How does the California Drought Affect YOU?

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The AG instrustry is going to get decimated...Lettuce and strawberries will get expensive, broccoli and carrots will get more expensive and more often come from Mexico, Rice will get more expensive and come from somewhere not california, wine will more often be imported, beef will go up a ton more, dairy will go up now too.

I talked with an Olympia real estate broker yesterday who told me that in the last 6 weeks there has been tremendous demand on our local residential and commercial markets from Californians who are looking to escape the state. Vacancy rates here have dropped considerably.

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SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Jerry Brown's image as a responsible, penny-pinching steward of California's finances has been cemented in recent weeks because of his renewed call to pay off California's "wall of debt.

That's a term Brown coined when he took office to describe the tens of billions of dollars California owed to public schools and special funds whose coffers were raided to help balance budgets in the past.

But look behind that $24.9 billion wall and you'll see a $330 billion skyline of other liabilities threatening the state's financial health. It includes $80 billion needed to cover teachers' pensions and $64 billion to pay for state workers' health care in retirement -- two particularly troublesome liabilities because the state isn't even making the minimum payments on them.

http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_24998205/californias-wall-debt-is-only-slice-its-liability

So I gotta figure that a federal bail out of the state is imminent, running up the federal debt that I and my kids will need to pay off.

And I will probably visit San Francisco less than I have been.

What does this do to you?

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@hawkeye10,

I sure will miss my broccoli.

1 Reply

@roger,

we try to buy local and in season. Its a bitch in the winter but we use a lot of canned tomato,root crops, and greenhouse veggie greens.
Our first strawberries wont be until the SC ones come in in April. California strawberries taste almost as good as the boxes they come in

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I think it will affect me if there is a science special about the subject on tv, and that would take the place of a more interesting science special.

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I don't think the California drought will affect me, or if it does, I won't notice as I will be too busy helping bail out my neighbour's property.

A typical British scene at the moment.......

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/52fa186169bedda35df634fd-538/468343487.jpg

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

I think it will affect me if there is a science special about the subject on tv, and that would take the place of a more interesting science special.

I find the politics of california water to be more interesting than the science. Of particular interest is the diverting of water away from human use to protect endangered species, I dont see that continuing for long. It is also pretty clear to me that ag interests will lose to the cities water demands. I have long been amazed at the stupidity of the california rice industry, that anyone thought this was a good idea given how much water they need.

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@hawkeye10,

California water ala Mulholland is ass backwards. The state is a desert but all their aqueducts are OPEN TOP. In the Catskills, where evaporation is minimal, transmits their water by closed pipes

The water world is all upside down

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

California water ala Mulholland is ass backwards. The state is a desert but all their aqueducts are OPEN TOP. In the Catskills, where evaporation is minimal, transmits their water by closed pipes

The water world is all upside down

Quote:

Pointing to cost overruns with California’s high-speed rail project, lawmakers on Wednesday pressed state officials on the funding sources and ultimate price tag for the governor’s water tunnel plan.

“I’m very concerned about the ever-expanding cost,” Assemblyman Jim Frazier, D-Oakley, said at the hearing’s outset.

Frazier referred to an article in the San Jose Mercury News that puts the project’s cost over 50 years at over $50 billion – more than double the state’s figure of $24.7 billion – and added that “I tend to believe the higher number is probably the more accurate number.”

Underscoring concerns about the project’s scope and financial stability, Frazier announced after the hearing that he has introduced a bill requiring the Legislature’s approval before construction could begin

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/02/12/6153025/delta-tunnel-plan-cost-hammered.html#storylink=cpy

Lets remember that this is a state with 300 or so billion in unfunded liabilities, which is about to start a dig on a $100 billion high speed rail project that the feds are not likely to be willing to contribute more than $15 billion for and that will likely need another 300-500 million per year operating deficit subsidies ....where the **** is all the money supposed to come from at this point?

The price of failing to invest and making bad choices over decades is that there is no way to get done what needs to get done. Past mistakes are not always fixable, there is not always enough money to throw at the problem to get R done..a new concept that Americans are going to have to learn.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

yeh, failing infrastructure ought to be a priority Id think. The water tunnel projects Ive seen always seemed to die on the cutting room floor. If you go out to Cal, ever drive on rt 99 ?

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Lived in Monterey 6 years, but never did that.

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The water tunnel projects Ive seen always seemed to die on the cutting room floor

NYC water tunnel # 3 was approved in 1954. It might be done in 2020. THe Chicago Deep Tunnel Project was approved in 1972, it might be done by 2030.

I dont think we have that kind of time to solve this problem.

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@hawkeye10,

It's depressing Hawk to watch even the native desert vegetation dry out and die

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

dalehileman wrote:

It's depressing Hawk to watch even the native desert vegetation dry out and die

I was reading that the last 70 years have been abnormally wet for California, that the scientists have always been clear about this, that the "normal" water situation is not very normal and that maybe California should plan for getting by on less water. They never made any headway. Nature will adapt. Humans will too, just maybe not while staying in California.

BTW this makes the HSR plan even more problematic, as the financing plans never allowed for the state to become depopulated.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

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I was reading that the last 70 years have been abnormally wet for California,

Can't say. Though I rockhounded out here for decades I've only actually lived here about 16 years

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…... that the "normal" water situation is not very normal

I suspect it never was

1 Reply

@dalehileman,

where do you rockhound ?

1 Reply

@farmerman,

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where do you rockhound ?

Thanks for asking. The sites are scattered in the Mojave desert where I not only collected but compiled and sold maps, occasionally contributing articles to rock mags like G&M, Rocks and Minerals, etc

I am [email protected] so if you'll give me your name and address I'll mail you a set gratis

When I moved from Woodland Hills to Apple Valley I brought most of my treasure along so our 2.5-acre property is strewn with rocks of all sorts and sizes, some like plain old granite but many beautiful jasper and other calcedonies (how do you like that term, in fact I had to look it up), igneous lavas and volcanic glass, relatively rare oddballs like howlite

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howlite

Thanks again Man for inquiring

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@dalehileman,

Quote:

Thanks again Man for inquiring

I believe farmerdude has a PHD in geology, he had to ask....

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Hawk I daresay. My rock ed was provided in my extreme youth by one Margaret Bensusan, probably long departed. Man, I wonder if you might have heard of her

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@dalehileman,

Ill be in touch.
I have a few of the original "Type section" howlites from Nova SCotia ( a very big evaporate deposit from ancient seas as the continents split.
The howlites I have look more like big cauliflower heads and I used to give my students in mining geology, samples for a doing a valuation ($/Ton) for the minerals and they had to do hypothetical maps and cross sections of the deposit.
I still hve several " superior' samples in my collection. SO I don't need any of that.

We used to do Cambrian trilobite hunts in the areas around NEEDLES (hell on earth). Youd sweat your ass of and would only worry when you stopped sweating

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@farmerman,

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Ill be in touch.

By all means

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I have a few of the original "Type section" howlites from Nova Scotia……..

Mine are from a deposit near LA

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The howlites I have look more like big cauliflower heads

Yes I have a couple such, very luckily because they were getting scarce when I was collecting decades ago

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and I used to give my students in mining geology, samples

I have held a few "rock classes" though probably rank amateur by comp

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I still hve several " superior' samples in my collection. SO I don't need any of that.

I presume you might mean my maps and certainly you don't though I thought you might find 'em interesting in a historical perspective

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……...Youd sweat your ass of and would only worry when you stopped sweating

We've collected a whole lot in the desert summer months also

Of course this is all OT, having little to do with droughts but why don't we open a collecting thread

Maybe you have another fitting topic

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@farmerman,

http://able2know.org/topic/235148-1

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How does the California Drought Affect YOU?

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