William Shatner starting 30 billion dollar kickstart to end California water shortage

[Zontar]

Yeah Seattle and the whole of the Pacific Northwest are both suffering from the drought too. The East/West flood/drought cycle is nothing new, this shifts every half decade to two decades, it's essentially a normal thing for North America. We have some problems with WHERE cities have been built. First off everything in the LA area is in the middle of the damn desert. This was already an ecology that couldn't really support a large population, same problem with Las Vegas. That's a huge problem all by it self. Let alone building cities ocean side when the ocean over the entire history of humanity, let alone the earth's history of the change in sea levels. But that's another subject entirely.

What the real issue is, there are far too many people in the LA area, plus they're farming land that's unsuitable without outside water. The area has been headed for these water problems for decades, now they're blaming global climate change, instead of their stupid short sighted misuse of the area's water resources. This has been a problem that they knew about for over half a century. They didn't limit the population growth, they didn't stop the wasting of water by the billions of gallons, now the problem has come home to roost.

California already steals so much of Nevada's water to try to keep LA and the surrounding area moist, now they wanna steal from Washington too. Another short sighted exploitative move with water they have absolutely NO right to. Seriously California needs to stop making it's problems, a problem for neighbouring states and fix the issues them selves. California has badly exploitative taxes that go to pad peoples pockets, rather than combat real problems.

Can't say I understand what the yankees who settled down there where thinking at the time. I mean having a coastal city I can understand (if I'm not mistaken somewhere around 80-90% of humanity lives within 100 miles from an ocean, sea or one of the great lakes) but I really don't understand how one doesn't settle where there's a reliable source of water. I guess I've just not got the perspective, where I live (Eastern Canada) we built our whole corner of civilization around the fresh water rivers and great lakes where our surplus of drinking water is so large that if we ever did have a serious issue of a shortage of drinking water it would be long after most of the rest of the world is already tapped out.

 

[Ugicywapih]

Seems like a pipe dream to me.

Yeah, this idea is all washed up.

Maybe he's gotten rusty after so much work.

I guess folks are just going to go with the flow and keep making puns now?

 

[NeutralDrow]

Seems like a pipe dream to me.

Yeah, this idea is all washed up.

Maybe he's gotten rusty after so much work.

I guess folks are just going to go with the flow and keep making puns now?

Flood the thread with these terrible puns? Oh ye of little faith!

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Seems like a pipe dream to me.

Yeah, this idea is all washed up.

Maybe he's gotten rusty after so much work.

I guess folks are just going to go with the flow and keep making puns now?

Flood the thread with these terrible puns? Oh ye of little faith!

Would we sink to such depths?

 

[mad825]

With 30 Billion you'd think that artificiality creating rain would be a much viable solution compared to a pipeline that would take a year of actual building.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

With 30 Billion you'd think that artificiality creating rain would be a much viable solution compared to a pipeline that would take a year of actual building.

You actually need cloud cover that you can seed to make it rain, something Southern California tends not to get a lot of. That's about as far as human weather control technology goes. Even so you also need a low pressure system to make seeding viable too. Again something that Southern Cali tends not to get a lot of.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Seems like a pipe dream to me.

Yeah, this idea is all washed up.

Maybe he's gotten rusty after so much work.

I guess folks are just going to go with the flow and keep making puns now?

Flood the thread with these terrible puns? Oh ye of little faith!

Would we sink to such depths?

I imagine that people will pump out a few more before they run out

 

[FPLOON]

Speaking as a San Diegan, I have no idea what to think about this. I mean, I guess it'd be better than going back to stealing the Colorado River from Mexico, and it'd be less energy-intensive than desalination (that might actually work better in the long run since we have a crapton of coastline, that we're all relatively close to, but I'm not sure the tech is there, yet).

Well, either way, I guess I'm genuinely grateful.

Basically, this... even though I always get iffy whenever one state has to rely on another state in terms of primary resources and shit... I mean, if something goes wrong during this whole construction of the pipeline, which state takes the most responsibility to do damage control?

Other than that, I'll keep being an optimistic SoCal resident and hope that this pipeline goes according to plan...

 

[CpT_x_Killsteal]

Maybe if they'd stop letting Nestle take out 1000 Liters for $30 you wouldn't have a problem.

Edit: actually it's $1 per 100 cubic feet of water. And they're using expired permits.

 

[LetalisK]

Maybe if California wasn't trying to live like Virginia I'd have more sympathy for them. *plays world's smallest violin*

 

[ObserverStatus]

Oh go eat your hair, Kirk. It's not Washington or Oregon's fault California let agribusiness waste all their water. If you build a pipeline to the Columbia River, they'll just waste all our water too.

 

[jklinders]

Seems like a good way to raise awareness of the issue.

I mean, it's got us talking about it now.

Shatner conceded that even if he?s not able to raise the money, the effort will at least raise consciousness about the severity of California?s drought.

?If I don?t make 30 billion, I?ll give the money to a politician who says, ?I?ll build it.? Obviously, it?s to raise awareness that something more than just closing your tap ? so why not a pipeline??

Although I think Shatner may not have realised that you have to raise all your asking funds before any money will be given to you - It's all or nothing, and as it is every single person in America would have to give $1000 to raise enough money.

$100.00 actually but yeah it totally is not going to happen. There is another way to raise resources for such a thing and that is called taxes. That is a very dirty word to a lot of people.

OT

Shatner has his heart in the right place but he is wrong. There is only one way to reduce the stress on the water table in that area. Reduce it's population. there are too many people living there for the water resources there to sustain it. I remember reading somewhere years back that someone had commented that the whole paradise thing in coastal California was fake, turn off the tap and it all dries up and blows away.

I'm not spewing some kind of environut fuckwit speech here. You ship more water there you are just moving the problem around and delaying the inevitable. besides, clean potable water is a far more precious a resource than any of us who get it "cheap" out of a tap give it credit for. And many of us are dumping it on our fucking lawns.

 

[sanquin]

Let's not care about how much water we use! Oh shit, the water is running out! Quick, let's not change our habits or do anything to reduce water consumption, but instead siphon it from another place! That place will dry up too? Eh, who care's? That's for future generations to worry about! >_>

America: The land of ignoring problems by using bad quick fixes, leaving them for future generations. All in the name of capitalism.

 

[ObserverStatus]

Shatner has his heart in the right place but he is wrong. There is only one way to reduce the stress on the water table in that area. Reduce it's population. there are too many people living there for the water resources there to sustain it. I remember reading somewhere years back that someone had commented that the whole paradise thing in coastal California was fake, turn off the tap and it all dries up and blows away.

Not really, the Israelis figure out how to sustain a whole ton of people in the desert decades ago, it's called drip irrigation.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

The really screwed up part is that California has so much in the way of huge sea salt evaporation pools for sea salt production. All that clean fresh water that they just let evaporate away into the atmosphere, you know rather than capture it. If they weren't so dumb about it, capturing that evaporated water would go a long way to solving this problems.

Why is it that California constantly proves itself to be the most short sighted, self interested, wasteful, arse-backward, exploitative, and most self important state in the entire union? They're also vying for most corrupt it seems anymore too.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

I agree desalinization is a far more sustainable solution than this is, it is just they go about desalinization the wrong way. Desalinization works great on a small scale and is used currently by many resorts, Islands and tropical homes, however you run into problems when you try to desalinate water on a large scale. " death by a thousand paper cuts" to solve the problem would be more effective instead of trying to desalinate the water in bulk, they should desalinate it in route to the storage facility, and bulk store the desalinated water instead. As for the brine, instead of dumping it back in to the ocean, it should be put to use and many uses have been experimented with in recent years, such as using it in building materials, for example:

http://www.greenoptimistic.com/eco-friendly-restaurant-air-purifying-walls-made-salt-20150122/#.VTy5ZyFVhHw
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jwm/2014/389316/
http://www.biova.de/en/salt-building-materials

We actually want people to use more water not less in planting air filtering temperature lowering soil loss reduction plants to prevent more water from running off into the ocean, in order to do so we have to be able to return the water running off into the ocean back to the freshwater source and the only way that can be accomplished is via desalination of some kind. The problem isn't that " people are using up too much water" at all, it is that the water sources are not being replenished, and if they will not be replenished naturally, we have to find a method to do so manually. The water isn't actually getting " used up" it is being displaced, and we do have the ability to replace it, we just have to put forth the effort to do so.

 

[Lil devils x_v1legacy]

Let's not care about how much water we use! Oh shit, the water is running out! Quick, let's not change our habits or do anything to reduce water consumption, but instead siphon it from another place! That place will dry up too? Eh, who care's? That's for future generations to worry about! >_>

America: The land of ignoring problems by using bad quick fixes, leaving them for future generations. All in the name of capitalism.

Water conservation efforts are also just kicking the can down the road as the water will still run dry eventually. They have to find a way to return the water from the ocean where it is running off to rather than focus on not using it. We need to desalinate and refill the reservoirs, then they actually need to use MORE water since the plants that are needed to reduce the temperature, increase the air quality, and prevent soil reduction take more water. However, by doing so you will also reduce run off to the ocean and counter some of the other environmental issues exacerbating the problem. You have to solve the problem long term by returning the water that is running off to the ocean to the reservoirs.

 

[RobertEHouse]

California has one major hurdle in its survival, and that is the mismanagement of the city of Los Angeles. During the early 20's L.A. had built pipe lines and small dams anywhere they found water. They used force both legal and illegally to attain these water rights during that time. The city diverted water from smaller towns and farms and even natural wetlands. Which lead to those towns drying up and having to buy their water back from the city of L.A. I have personally live in L.A from 2000 to 2009 and watched first hand as new fresh water golf courses were built and parts of the city had green grass and trees installed along parkways. This was when the city was already at the start of the drought, and warning ads kept telling its public to use water sparingly.

One more thing of how screwed up this situation is, the desalination plant near Venus beach was built during the 80's and was "sort of" mothballed. Only running one test to see if it was working in 1990 and during 2003 it was still inactive, mainly from the cost to retrofit it because of 80's computer hardware.

I wish William Shatner the best, but this will not fix the problems California faces. It will only really be like putting on a band aid for the state.

 

[jklinders]

Shatner has his heart in the right place but he is wrong. There is only one way to reduce the stress on the water table in that area. Reduce it's population. there are too many people living there for the water resources there to sustain it. I remember reading somewhere years back that someone had commented that the whole paradise thing in coastal California was fake, turn off the tap and it all dries up and blows away.

Not really, the Israelis figure out how to sustain a whole ton of people in the desert decades ago, it's called drip irrigation.

Sure, now all we have to do is tell people to stop watering their precious lawns and otherwise put them on a ration. Everyone needs to reduce their use. It's made a fair bit worse in California due to it's very large agriculture industry. I would not suggest curtailing that as the whole continent uses their product but I am not convinced that more efficient use of irrigation is sufficient to maintain the status quo long term.

captcha : rain rain go away

really captcha, must you be so damn contrary?

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

Every day i take a dump into a large basin of drinkable water. Sometimes twice.