I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in california water is an all consuming item of interest.
With our constant drought and the large population we have, water has become our number one problem, at least in my opinion.
The farmers in our state pay somebody for surface water allotments, but they haven't received those allotments in years. I think this year they only get about 5%?? or so of their allotments.
Then enter Nestle. They have a right to several million gallons of water that they bottle and resell to us. But now they have been sent a cease and desist letter because they are taking several hundred percent more water than allowed.
Drought-Ridden California Slaps Nestlé With A Cease And Desist Order To Stop Illegally Pumping Water
Not being a California guy, I really cannot say much.
ReplyDeleteWe have a large bottled water plant in Evart, Michigan. If you grind through the numbers the gross amount of water that goes into plastic bottles is tiny compared to what is used in industry and agriculture.
Yes, it is stupid to slit agriculture's throat to keep the Delta Smelt on life-support. It is even dumber to flush water to encourage coho salmon to run up a river where they have not been in white-man's memory.
That said, it think it is equally stupid to grow alfalfa in California with irrigation water when it can be grown in 49 other states. I say that with some reservations. Sometimes alfalfa is needed to break up disease cycle or punch roots deep into the soil.
California is blessed with an awesome growing season and is uniquely situated to grow very high value crops like lettuce, peppers, tomatoes and a hundred other crops. Seems like a shame to squander it on alfalfa and golf courses.
You are correct, calif. climate is good for growing crops. But, we have to rely on irrigation for that, not enough rainfall. Without irrigation we can't grow squat. We have plenty of surface water we could use, but TPTB won't let us. What irritates me about agriculture is the farmers can plant as many trees as they want, even though we don't have the water to support that.
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