a fish biologist, not a farmer or an economist obviously. LOL.

Best,

[Darian]

The info in this link was taken from a post on Blanton's BB by Tom Arthur. It clarifies the info in the original post, above. Also, it makes some suggestions for solving our water problems:

"The rhetoric when it comes to California water is overwhelming. Here are some statistics for those interested in California water.

• Humans in California consume 43 million-acre-feet of water (MAF)
o Farmers consume 34MAF (80%)
o Everything else 9 MAF (20%)
• What crops use the most water?
o Alfalfa (Beef-Dairy) = 6 MAF = 13.9%
o Rice = 3.3 MAF = 7.6%
o Cotton = 2.5 MAF = 5.8%
o Grapes = 2 MAF = 4.6%
o Pistachios = 1.7 MAF
o Almonds = 1.6 MAF
o Oranges = 1.1 MAF
o Walnuts = 1.1 MAF
o Tomatoes = 0.9 MAF
o Lettuce = 0.6 MAF
o Strawberries = 0.6 MAF
o Lemons = 0.5 MAF
o Carrots = 0.5 MAF
o Broccoli = 0.4 MAF
• What consumes everything else?
o Residential = 5.6 MAF = 13%
o Commercial = 1.6 MAF
o Industry = 0.7 MAF
o Parks, Golf Courses, Large Landscape = 0.7 MAF = 1.6%
• How does Residential use its water?
o Landscape = 2.3 MAF = 5.5%
o Toilet = 0.9 MAF = 2%
o Washing Machine = 0.7 MAF = 1.6%
o Shower = 0.55 MAF = 1.3%
o Faucet = 0.5 MAF = 1.2%
o Leaks = 0.4 MAF = 1%
o Baths = 0.05 MAF = 0.1%
o Dishwasher = 0.04 MAF = 0.09%
• If EVERYONE stopped using all water in their homes (including landscaping) we would save only 7% of all California’s human water consumption.
• 13.9 MAF of water is exported out of the country as Agricultural Products. That is 32% of all human water usage producing ~$18 Billion in export revenues. That is more than double the amount of water consumed by all residential users in all cities and towns combined in California.
• What are the water rates in California?
o Farmers
• $10-$1000/Acre-Foot for surface water
• FREE when using ground water and it is not metered.
o Everything else
• $2600/Acre-Foot in San Francisco
• $1750/Acre-Foot in Los Angeles
• Many areas south of Fresno pay a flat monthly fee unmetered.
o Consumers pay >60X more than farmers pay. Consumers pay for 95% of all water infrastructure (dams, canals, tunnels, etc).
• Solutions
o Limit Acres Farmed Based On Annual Rain
o Stop Farm Subsidies That Waste Water
o Meter Farming Wells and Everyone Else
o Fair Pricing
o Sustained Flows Through Our Rivers and Bays
• Sources:
o http://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/lcfs/workgroups/lcfssustain/hanson.pdf
o http://www.sanfranciscobay.sierraclub.org/yodeler/html/2010/05/article5.htm
o http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/statistics/
o http://www.albany.edu/~wyckoff/CaliforniaWaterPricingMemo.pdf
o https://www.calwater.com/rates-and-tariffs/
o http://www.sdcwa.org/issue-desal"

The graph taken from Wikipedia doesn't appear to be entirely accurate/descriptive.

[OceanSunfish]

Thanks for posting all the data.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Very interesting Darian..........thanks.

I had heard that AG was 80%.......

We humans use 7% at our homes to survive and they want us to stop watering our lawns and stop flushing our toilets?

Plus they charge us a lot for water. We are being manipulated. Trying to get us to feel like it's all our fault we have no water.....BS.

Might be easier to find a little waste in AG?

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[SeanO]

Thanks, Darian.

That is really informative. Any idea on how many acre feet is allowed to flow out of the delta? My guess is fish and wildlife get about half of what comes out of the reservoirs.

Best,

[Darian]

I can't take credit for developing that info but it looks fairly solid as the author is qualified. The problem with this type of info is that it's often misleading, depending on what's included in it and we don't know what is or isn't. For example, the figure attributed to ag vs human usage (80% vs 20%). The BDCP says that the figures are 30% vs 70% (Ag vs urban). The 80% figure may include all or some of the water for the environment (amount unknown to me). While the BDCP figures are an attempt to sell the project by taking an opposite approach to counting water usage. Neither approach includes an accounting for Groundwater usage as the state doesn't regulate it; only some local water districts try to regulate or count groundwater usage.

In the past I accepted the 80% - 20% ratio mentioned but now I believe that Ag uses the lions share of water (by far) throughout the west (reported usage by all states along the Colorado river) but I'm not sure what the actual figures are.