Deal would let Southern California buy surplus water from Nevada

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

(Reuters) - A $45 million deal that would let Southern California's biggest water agency access a major supply of water that would normally go to southern Nevada won approval on Thursday from the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

The board of the Metropolitan Water District, a wholesaler that supplies public utilities in heavily populated Southern California, will vote on the deal next week, a spokesman said.

Under the arrangement, the Southern California agency would be able to use 150,000 acre-feet of surplus water this year if needed, while allowing Nevada to buy it back in future years, the Southern Nevada Water Authority said in a statement on its website.

The deal is one of more than a dozen agreements worked out by the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District, which operates its own pumps at Lake Mead, a huge reservoir on the Colorado River behind Hoover Dam located between Nevada and Arizona.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/deal-let-southern-california-buy-surplus-water-nevada-225132581.html

[GitRDun]

1. Buy it back in future years?

[DRoseDARs]

2. Yeah, we're never going to see that water back in our state.

I mean, really, it's not like Nevada is mostly desert or anything, or that we're in a drought on top of that...

[navarth]

3. water wars

ain't gonna be pretty. The future of the Great Lakes region will be....interesting

[Earth_First]

13. That's for certain...

I'm 40 miles from Lake Ontario, it's not for sale.

[navarth]

14. yes but

what they can't buy they steal. what they can't steal they take by force.

[ellisonz]

4. Thanks Nevada!

We're thirsty!

[hobbit709]

5. One desert state buying water from another desert state.

What is wrong with that picture?

[CreekDog]

6. California's not a desert state

[hobbit709]

7. Quite a bit of it is, especially the southern half.

[CreekDog]

8. No the areas getting the water

That's the point.

I don't understand why people think they can just make up stuff like "California is a desert" or "Los Angeles is a desert" just because there's a drought.

Use the term correctly or concede the argument because one doesn't know what they are talking about.

[hobbit709]

9. Southern California is not exactly lush Not much water around south and east of L.A. down to Mexico

and to AZ and NV. Been there. And L.A. hasn't had enough water for itself for damn near 100 years. The L.A. river is a drainage ditch 10 months out of the year

[CreekDog]

10. You said "desert"

That's that.

You created a nice little parallel, except it was false.

That's that.

You invalidated your arguments and now you want to move the goalposts trying to make the same point.

[hobbit709]

11. Average annual rainfall for various cities in CA.

http://www.currentresults.com/Weather/California/average-yearly-city-precipitation.php

That is less than the 30 inches we average in Austin and we're classified as semi-arid.

[CreekDog]

12. Seminarid isn't desert and less than 30" annual precip doesn't define a desert

if you're going to reference a climatological term with a specific meaning, you need to not contradict that meaning if you hope to support your argument with it.

[Lychee2]

15. You two realize that this is just a verbal disagreement, right?

It's a disagreement about the meaning of the word, "desert."

This is from Merriam Webster's Dictionary

Definition of DESERT
1
a : arid land with usually sparse vegetation; especially : such land having a very warm climate and receiving less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of sporadic rainfall annually

b : an area of water apparently devoid of life .

Los Angeles gets an average of 14.93 inches of rain a year. The native brush, mostly chaparral, is not "sparse," either. So, by this definition, LA is technically not a desert. It's pretty close, though.