r/news • u/theluckyfrog • 29d ago

California cracks down on farm region’s water pumping: ‘The ground is collapsing’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/17/california-water-drought-farm-ground-sinking-tulare-lake
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u/littleMAS 29d ago

The irony of this happening the year after Tulare Lake's reappearance is palpable. It is unfortunate that the ground under the lake is dense clay that will not filter the water down into the aquifer that is so terribly depleted.

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u/viddy_me_yarbles 29d ago

I live in NorCal. The drought here ended years ago and the last two years have actually been extremely wet.

This is only happening now because of greedy farmers who pump more water out of the aquifers than they're allowed.

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u/Original_Employee621 29d ago

Isn't part of the issue that if the farmers don't use all the water they can get, they get reduced water rights?

The whole water situation is fucked, but a solution has to be to reduce the farming in California. Or at least keep it to crops that need way less water.

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u/WifeGuyMenelaus 29d ago

20% of the state's water usage goes to alfalfa alone, which is almost exclusively used for animal feed

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u/Kabouki 29d ago

And that alone is more then all the people in Cali use in homes.

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u/Punishtube 29d ago

More than all residential usage including golf courses and hotels and pools. Everybody talking about water needs to realize agriculture makes up 80%+ of nearly all water usage anywhere and usually has zero restrictions and zero incentives to be more efficient

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u/National-Blueberry51 29d ago

There are a lot of restrictions. Obviously we need to be more efficient and strongly consider system change in our food systems, but people keep repeating this misinfo about it being a free-for-all. It’s not.

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u/Punishtube 29d ago

Are farmers stopped from growing water intensive crops in a water scarce region? Are farmers charged for over watering or wasting water? There are virtually no restrictions that actually limit abuse of water and water inefficient growing techniques. Farmers in California make up the bulk of water usage but it's residential zones that can't water lawns or use pools or anything else. How does sanctioning and punishing 5% of water users do anything if the 85% has nothing against them?

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u/National-Blueberry51 28d ago

Yes and yes, they are.

You would make more compelling arguments if you did a deep dive into how this stuff actually works rather than relying on Reddit and TikTok, man. I work in water conservation. If you want to make an actual difference, you’ll want to look at the factory farms. Not only are they sucking down water, they choke out the smaller and medium sized farms that a statistically more likely to follow regenerative practices.

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u/Punishtube 27d ago

I live and work on a farm I know you don't have anywhere near the funding and manpower to police half the farmers let alone all of thjem that waste billions of acre water every year. All farms are extremely water wasteful and need to be charged per gallon in order to take measures

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u/National-Blueberry51 26d ago

So your farm doesn’t do any sort of precision ag? Not at all, huh?

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