By saying this, are you asserting this is a continued justification for growing corps in a Californian desert? If so, let’s try a different desert for a while. :)

By saying this, are you also implying this is a continued justification for the status quo in growing lawns, maintaining golf courses?

By saying this, are you implying that California (and Nevada) should some day be entitled to a “Water Bail Out” from other states after it uses up its limited water resources? We’ll pass on that, thanks, Sacramento has already gotten its Federal bail out $$ to enable it to continue its deficit State spending.

Just ♥♥ this time.

Bring it on Tiger!

Besides my sarcasm. I never understood why people choose to live in inhospitable locations and then bitch about their sircumstances. I live close to the mississippi and without fail, every time it floods, the people living in the flood plain complain and want federal funds every time it floods. Don’t live in a FLOOD PLAIN!

It’s crazy to have a green lawn. I live in LAS VEGAS. I shouldn’t be suffering from allergies to things that shouldn’t be out here. I moved out here and my allergies calmed down, only to reignite when more and more people moved here and started bringing “back east” with them. The golfers, I don’t know. I like golf okay but surely they could use astroturf. I mean they SELL it here.

What galls me the most is the conspicuous usage of water at the casinos. I don’t give a fizzle if this is a tourist town, those tourists are going back home to where they get more rain a year and where they’re possibly not having a drought. Why can the Bellagio use millions of gallons of water for their dancing waters when a high school can’t throw a car wash because we have to conserve? How come some of the casinos *close their pools* at night, rendering it effectively wasted for half the day? (And while this isn’t water related it’s along the same lines: why are the casinos using aluminum cans that they simply refuse to recycle?)

I’m not going to pretend I want to go live in nature or something. I quite enjoy my lush-ish and decadent-esque life out here where the tourists pay for most everything. At the same time, it seems like people would realize that money can flow and flow and flow but if the water stops then we’re screwed because we can’t drink money.

I’ve been to Lake Mead once, in the dark, and we never got out of the car. I’ve heard something about the fish and birth control, but I’ve heard more about bodies. If the lake dried up, wouldn’t that be something to find piles of bodies on the bed?

Rice is one of the worst crops in the world to grow when it comes to water required per kg of food.

Go ahead. Continue to water your lawns, golf courses, and rice fields.

??????

I think they should be kept far AWAY from the water we share.

With luck, the Blowjobbio will be the last source of running water in the state. Then it too would run out – now that would be a ghost town!

Or you could forego using all that energy and let the hydrological cycle bring the clean water to you by storing rainwater.

I honestly don’t know if rainwater catchment is truly practical, but it sounds like a Very Good Idea in an area that sees enough rain to catch a sizable amount of water. I know those off the grid earthship homes catch all the water they use, and they’re built in the deserts.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/17/gsif.rainwater.solutions/index.html

I note the set with the lake in the background is the “German” set:
#405A Bavarian Briefcase Layout with Contoller and Train
Dimensions: 14″ x 19″

They have another set, the “American” set:
#0510 American Layout

The American set has no water apparent in its image. Those funny europeans! But it is much bigger, and I suspect you have to fuel the engines with real diesel fuel rather than plugging it in.

http://www.marklin.com/scales/z/zlayouts.html

Nevada actually takes very little water from the Colorado: Colorado and California each take over 10 times more! Even Wyoming gets three times as much.

California is probably the least water-sustainable state. Neither Los Angeles, nor most California agriculture, would exist at all if it weren’t for the California Aqueduct, containing at least 11 stations that pump water uphill (over a 2000 foot mountain range, in the case of the LA basin.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Aqueduct
This is in addition to California’s unsustainable Colorado River allotment.

http://images.google.com.au/images?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=com.ubuntu%3Aen-US%3Aunofficial&um=1&sa=1&q=coober+pedy+golf+course&btnG=Search+Images&aq=f&oq=

Effectively catching rainwater in low rainfall areas is contingent on the amount of tankage built. For example, certain parts of Western Australia only get an average of a few centimeters of rain a year, but it only rains every three years or so. The cattle stations out that way have huge dams and millions of liters of underground tankage. If it doesn’t rain often, you have to store every drop.

Citizens in many of the major cities of Australia have been installing rain water tanks at a pretty brisk rate, because water restrictions make watering the garden illegal. You can get quite a lot of water of the roof of a suburban home, and it goes a very long way if you use buried permeable hose to irrigate, rather than surface watering. With effective use of gray water and a a clever selection of plants in the garden a suburban home can just about reduce water consumption to nil. Industry is another story.

Most regions of Australia have been beset by drought for years*, and this is not going to change any time soon. Here we are seeing tight water restrictions on regional communities with politicians unwilling to make tough choices in regard to cities. This (IMNSHO) is due to the expense and unpopularity of drastic reform of water use. To do it right will cost money and lose votes.

When the rain stops falling and water becomes a (very) limited resource then conservation becomes immediately important. Every drop saved now will be for ten years down the track. It is too late after the dams are dry and the aquifers empty. At that point you are fucked, mate. Agriculture is impossible, farms die and crops become very expensive.

It is possible to grow crops with best practices that use a fraction of the current irrigation. None the less, I bet no changes will be made until it is far too late.

The price of fruit and veg has gone up by more than double in the past two or three years here in Oz. This is what you can look forward to in the USA.

*Notable exceptions would be all the areas that flooded this year. Worst floods in living memory in many regions of Queensland.