[socalstanfan1]

[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12002.msg116355#msg116355 date=1428521639]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

Alternately it would just cause farmers in the central valley to grow fewer water intensive crops that aren't suited for this climate and move water intensive industrial processes to places that have more water...
[/quote]

The entire "California Dream" is based on the un-natural distribution of water, the damming of various rivers (Colorado, Owens, Feather, Hetch-Hetchy) and the use of aqueducts to support not just farming but massive amounts of population, far beyond numbers that would be sustainable by natural amounts of local rainfall.  Draughts are also a regular part of California's weather pattern, as all of us who are California-born know.  (Though I'm quite willing to accept that global warming may be contributing to making the latest draught worse.)  What used to be primarily a North/South struggle over water is now as much a Agriculture/Urban center struggle. But really, water shortage is just something Californians have to deal with (or live in denial about, depending upon how much moisture a particular rainy season brings).

Eventually, this drought will end.  If it doesn't, really one of the last things I will be worrying about is whether an 18-year old football player is somehow put-off by browning lawns around Stanford.

[socalstanfan1]

[quote author=OutsiderFan link=topic=12002.msg116355#msg116355 date=1428521639]
[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=12002.msg116353#msg116353 date=1428521325]
Water is underpriced and needs to be set up on more of a market basis. There's your starting point.

Raising the price of water, or otherwise making it anything but accessible to everyone relatively equally, will lead to never ending war and civil unrest.  California may be a coming example.
[/quote]

Alternately it would just cause farmers in the central valley to grow fewer water intensive crops that aren't suited for this climate and move water intensive industrial processes to places that have more water...
[/quote]

The entire "California Dream" is based on the un-natural distribution of water, the damming of various rivers (Colorado, Owens, Feather, Hetch-Hetchy) and the use of aqueducts to support not just farming but massive amounts of population, far beyond numbers that would be sustainable by natural amounts of local rainfall.  Draughts are also a regular part of California's weather pattern, as all of us who are California-born know.  (Though I'm quite willing to accept that global warming may be contributing to making the latest draught worse.)  What used to be primarily a North/South struggle over water is now as much a Agriculture/Urban center struggle. But really, water shortage is just something Californians have to deal with (or live in denial about, depending upon how much moisture a particular rainy season brings).

Eventually, this drought will end.  If it doesn't, really one of the last things I will be worrying about is whether an 18-year old football player is somehow put-off by browning lawns around Stanford.