Finally. However, no real restrictions on agriculture, which is the thing using most of the water. They need to get that stuff to move away to where there is water, and not try to grasp onto an industry they shouldn't have any longer.
I've driven through the central valley a few times the past few months. Everything looks dead as it is, and as such it's hard to imagine that they aren't being restricted (perhaps price restriction). There are signs all up and down I-5 through this area that say "CONGRESS CREATED DUST BOWL" signs blaming Nancy Pelosi and our senators etc. Considering how much food California throws to the rest of the US, a resurrection of the old crazy plan to pipe water from Alaska to California would be more likely to come about before moving the industry out. Probably cheaper in the holistic sense, as well.
it would be significantly more feasible to spread the fruit basket out across more states, rather than having the vast majority of the production in one place. Also, stopping farming almonds would help. Same with alfalfa hay. Together they consume 25% o the state's water.
This is what happens when people stop thinking about environmental impact and just focus on what's easy. You already have the people, the infrastructure, and experience in California. From that standpoint you'd be crazy NOT to start your new crop in California. However, it means you're going to be throwing money at your landscape constantly to get it to and keep it at a point where it can support your crop. Farm rice, almonds, etc where there's more water, like Louisiana or something. It would probably not cost any more money than what you've already spent to terraform the area appropriately and train people.
But it doesn't matter how much water you have if your climate can't adequately support the crop. Louisiana may have water galore, but almonds ain't gonna do well with the humidity. Do farmers then build NASA greenhouses and pass on the associated build-and-maintain costs with increased food prices? Accept the climate they got and the accompanied lower yield (or higher risk of no yield, idk, I'm not a farmer), and again pass on the cost to food prices? These farmers are still capitalists and if it were cheaper and just as consistent or productive to farm elsewhere it probably would've been done already. But I think it's probably good that the decision makers and engineers start looking at the water sourcing issues with more urgency anyway. They'll continue to grow more critical as the population grows, anyway. Relocating them would be a band-aid rather than the case study we have right now anyway, IMO.
I think that trying to source in water from Alaska is a band-aid, and a bad one at that. Fresh water is an incredibly finite resource on this planet, and piping it in from a continental distance away seems insane to me.
Yep. I'm happy being in Michigan right now as I read this. Yeah, it's the worst drought since 1950, but sixty-five years in a geologic time frame is not even a blink of an eye. Likely the rain and snow will shift from other nearby regions as the weather patterns revert to the mean.