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5 Corporations Sucking California Dry During The Drought
Submitted by Jake Anderson via TheAntiMedia.org,
As most people in the country know by now, California is currently suffering from a severe, record-breaking drought. In fact, it’s the worst drought in 1,200 years. While Governor Jerry Brown recently issued a mandate for people to start conserving water, large corporations use up and waste vastly more water than individuals and small businesses, often in ways that are detrimental to the environment.
Let’s take a look at five of the most massive corporations in California that are the worst culprits when it comes to wasting water:
1. Nestle
Nestle, once mainly known for its chocolate bars, is now becoming increasingly notorious for the way it uses up water in its bottled water products. Nestle, of course, has been criticized for using up water in drought-stricken third world countries. However, it is also doing this right at home in California. For example, one of the places where Nestle gets water is on the Morongo Reservation in the Cabazon region of the state. This is an area where groundwater levels of water have been steadily declining in recent years.
2. Harris Ranch
Harris Cattle Ranch is the largest producer of beef in California. At last count, it produced more than 150 million pounds of beef per year. While much of the attention on conserving water is focused on individuals, the fact is that more than 90% of the water used in California is used by agriculture. Cows consume more than twenty times as much water as humans. Crops such as soybeans and corn, which are heavily subsidized by the government, also use up massive amounts of water.
3. Occidental Petroleum
Occidental Petroleum is one of the oil companies in California that use enhanced oil recovery techniques, more commonly known as ‘fracking’. This is a practice that has become increasingly controversial due to potential health risks and suspected fracking-related seismic activity. Fracking also uses up large amounts of water. According to one estimate, a single well may use more than 5 million gallons of water to extract resources. Recent evidence also suggests that fracking companies have dumped waste water into aquifers, which contaminates the water with pollutants such as heavy metals and radiation.
4. California Dairies, Inc.
California Dairies, Inc. is the largest dairy processing cooperative in the state, producing 43% of California’s milk and 9% of the milk of the entire country. Along with beef, dairy production is another practice that uses up incredible amounts of water. It actually takes as much as 30 gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk.
5. Paramount Farming
Paramount Farming is the largest producer in the nation of nuts such as almonds and pistachios. Almond production alone uses up more water than is used by both residents and businesses in Los Angeles and San Francisco combined. Most nuts grown in California are exported to various parts of the world.
California’s drought is a serious and complex issue. Solving it will take an effort on the part of many people, including individuals, politicians and businesses. When studying this issue, however, it’s important not to ignore the considerably more massive part played by large companies. We have seen what happens on a geopolitical level when vital resources begin to dwindle, and I’m not talking about Frank Herbert’s Dune, which features a planet in which the scarcity of water has made it the most precious of substances. People can help to conserve water in many ways. More importantly, in addition to using less water with everyday tasks, people can pay more attention to what type of products they buy and consume. If you are interested in the macro view of water conservation, consider boycotting the companies and industries listed above.
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They won't be able to do that for too much longer.
Go long beef, chocolate and nuts apparently.
there is not a direct correlation between usage and waste. How do they determine waste? How in the HELL did they leave off Gallo Wineries? At least Paramount Farms and all the other farms produce something of nutritive value. And how is bottled water wasting water if there's a one for one connection between what they bottle and what gets drunk by humans.
Nestlea's water usage premit expired years ago. Payola anyone?
The Morongo Reservation is worse than the mafia or maybe they are one and the same. If you can't buy the opponents kill them. Anyone who has driven by the Harris ranch feed lots knows not to buy their stinky beef but blaming them for wasting Cali water because the cows eat soybeans and corn? There are zero acres of soybean in california and not much corn. That's Iowa rain their eating up not Central Valley irrigation.
Sentence 2 is bullshit..."worst drought in 1200 years". That should clue you into the quality of the rest of this piece.
Drought of late 70s was about the same, but this one has exceeded by a bit now....that was less than 40 years ago.
The '30s were much worse all over the western US, including California. Not even 100 years.
Anybody claiming to have solid data going back more than a couple 100 years is using proxy data (tree rings, diggings from lakebeds, etc), which are highly arguable and the scientific literature is full of conflicting data and conflicting interpretations, so you can cherry pick any numbers you wish. There is hard evidence of large trees that were growing about 900-1000 years ago in several sierra lakes, now under water....very strong evidence that the drought then was far worse and far longer (the trees were of size to imply that the drought then lasted 50 years or longer).
(I do agree, however, that the real problem with water shortages is misuse and misallocation. Big allocations to big agra and wastage for environmental protection of smelt is unfathomable....)
I still see full swimming pools and green golf course.
Again, I ask: what drought?
I am Chumbawamba.
There''s a fuck ton of water offshore too. It's positively wet out there.
When Obama brings in another 100 million immigrants the situation will look a lot better.
Water to make milk, wine and other consumables is hardly wasting water. Much water applied to a farm sinks down to the water table to be reused. Other water evaporates to rain down further east somewhere.
Wasting fresh water is letting it flow into the ocean. I imagine someone whining "we have to waste for the fish". I answer: people count, eventually they will out vote the fish. Get used to it.
Golf is mostly recycled water, as are all open spaces around master planned communities
Automatic choke.
Spot on:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/californias-his...
Plenty more there too.
Article skipped.
I don't think there will be a shortage of nuts in CA. anytime soon. This shithole is full of them.
So's your house.
Yep. Lived here for 50 years and yes, Virginia, it's big ag who are the problem children here in this state. Beef should not ever, ever, be raised in CA. And the fucking bottled water fidouchebags, don't get me started. Rape, pillage and plunder. That's all that our state legislature and corporations know how to do. And they certainly excel at those "skills".
For the logistically and mathematically challenged, FYI 1) water being drunk by humans is a tiny tiny tiny fraction of water use, even of potable city water use. 2) humans who drink x amount of water each day from bottles drink x amount less water from the tap or from other sources of WATER. 3) so drinking water from the tap instead of from bottles saves no water and 4) see point number one about how this is a laughably unimportant amount of water usage. 5) grow a fucking brain. Etc.
Exactly. Unless someone shows hidden costs (like that somehow it takes 100 gallons to bottle 1 gallon of water), even mentioning bottling facilities is moronic. Bottled water is so infinitesimal compared to irrigation that... you get it
It is absurd for California to have mega-factory dairies when they have no water. After all, milk is mostly what? In the meantime, the small dairy farmers in NY are getting flattened by taxes and production costs, and the Amish in PA get railroaded by the government for selling raw milk.
Need Moar government to solve these problems. There should be more rules and plenty of government workers to enforce and track all thus stuff. For the children. And the FSA.
You are a net user of water and a net producer of CO2. Lead by example, take an extended dirt nap. Oh wait, matter can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed. Don't worry about it, your wastes are recycled over time and so is carbon. It's all bullshit, move to a swamp and commune with the tough critters.
Get a cow, have something to eat, something to fuck, and something to ride to the next waterhole on.
This drought problem is like fishing in the rain, it hurts the fisherman, not the fish. Cali was infused with dust bowl relocations, may be time to reverse the process. The drought isn't hurting anything that isn't location specific and vulnerable, just like the fisherman.
This, too, shall pass.
20+ years ago my company transferred me to silicon valley and I got an L1 visa. The state of CA sent me a booklet along with the visa. The first paragraph started with, "California is the nation's biggest producer of fruits, nuts and vegetables." Never was a truer word spoken.
I see what you did there ? you were describing the residents weren't you ?
True story. My first day in the office, one of the engineers told me if I needed any help settling in, just to ask. And if I needed a psychiatrist, he could recommend a good one. I thought he was joking but no...
Enlightened coastal Californians know that saving water is important, but saving it behind dams is wrong wrong and so it is a good thing the left put reservoir building to a stop back in the 60's and thank god we are a sanctuary state with lots of free health care and services for the poor undocumented mostly illiterate who have charmingly diversified us.
"What is it Obi Wan?"
"There was a great disturbance in the force, as if a million almond trees cried out in thirst and were suddenly sileneced"
Fuck you, water me,.
There are 1400 dams in California. That's one dam for every 28,000 people.
That's more dams per capita than just about any other large population region on the planet. Almost every river in California has at least one dam on it and sometimes 2 or 3. The only rivers not dammed are in the far north where there's no population.
How many more dams do you think we need?
27,999?
The headline made me wonder if Jenna Jameson was on the list.
The other day I was out front, hand watering a few flowers and some bitch walks by and yells out "I thought we were in a drought!"
Dumb fucking people have been mostly brainwashed into believeing the the entire "solution" to the drought rests in residental users taking short showers and letting their lawns die and their cars stay dirty.
I think my personal solution will be to let the entire front yard die (the lawn and shrubs are already gone) and just grow something nice in the backyard where I never have to deal with the idiocy of the public.
People point to lawn mowers (small engine) polluting more than cars too.
if more people took care of the earth and plants and trees we wouldn't have so much ecological mess
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxiMrvDbq3s
ToSoft, I like these lyrics better...
This land is my land
This land ain't your land
I got a shot gun
and you ain't got one
so you better get off
or I'll blow you head off
This land was made for me not you
Well for sure we should take care of our wood, maybe not every time the need arises, but regularly.
Trees are hogs, they rob the small weeds, cut them all down. The tall bastards hide the beautiful vistas.
Use a nozzle with on-off and before 9am next time! Or I'm reporting you to trailer-trash police.
I read a headline somewhere yesterday.
NASA finds evidence of water in California but no intelligent life.
Nasa doesn't realise that those plant don't grow on their own.
How much water do they boil off at the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility again?
That facility uses a lot of water to clean the mirrors, which get dusty.
The thermal energy storage, however, is in the form of molten salts. And steam turbines typically are a closed circuit (discarding hot water is a waste of heat) so that steam can get superheated again easily.
Okay smarty pants,
Jerry Brown's Super Sonic Rail link from the Mesican border to California's Safe Zones should save the day!
The drought is artificial. Stop pointing fingers at the victims, which generally include those who supply goods to the public.
Damn right it's artificial. Geoengineering is yet another arm of the NWO's war against humanity. Here, a pilot joins the fray:
http://www.zengardner.com/former-commercial-pilot-joins-fight-stop-geoen...
This is why there are so few whistleblowers (but more are coming out every day now):
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/former-prominent-cia-officer-shares-d...
And, THIS goodie was just dug up from 1978 - a 750 page congressional report that details the program:
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2015/10/16/geoengineering-cover-up-revealed-i...
Recyclers
Water Water everywhere and not a drop to drink...
Hey, I can finish that "and everywhere that Mary went--" I forgot that part.
CA would have plenty of water if they'd allow SMR's (small modular reactors) to be built inland, to pump seawater thru graphene-based desal systems.
30% of all ariable land is used to raise pigs, cattle and chickens. Something to think about don't you think and then you add Netsle, a troll along the lines of Monsanto and you see the beginning of a perfect storm in CA. Good article for sure.
When I applied for a green card I was working in the bay area. I had to take a psychological and medical evaluation and the administering doctor was a total flamer. He told me to get undressed and gave me an anal digital exam. I later found out that wasn't a mandatory part of the examination, which made me feel used. I asked, "where should I hang my pants?" "Over there by mine" wasn't the answer I was hoping for.
working on your stand-up? not bad
Haha that's actually how it happened aside from the last line which one of my aussie friends told me. He went through the same procedure minus the rectal exam. He said to me, "You got stiffed."
Either way, I got the green card and to complete the story, the card they issue from the SF office is actually a rather nice pastel peach color. Go figure.
Ok first off California has had a least 2 droughts lasting longer than 100 years in the past 1200 years, this one is 4 years long? These droughts happen during Grand Solar Minimums solar cycle 24 is the weakest solar cycle since the Dalton Minimum, however I am sure CO2 is causing this one. Also I notice that 3 out of 4 of the companies are farms that grow FOOD. Maybe the farmers should get water before some jackass millionaire can water his freaking lawn or fill his pool.
Al Gore's fault.
SOB invented global warming
Actually GW was invented in the 40's.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcruyJTfnCQ
This will certainly blow your skirt up on what's to come.
+100
There is a question as to whether growing food in a desert is really the most efficient use of resources. Cattle and milk cows, for instance, can be raised with much less fuss in the East, where water falls out of the sky to keep the grass (which cattle like to eat) green. But they are raised more cheaply in California because of water project subsidies and the lack of diseases and insects which abound in places where there is natural water; while good Eastern farmland is turned into suburban office parks and strip malls which are then abandoned thirty years later, leaving the land unusable. A better use of California's limited water is the production of almonds, which literally grow better there than anywhere else in the world, while a better use of Eastern land is to put the offices in skyscrapers and use the majority of the land to grow food.
Capitalism combined with socialized infrastructure leads to gross misallocation of resources. The claim that capitalism leads to efficient resource allocation is pure bunk -- such allocation is ONLY efficient in producing cash profits for investors, not in producing stronger, more prosperous, or more stable societies.
Holy shit! Faeriedust gets it, here in the New England where some of the best most fertile soils exist in the universe they put fucking malls on the land. Never to be reclaimed.
So what can New England grow in the winter when that fertile soil is frozen?
1.) There is no element of capitalism in subsidies.
2.) The most cost-effective office space is in the form of 4-story buildings (counting the ground floor as floor 1) when land is available.
3.) If there is such a thing as efficient resource allocation, then the millions of individual decisions by people on the ground is a much better allocator than a central planner.
Capitalism is not an economic system. It is a philosophy of being free from coercion.
This may come as a shock, but radical greens and the central government, via litigation and legislation, are partially to blame for the water situation. According to Rep Devin Nunes 1.2 million ace feet of San Joaquin Valley water are annually diverted for "environmental causes".
He goes on to say the claim farmers "use 80% of California water" is a gross distortion. Of the captured water farmers get 40%, cities get 10% and environmental causes get 50%.....which gets flushed into the ocean.
The complete article is here:
http://www.rangemagazine.com/features/fall-15/range-fa15-man-made_drough...
Riiiiight. Does it occur to you that these environmental causes constitute trying to keep a bare MINIMUM of California's pre-industrialization ecosystem functioning? Or that failure to do so might (probably WOULD) lead to unforeseen and strongly negative results on human habitability of the rest of the land? Have you ANY CONCEPTION of the importance of natural watersheds? The atmospheric water cycles? The effect of natural plant cover on rainfall patterns, and of natural animal life on said plant cover?
50% of the water goes into attempted maintenance of the frickin' LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEM. And probably that should be closer to 70% if we don't want to kiss California goodbye as an inhabitable zone within the next century. Or maybe the entire area west of the Rockies. Of course it's probably already entirely too late, because the majority of Americans are complete idiots when it comes to Spaceship Earth's life support infrastructure. They're only just beginning to wise up, and obviously you missed the remedial course.
"...and obviously you missed the remedial course."
Not hardly. My degree is in Biological Science, minor in Geology plus Ecology, Weather/Climate and as much other Natural Science as I could squeeze in. I have a well rounded education in the Natural Sciences.
Difference is I never became an acolyte at the altar of Gaia.
"Difference is I never became an acolyte at the altar of Gaia."
AMEN! Way to many Gaia worshipers out there, and their ranks are growing thanks to main stream media brainwashing (damn near cult status).
I'm all for responsible use and management of the environment, and going renewable when it makes economic sense. What pisses me off is that global warming is manufactured by false or massaged data, and foisted on the public. NONE of the data is proven to correlate with global warming. We all reside on a living planet, with many cycles we understand like the water cycle, the four seasons, etc. There are also things we don't understand, like very long term temperature cycles of the earth. In the 60's we were supposed to be going into a new global ice age. In the 90's the mantra changed into global warming. Halley's Comet comes every 76 yrs. It was observed at least three times before Edmond Halley ultimately understood that said comet, on prior observation going back over 150 yrs before him, was one and the same. That said, what long term cycles happen with Earth's temperatures? We don't know. No one bails against the tide, because we know its cycle. So let's find out for sure, BEFORE I'm asked to pay to remediate global warming.
/rant
"NONE of the data is proven to correlate with global warming."
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) disagrees with your statement.
Your rant amounts to nothing more than saying "Doc, I want to be 100% sure I have terminal cancer before I pay for treatment." when the reality is - there is only one way to be "sure".
We use the environment / natural resources responsibly? LULZ
Here is just one of many examples that debunk the report you cited:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/03/31/the-ipccs-latest-report-deliberately-excludes-and-misrepresents-important-climate-science/
As for my statement that data is "massaged" to make it look warmer:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11561629/Top-scientists-start-to-examine-fiddled-global-warming-figures.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/045695_global_warming_fabricated_data_scientific_fraud.html
Furthermore, NOAA's on site admits they altered their data.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/temperature-monitoring.php
I'm not trying to be an ass here. IF there is global warming, then YES, I agree something should be done. Your example about cancer is not an apples to apples comparison, as cancer is 100% provable with unaltered data. The current state of global warming science is not. The earth has been warmer before, and it has been cooler before, and we have data that proves that. The truth is, we do not have legimitate proof that any global temperature changes are anything out outside of normal cyclical ranges for data we already have.
I don't know how much you know about academics, but the researchers out there live and die by grant funding. No grant, no money. Unfortunately many havve been caught altering data to make it look like there is a catastrophic problem looming..... and needs to be further studied.... requiring LOTS more grant money... for them. I know this applies to BOTH sides of the issue.
I do not buy one side of an argument, especially when it is spouted off bu main stream media (not just global warming, but anything). I look at the other side as well, then dig for cold hard FACTS.
For global warming, the current facts indicate that any temperature change is not man made, and not outside of any already known (factual data) temperature range for the earth.
If and when the facts change, I'm 100% on board. Until then, I'm not buying the bull.
Who gives a fuck about preindustrial California? You gonna go blow up all the factories and offices?
Shockingly enough, Devin Nunes represents a congressional district that covers the east side of the Central Valley which is almost entirely agricultural.
Think he's an impartial observer?
Just wait till Elon musk's Gigafactory opens in Reno. That place will compound the problem greatly.
um...no....Reno is on the east side of the sierra....different drainage.
California was/is a desert. The people living there are about to find out what that means shortly. On another note, in 50 years or so, our children are going to ask us wtf were we thinking for the past 150 years. We have royally fucked up this planet on a grand scale. If as a whole we had any perspecitive we would see this. This planets ecosytem blows my mind when I think about how everything is intertwined. But the virus known as the 'human' is doing its best job to fuck it up.
This planets ecosytem blows my mind when I think about how everything is intertwined. But the virus known as the 'human' is doing its best job to fuck it up.
Is that you, Dave Foreman?
Nope, don't even know who that is....What I wrote is true, the balance of the earth's ecosystem is so finely tuned. What has the human done to improve any of it, all we have done is to consume everything it gives.
IF...you are a human, lead by example and blow your brains out.
95% of all water use is corporate, but when we need to cut, it is the 5% who are harked upon to do so.
Remember in the USSA the corporation is a person! Please treat it nicely, it has feelings /sarc.
What % of the fucking jobs does business provide?
Stupid fuck - have you ever worked at any company? Are you that fucking stupid?
We save some water but as a result 98% of the people now need jobs.
Should be an IQ standard of 25 or better to be able to post on ZH.
All the while, the state government puts all of the hurt on the residential consumer, and does nothing to address long term water infrastructure.
What a jackass. Author, no more food for you!
Anti-Media .... this cunt is pure socialist boiler plate .... Cabazon is desert out by Palm Springs .... and drinking water has got to be an approved use of water .... corn and soybeans are grown in the mid-west .... do they even do much fracking in California (Bakken frackin') .... Almonds and Pistachios are good food and they help our balance of payments .... a family uses a gallon of milk a day .... they flush the toilet at least ten times .... which brings us full circle .... this guy is full of shit ?
The biggest waste of fresh water .... is the delta water that flows into San Francisco bay !
All to save the Delta Smelt...of which only six live specimens were found in the entire delta during their latest census.
This idiot is sucking all the marrow .... out of the bones of truth !
It was all a lie perpetrated to rob Californian rate and tax payers blind under the guise of a drought and water crisis. Now, after heavy reins and floods in July, August, September and October, unheard off for decades, we are facing a prelude to perhaps biggest El-nino rainy season ever recorded (NASA) in the history, with expected thousands of victims of the floods and official drought ending by April 2016. It's all clear now. It was all about extortion by the entrenched water moguls with complicity from the state government. And here is how:
https://sostratusworks.wordpress.com/2015/03/28/california-waterworld-of...
This article is bullshit.
Any good "Austrian" will tell you that the only way to allocate water is with a true "free market price" system...and that won't happen in my lifetime.
Upon reading this article...I cried..but not enough tears to help the drought...then I thought..do Californians care about Arkansas, or how about South Carolina during their 1000 year floods ...nope...nada...so I took the bottled tears and watered a rose bush.
Well fuking duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You just named the 3 most water intensive industries that serve probably up to half the state..............
What a bunch of fuking left wing "ban the farting cows" bullshit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This should be put on shit like the ny post................
Not a trading blog like 0 hedge!
Actually we're only in our 3rd year of drought, we had 2 prior droughts in my lifetime that lasted longer, the CA drought is entirely man made by the Mexican mafia controlled CA legislature entirely to push water projects for new development and public works projects that hasn't occurred yet, even today 10/20/ 15 LA' DWP is dumping over a billion gallons a day to mitigate dust In a dry lake bed that's been dry for 25000 years.
Paramount is owned by Linda and Stewart Resnick, Hollywood Billionaires. They own undergraund aquifer water banks around Bakersfield. They also hae pollitical connections.
BTW most water is used for Environmental Purposes such as to keep water cold for Salmon. Why isn't that 'corporation' listed?
Thanks to El Nino the drought will be over in a few months. BTW, if these corporationbs did not have water, we would not have food and the employees would not have jobs.
Perhaps it's your politicians who are doing the sucking California.
Communist progressive Eco-murderer criminal hit piece. Big government worshiping Eco-criminals get a two-fer, a head fake and a stab at evil business.
"Hey look over there and ignore the Eco-nazi murderers destruction of California's water reservoirs so some stupid fish can shit in the water draining straight into the ocean"
"How the Environmentalists are Destroying California"http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/04/how_the_environmentalist...
"Farm Groups: Fiorina Right About Environmentalists and California Drought"http://www.newsmax.com/US/fiorina-drought-environmentalists/2015/04/09/i...
"San Francisco to vote on draining Yosemite reservoir"http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2012/10/06/hetch-hetchy-san-francisco...
The progressive Eco-murderer stupid, it burns.
Grimaldus
removed