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The Water Wars Are Coming
Submitted by James E Miller via Mises Canada blog,
Does a warning mean anything if nobody listens?
With the precarious case of Lake Mead, doomsayers never seem to break the surface. For years, reports of the lake’s declining levels have popped up in the news. Yet residents of the surrounding area still refuse to listen. The latest report from the Interior Department is very troublesome: there is a 20% chance of water shortages for Nevada and Arizona in 2016 if the lake maintains current levels.
Lake Mead, if you are unaware, provides 90% of the water to Las Vegas. It is also a crucial water source for Los Angeles and major cities in Arizona. Thus, it’s easy to see why residents of Nevada and surrounding states have an interest in the viability of the lake to sustain itself. News of drought or weakening levels should be cause for alarm. Often times, attention is roused with reports that water may become scarce in the immediate future. But that scare usually dissipates when rain comes, essentially washing away the fear of future paucity.
There is an assumption by people living in the southwestern United States that water shortages are a naturally-caused phenomenon. A coworker of mine who hails from the region recently informed me that most Nevada citizens don’t understand the underlying forces driving the water crisis. They ignore the fact that the present situation is unsustainable. Worse yet, they don’t see the real culprit behind a continual lack of H2O: the government.
Contrary to popular belief, the current state of the American southwest isn’t the norm. Rather, it’s an artificial creation that likely wouldn’t exist without government planning. What do I mean?
Without Lake Mead, Las Vegas wouldn’t have enough of a water supply to be the country’s leading tourist trap. The same goes for cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, and Austin. An artificial lake created by the construction of the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead has the government’s fingertips all over it. And that means its filled with the hubris of a thousand engineers who thought they could thwart nature.
Lake Mead was created almost a century ago with the creation of the Hoover Dam. The dam was originally a make-work program pushed by President Hoover and later completed by Franklin Roosevelt. It was part of many economic recovery programs meant to mitigate the spike in unemployment brought on by the Great Depression. At the time of its completion, F.D.R. called the structure (then named the Boulder Dam) a “great feat of mankind” and “the greatest dam in the world.”
Little did he anticipate. Like all government projects, the unintended consequences wrought by the Hoover Dam are legion. According to historian Michael Hiltzik, the population of the southwest swelled upon completion of the dam. “Since that dedication year, the population of the seven states of the basin has swelled by about 45 million. Much of this growth has been fueled by the dam and its precious bounties of water and electrical power.”
The promise of water attracted farmers and developers from across the nation. The phony supply of water created an insatiable demand that was never viable over the long term. As Doug French writes, “government’s damming of the Colorado River attempted to cheat Mother Nature by bringing water to the desert southwest — water that just isn’t and never was there.”
The Hoover Dam boondoggle sprung to mind when I recently watched the classic film noir Chinatown. Starring a young Jack Nicholson, Chinatown is based on the seedy dealings of water rights in Los Angeles during the 1970s. Access to water, it turns out, has always been a topic of contention in the southern California area.
The film begins with private investigator J.J. Gittes being hired to investigate the husband of Evelyn Mulwray. Said husband is the owner of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. During his investigation, Gittes stumbles upon a nefarious scheme to rob the city of much-needed water and transfer it to a newly-cultivated valley. Mulwray ends up dead for discovering the plan. Gittes struggles to put the pieces together while protecting Mulwray’s widow from danger.
Chinatown is considered a classic of American cinema because it portrays the unsavory underbelly of black market activity. Government corruption is a prominent theme, but the state is also portrayed as a positive mechanism for distributing water rights. Mulwray is regarded as a hero for transferring the responsibility of water allocation “to the people” rather than keep it in private hands. The idea that government arrogance is to blame for water misappropriation is not an explored theme of the film.
Gittes finds out the hard way that passing the ownership of water from private to public doesn’t weed out the tendency for corruption of the former. Rather, it incentivizes misuse of the public trust by putting bureaucrats in charge of one of life’s necessity. A shady deal is hatched to annex a neighboring valley into Los Angeles, while using this insider knowledge to scoop up the land at discount prices.
This scheme, while fictional, is loosely based on the California water wars of the early 20th century. A century of government meddling has turned the issue of water rights on its head, and further centralized control of waterways in local, state, and federal governments. Just as the residents of Los Angeles fought over water with local farmers, the residents of Las Vegas will soon find themselves fighting with surrounding states over what’s left of Lake Mead. None of the power players seem to care that the current population settlements of the southwestern United States cannot last. One day the water will run out. The sooner this reality is confronted, the better.
Admittedly, the ownership of water and its various bodies is a difficult topic. Rivers and tributaries don’t flow by man’s commands. They can be directed, but never fully controlled. Privatization of water rights would be a good start for restoring sane usage of natural resources. Don’t expect as much to happen though. Government control is far too entrenched in the process to be removed easily.
Forget it Jake, it’s socialism.
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People are reckless, they are destroying Earth. But they are quite effective when there is no other way than to solve a problem at hand. With time they will find necessary capital and resources.
And during that process they will learn how to conserve water and take care about nature.
Like Fukushima and other aging & cut-corner reactors?
No, they will run away and let others suffer the consequences - solutions will not be found.
Pessimism is not a solution. It is a part of problems
lmao
Leszek, do you also go by Starman? Humans are at their very best when things are at their very worst.
That butt plug patent doesn't really apply to this discussion. Nor does your mother's heavy use of it prove you know that the fuck you are talking about.
I've developed hundreds of new products. Probably cost 25 grand all told.
Hey,
I really liked that pocket fishing rod. Pure genius.
The slap-o-matic veggie chopper sucked.
reverse osmosis implies you have a place to put all the ocean's salt for every amount of water you remove - you don't. You can't just dump it back, poisoning the water to be excess in salt. You can't just dump it on land: rain will make the soil die where the salt runs off, you won't be planting anything anymore.
Laws of Physics is right - there's no cheating Nature. It takes energy to push water through osmotic filters. It takes space to store salt and loss of soil quality and water quality where that salt is not properly stored once removed from the water.
It takes energy to lift tons of salt solids too, moving them from A to B, presuming you have a safe place to do so, or to move all the water still salty first and then desalinate at the dumping ground, leaving salt behind on the spot and moving clean water where you need it (more energy cost).
Not enough energy to do this.
If we can convince people to eat more salt we solve two problems: too much salt and too many people in all the wrong places.
"Not enough energy to do this."
Yet.
Stay tuned.
sell the salt and put Morton's out of business. it's the governments way
Dump it back into the ocean, or sell it. In the winter they spread it thick on the roads in Ontario. Big salt mines under Lake Huron.
wooo hooo McDonalds is saved, "Would you like pre-salted fries with that?"
Of course they will be advertized as "organically salted" and will cost twice as much.
Just move the people. It's cheaper. OH, wait. Just wait a little while and they'll move themselves.
does that include water for growing food? Hygiene? Water for animals supporting his lifestyle?
It really amazes me how the California central valley is such an agricultural powerhouse given that the majority of it looks like a fucking desert. Whatever. Man fucking with nature.
it's something to behold really (drive up I-5) those meskins, dust bowl refugees and prison workers can rightly be proud of what they built
"The sooner this reality is confronted, the better."
HA! Does the author not know this is the wrong country for confronting reality....
How about the space war? Polar orbiting US satellite obliterated.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11444155/US-military-satellit...
Heh. Just like the Anasazi, the cities of the current southwest will be archeological sites.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=o6SWofbYD90#t=34
Have fun.
'Archeological sites' implies there will be archeologists in the future looking at these dead cities. Won't be humans.
I live in the Southwest. I've had family here since this part belonged to Mexico. I've been flabbergasted at the local politicians encouraging water conservation so that more people could move in so that we could conserve more water. Hey dipshits! It is a desert!
First they came for the pools, but I didn't have one.
Then they came for the roses and lawns, but I didn't have any.
Then I asked for a glass of water . . .
THe "carrying capacity" of any land mass equals the quality of the collective consciousness of the (invasive) species co-inhabiting that given area.
Civilization cannot arise in a desert, because it takes a dam to support civilization, and it takes civilization to build a dam. Civilization must originate in a wetter climate and then move into the desert.
These civilizations inevitably meet a tragic end, leaving the world's deserts littered with their ruins. A drought lasts long enough to empty the reservoir, a flood destroys the dam, the population devolves until they're too stupid to maintain the water system, etc.
The historical records are rather sketchy, as dying people don't write much, but the Marib Dam is a good example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marib_Dam
Speaking of water rights, have you heard that Nestle is trying to quietly buy up 80% of the world's fresh water supply?
Is there a monopoly regulation for that?
Go out west and ask old farmers. --12 gauge with buckshot. Milestones
Peak water! Peak water! Peak water!
I'll tell you what is disturbing to me. When Cities or Counties outlaw the collecting water off ones roof. As if THEY own it. Ownership of rain water. Some one owns drops of H2O falling from the sky that land on my (perceived) propety.
Time to sue the city, or county for illegally dumping rainwater on your land.
living in the socal desert, just miles from the ocean, i tell you if mankind cant figure this one out they should go back to the caves. ca residents are effective at dialing down their water usage. i dont know anybody who has a lawn. nobody washes their own car.
somewhere between desalinazation and conservation there is a solution for the people who are presently here. sprawl is a dirty word. and while everyone wants a new airport in SD, you build it and they will come. refusing new infrastructure is the patriotic thing to do.
the second difficulty with imported water is pumping it, it takes a lot of energy. so with energy conservation, and renewable there should be enough to import what is needed. las vegas is a bit of a one trick pony. it all depends on rainfall in the watershed, where it is against the law to capture roof runoff. at least i can keep my rainwater in CA.
The world's population growth is totally non-White. One might suggest that the rapid rise in population amongst the non-white demographics is due to the White man's inventions as well as the aid, material, technological and humane, given to the people of color. To this very day you can see white doctors, such as Rand Paul, giving free medical care to non-whites in foreign lands, care which would BANKRUPT the average white person in America.
Also our homelands, such as the USA, are being flooded with people of color whose breeding is subsidized by the Whites who built and founded the USA. As we have seen with the passage of the 1965 immigration act and the amnesty in 1986 and the numerous amnesties of this present regime, the push continues to end the Dispossessed Majority, once and for all.
This was all by design, my friends, not by chance.
Whether the Whites will actively resist their extinction remains to be seen.
"Overpopulation in the United States will become THE single greatest issue facing Americans in the 21st century. We either solve it proactively or nature will solve it brutally for us via water shortages, energy crisis, air pollution, gridlock, species extinction and worse.
U.S. population will double from 300 million to 600 million on its way to 1 billion in the lifetime of a child born today if we fail to change course."
Frosty Wooldridge 2000
The 10 states diversifying the fastest February 26, 2015
White Genocide
(somewhat skewed video, but undeniably true)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFPOV9qn0BE
You are damned right it is genocide!!! This is not by chance but by DESIGN!
And to think our Forefathers EXPRESSLY wanted this nation to remain White!!! However the Tribe had other plans for it and after they took over Hollywood from the DW Griffith types the end was sealed.
“Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.”
Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence, Independent Journal, October 31, 1787
John Jay in Federalist No. 2, wherein he describes Americans as a “band of brethren united to each other by the strongest ties.”
Democrats Plan To Win Elections With Illegal Alien Votes BY PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY 03/02/2015
hydraulic despotism
We live on a water planet.
Thorium / Molten Salt reactor and DESAL.
Problem solved.
'
'
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Hunerd pacent!
Problem solved! Again.
And!
Mining Hydrothermal Vents For Renewable Electricity, Drinking Water + Valuable Mineralshttp://cleantechnica.com/2009/09/04/mining-hydrothermal-vents-for-renewa...
•?•
V-V
Even wind and solar are OK for desal, if oil gets expensive.
A warning doesn't mean anything until a woman hears it.
Why don't we just take down the Lake Powell dam. Not too many people there>
The rest of the world will have to start drinking toilet water like we do in the OC and we love it:) Well actually we may not love it, but it works and tastes ok. It's the only project like it in the US and the only good thing that rose out of the crazy bankruptcy years ago...
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/water-652143-county-orange.html
It's much cheaper than desalting too and Santa Barbara is trying for another crack at that. I'm not taking away from the fact that we do in fact have a real water problem but hey when things get tough, the OC flushes the toilets:)
What do you drink to cover the halitosis?
Arctic/Antarctic ice harvesting. Giant drones land on an ice shelf, cut it into cubes and fly it back a ship, which then goes to port in Sao Paolo or where-ever else there is drought. California. Arizona. Nevada.
Savages from Mises Canada...anti infrastructure and anti civilization. Austrianism would have left a wasteland all over America.
my question as a realtor is why do they allow new home construction to continue in this drought?
www.ViewLasVegasRealEstate.com
Could we be an easier target?
We're going to be made to fight for everything needed for survival. When the environazis shut down fossil fuels to run our machines human slave labor will make a comeback.
Our mind is a weapon. Fuck off UN, shove your head in the snow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N-lzt53nHA&list=PLHSoxioQtwZeQaRnO5_9AJB2RmevUpuPT
Ain't seen nuthin yet folks, fresh water is the new bottleneck for population growth, though this is not news any serious planner has seen it coming for decades, and worldwide not just Kalifornya.
Who cares about California going dry?
I have a cistern under my house thats filled with all the water I could ever want. I had it tested and it was by far better than my tap water.
Tens of millions of people living in the desert is fine as long as it keeps raining and snowing. When it doesn't, then it's time to move.
The coyotes won't mind.
Trainloads of snow from Kanada! All the snow you can scrape off of the highways in January.