Author Topic: California Drought (Read 13311 times)

iddee · « **Reply #20 on:** April 25, 2015, 08:30:04 am »

Logical, reducing 20% of the usage by 25%. That's reducing the total usage by 5% and hurting the most people the worst. Isn't that the normal government procedure? Why would you ever expect them to be ""LOGICAL"", logical?

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #21 on:** April 25, 2015, 08:44:16 am »

Iddee is right.. but they ARE being logical in their own putrid way.. you cant infringe on the "money" so you take the water away from all the other users..

Ray · « **Reply #22 on:** April 25, 2015, 09:34:37 am »

Thanks for the link LogicalBee.
It's scary that it will take thousands of years for nature to repair the collapsed aquifers.
The possibility of no almond monoculture in California, and the effect that would have on the Honey Bee industry is why I started this thread. My crystal ball doesn't get that channel

, possibly Almonds Orchards will spring elsewhere in the USA or possibly they'll move offshore.
http://www.growpeanuts.com/where-do-almond-trees-grow.html

vossejongk · « **Reply #23 on:** April 25, 2015, 10:09:56 am »

What you people seem to need is water transportation from places with excess to places with shortage. We solved that with lots of connected waterways and water management programs. All our rivers, canals and creeks are connected trough pumps and locks. The problem you guys mostly have is distance and quantity needed..

Ray · « **Reply #24 on:** April 25, 2015, 10:25:47 am »

I really can't answer you vossejongk without starting a small war.

LogicalBee · « **Reply #25 on:** April 25, 2015, 02:43:09 pm »

Ray, I see in your link that Michigan has two Almond farms! Maybe we should start growing some

My water table is only 2 feet below the surface of the soil. Plenty of water here. I’ve looked into Walnut farming in the past since they grow like weeds in my area, but I don’t know of anybody around me that actually has an almond tree.

As for CA water woes, maybe Captain Kirk can solve the problem with his $30 billion dollar pipeline to Washington State; crowd funded of course. Maybe they can speed up the Transport using one of Elon Musk’s “hyperloops” along the way.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-shatner-boldly-goes-after-water-20150423-story.html

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #26 on:** April 25, 2015, 04:59:21 pm »

Cali just needs to install a couple desalination plants. then they sell salt and HAVE fresh water..

Ray · « **Reply #27 on:** April 25, 2015, 06:47:44 pm »

Desalination plants sure would help. Changing attitudes is what's necessary.
"You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing-after they have tried everything else". Winston Churchill

It's getting harder and harder to keep politics out of my comments.
I rather discuss beekeeping than argue politics. I rather discuss beekeeping than argue politics. I rather .........

I feel better now.

Plenty of Black Walnut trees here also. My area is criss-crossed with county drains trying to keep the water table below ground. Malaria was a seasonal illness in Michigan before the drains were dug. Well, LogicalBee we wouldn't have to go very far for pollinators.

LogicalBee · « **Reply #28 on:** April 26, 2015, 01:48:39 am »

Desalination isn’t cheap either. Looks like San Diego is spending 1billion dollars on a plant to desalinate 50 million gallons a day in 2016. Reverse Osmosis isn’t something the environmentalists are too fond of either since it increases the salinity of the ocean water around the plants. Might be bad for the turtles?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/getting-clean-water-from-the-sea-at-a-high-price/

I believe Tampa Bay currently has the largest desalination plant in North America. Who would have thought that Tampa, of all places, needed more water! Needs 27,000 horsepower pumps for the process.
http://www.tampabaywater.org/tampa-bay-seawater-desalination-plant.aspx

Quote from: Ray on April 25, 2015, 06:47:44 pm

My area is criss-crossed with county drains trying to keep the water table below ground. Malaria was a seasonal illness in Michigan before the drains were dug.

I complained to the county road commission that I needed some drainage on my property so what do they do? They came out and put a culvert under the road and now the fields across the road drain into my property! You just can't win :'( Didn't know that Malaria history trivia.

LazyBkpr · « **Reply #29 on:** April 26, 2015, 08:59:10 am »

They came out and put a culvert under the road and now the fields across the road drain into my property!

A can of expanding foam and any type of firearm fixes that. Toss can into culvert, try to get it in the middle... aim, fire...
Presto! No more water runs from culvert!

Ray · « **Reply #30 on:** April 26, 2015, 06:16:27 pm »

There is probably a lot of room for finger pointing, as far as who wastes the most, but that won't solve the problem. Personally, I'd rather see someone wasting water producing food than rinsing off there driveway or watering there putting green lawn. When wells are going dry and people are waiting for their allotment of water, maybe it's time to move the almonds to Alabama. Just don't move them to China!

vossejongk · « **Reply #31 on:** April 26, 2015, 08:48:55 pm »

Don't worry about China. The country is so polluted with pesticides that among most other insects, almost all bees have died out in a lot of areas. They do pollination mostly by hand (!) But for such a huge amount of almonds it's nearly impossible even for China with its huge workforce

LogicalBee · « **Reply #32 on:** April 26, 2015, 10:41:09 pm »

I’ve also seen the news reports about how polluted China is. I’ve never been there so I have no idea who much truth there is in the reports, but if we look at who’s producing the most honey in the world, it appears there are lots of bees in China.

Looks like the data was from 2009. Pretty surprised a country as large as the USA is WAY behind China in production. The report says the USA is actually the 2nd largest importer of honey. Hmmm, the taste of foreign pesticides in the morning…

Little hard to believe small places like Turkey and Ukraine out produced the USA in 2009.

Ray · « **Reply #33 on:** April 27, 2015, 07:27:06 am »

If You Think the Water Crisis Can't Get Worse, Wait Until the Aquifers Are Drained
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/08/140819-groundwater-california-drought-aquifers-hidden-crisis/

I've always trusted National Geographic, this article however should be read with dramatic music paying in the background.

Almond Board of California
http://www.almonds.com/consumers/get-facts-about-almonds-and-water?gclid=CPGHyseslsUCFQEGaQodC1sARg

I bought a couple jars of pears (spartan brand) they were processed in China. I was eating out of the jar when i read that. Talk about the flavor changing in your mouth!

Ray · « **Reply #34 on:** May 07, 2015, 09:30:14 am »

Any new predictions on how the drought will effect us Beeks?
I see the Press is inciting the Politicians into producing larger quantities of hot air and a lot of finger pointing.

Did some googling and found this:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/05/05/3646965/california-drought-and-agriculture-explainer/

California’s Drought Could Upend America’s Entire Food System

vossejongk · « **Reply #35 on:** May 24, 2015, 05:30:36 pm »

Drought usually means no or very few nectar, so for bees and beekeepers it means keeping a close eye on the honey/syrup reserves...

Bakersdozen · « **Reply #36 on:** May 24, 2015, 09:53:49 pm »

Kansas is home to 22 million acres of soybeans, wheat, corn, alfalfa and sunflowers. In most of w esternKansas these crops are irrigated by the Ogallala Aquifer. The Ogallala is quickly being depleted as well. The old cottonwood trees, in western KS, whose roots tap into the aquifer are dying because the water table is too low. In school we were taught that Kansas is the breadbasket of America. They never told us it was done artificially. There is a reason that the tall grass prairie thrived in those conditions. The prairie grasses have amazing deep, deep roots.

Ray · « **Reply #37 on:** June 05, 2015, 06:45:12 am »

Here is an interesting article about a peach farmer.

Q&A Farmer David 'Mas' Masumoto's drought insight: Less water yields more flavorful peaches

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-qa-peach-farmer-20150604-story.html

lazy shooter · « **Reply #38 on:** June 05, 2015, 09:41:22 am »

What the above article posted by Ray did not address, is did the farmer earn enough money to live well? I hope he did. We have some local ranchers that live off the land. My area is full of small ranchers and farmers that earn their living from the soil, but the median income in our locale is less than 30 grand per year. Are any of you willing to farm and ranch for starvation wages? That is what many of our locals do.

brooksbeefarm · « **Reply #39 on:** June 05, 2015, 11:47:28 am »

In the future we are going to have to protect are water rights from the government

Here in Mo. they were wanting to charge for water use from your own well

never heard what became of that?) Instead of giving billions of our tax dollars to foreign country's why don't they build more reservoir's to prepare for drought. Of course this would create jobs and possibly using american made steel and other american made products, and our great leaders don't want any of that.

I'm done, sorry for the rant. Jack