West’s Drought and Growth Intensify Conflict Over Water Rights

[phantom power]

We appear to be making a de facto decision that we will just let the American Breadbasket go to dust before cutting off water to the housing development juggernaut, and industry, mostly out of political expediency. I'm not sure how to read this, except that it's an inversion of Maslow's hierarchy, and it probably won't end well.

Residents of the arid West have always scrapped over water. But years of persistent drought are now intensifying those struggles, and the explosive growth — and thirst — of Western cities and suburbs is raising their stakes to an entirely new level.

In southern Texas, along the Gulf coast southwest of Houston, the state has cut off deliveries of river water to rice farmers for three years to sustain reservoirs that supply booming Austin, about 100 miles upstream. In Nevada, a coalition ranging from environmentalists to the Utah League of Women Voters filed federal lawsuits last month seeking to block a pipeline that would supply Las Vegas with groundwater from an aquifer straddling the Nevada-Utah border.

In Colorado, officials in the largely rural west slope of the Rocky Mountains are imposing stiff restrictions on requests to ship water across the mountains to Denver and the rest of the state’s populous eastern half. Fearing for their existence, Colorado farm towns on the Arkansas River have mobilized to block sales of local water rights to Denver’s fast-growing suburbs.

In Arizona, activists and the federal government are fighting plans to tap groundwater used by a vast housing development — a move that would reduce the water level of a protected river. Kansas accuses Colorado and Nebraska of allowing their farmers to divert Kansas’ share of the Republican River, which flows through all three states. A similar dispute between New Mexico and Texas is before the United States Supreme Court.

California, in the midst of a major drought, so far has witnessed but a few local skirmishes. In January, environmentalists and sport fishermen sued to halt the drilling of hundreds of new groundwater wells sought by Central Valley farmers, saying more pumping would lower stream levels.

That may not last long, said Stuart Somach, a Sacramento water-rights lawyer. California farmers have long grumbled about big-city designs on their water; Northern California has long grumbled about being the spigot that supplies most of the water to the dry south.

“We’re very close to the time that people are going to start staking out rights. We’re right at the cusp,” Mr. Somach said. “If this drought persists, depending on how state and federal agencies react, you’re going to get some real conflicts going.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/17/us/wests-drought-and-growth-intensify-conflict-over-water-rights.html?hp&_r=0

[safeinOhio]

1. Perhaps

The rust belt ain't so bad

[phantom power]

3. just wait until all 50 million of us run out of water and come knocking at your door

[safeinOhio]

4. I'm in San Diego at the moment

Just bring this 70 degrees with you.

[happyslug]

5. The Classic Pittsburgh to Chicago "Rust Belt" is 24 Million (Excluding Small Metro areas

http://www.mapofusa.net/us-population-density-map.htm

Here is a map of US Lights, notice how much brighter that part of the US EAST of the Mississppi compared to the US West of the Missisppi (The West Coastis brighter then the area to its east, but NO WHERE NEAR the East Coast:



http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/mapping/6415

Another interesting map, involving votes in the 2008 election. The West Coast is huge, but notice where lake Michigan is, it is almost half way to California on this map, unlike a regular US Map showing it no further then 1/3 of the way to California. The reason for this map's strange shape, is they had to work around the massive population of Boston to Washington DC, Pittsburgh to Chicago to Minneapolis, the huge growth in Texas and Florida over the last 50 years in addition to the growth along the West Coast.




Just a comment that the US east of the Mississippi, mostly the "Rust Belt" can absorb the 50 million displayed by drought in California (I do not think all 50 million will move, many will stay and California, like the East Coast has a huge overseas population. In times of crisis people move in with blood relatives. Thus many of that "Oversea" population will return home from where ever they or their parents immigrated from (and may people who moved to the West Coast from the Mid West will do the same, return home).


Lets look at the Pittsburgh to Chicago core:

Chicago Metro area is 9.5 Million

Detroit metro area is 4.2 million

Pittsburgh Metro area is 2.3 million

Cleveland is Metro area 2.0 million

Toledo is .6 Million

Youngstown metro is .5 million

Flint Michigan metro is .4 million

Thus the Pittsburgh to Chicago is just under 20 million people, in the Major Metro area only.


That core easily extends to the Mississippi and Ohio river (14.6 Million in the following Metro Areas):

Minneapolis /St Paul 3.4 Million

Cincinnati metro Area is 2.1 Million

Milwaukee Metro area is 1.5 million

Cincinnati metro Area is 2.1 Million

Columbus Metro area is 1.9 million

Indianapolis metro area is 1.9 million

St Louis Metro area is 2.7 million

And extends to include Upper New York State (2 million out side the East Coast and Hudson river valleys).

Buffalo Metro area is 1.1 Million.

Rochester New York is 1 Million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas#United_States

[pscot]

2. Are you one of those rice huggers

who thinks rice is more important than people?