> requiring the supply of housing to match the supply of jobs

As a native Californian, I would change that to, "match the supply of water." I'm astounded at all the construction, particularly that being built in the hills overlooking Folsom, and wonder where they're going to get their water.

Desalination can provide for a lot more, even then, consumer usage is nothing compared to agricultural and industrial use.

Yes, plenty of water it’s just up north, not in the places where agriculture needs it. I’m tempted to argue it’s a self correcting problem; pipes and desalination will be built when the costs make it feasible. It’s all politics and special interests. That’s the California way.

You're welcome to keep your drought to yourself. Please do not expand the blast radius in an attempt to bail out. Agriculture is 100% the drain, and a pipeline would only make it so that more consumers suffer.

So it's ok for other regions to buy food produced with California water but it's not ok for California to buy other regions' water?

We need a national water grid ASAP, before climate change threatens the food security of the US.

>We need a national water grid ASAP

That would result in the export and subsidizing of the wasteful water management practices of the west. We could then look forward to a few years of record crops, then no crops as all the water runs out across the grid at the same time.

Agriculture is only a drain if you think eating food is unnecessary.

The pragmatic approach would simply be to price water so farmers and consumers are incentivized to use it efficiently.

disagree with specific 'only' but not the general sentiment, however;

People growing almonds with flood irrigation (and similar high water needy things) in cali or az

almonds, pistachios, sugar beets.. these (and others) are taking a toll on california's environment to produce some luxury goods for profit - not to provide food for the starving.

Producing food for the starving is hardly the problem the world faces. In regions that face starvation shipping costs and distribution networks are the bottleneck.

And almonds are hardly any more of a luxury food than a 20 minute shower or front lawn. Look at residential water consumption; how much really goes to basic living vs wasted? And how much effort goes into conserving or reusing water efficiently?

The point is to price water any let it flow to the most efficient use as determined by the market. When that happens, you’ll find that suddenly farmers stop flooding fields to grow alfalfa for Australian cattle and pick crops that are economically viable with the water constraints we have. Maybe nuts are too expensive to grow here; we don’t really know.

It floods up north. Do you like floods? The ocean has a lot of water too. Do the math.

There are some proposing diverting the Mississippi for California use - like all of it somewhere around Missouri south to be dry. Don't think that will fly but that's the mindset of California for you - makes you remember the imperialism attitude from the Dead Kennedys in "California Über Alles".

I'd love to see an east-west transcontinental aqueduct from the southeast to the southwest. Cover it with solar panels and string an HVDC line alongside it to both increase grid transport capacity and to run pumping stations and connect substations along the way. Maybe put it alongside I-40.

In a possible future, thousands of gargantuan wind turbines, semi-submerged,10-100 Megawatts each, are going to be scattered all across the oceans. Some of them are going to be connected to the global power grid, some of them are going to become charging stations for liquid-air powered cargo ships, and some of them are going to power offshore desalination plants. Those will pump potable water through deep-sea aqueducts, eventually connecting to vast, transcontinental aqueducts providing drinking water to what was once large deserts.

Plenty of water in California, all going to farming.

Or going out to sea. [1]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbpHA3xqvOE

We have to let some water flow for wildlife and beach maintenance.

True. However, I see the same story now repeating for Arizona too. Intel, TSMC are all opening fabs there - but where is the water?

Because there isn’t a gigantic reservoir next to Folsom?

Have you seen the levels in Folsom lake recently?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-07-27/historic...

There. Is. Not. Enough. Water. Anything else you hear is just a lie. I drive by it every day for the past 10 years, it goes up and down a lot but the levels this year are just record breaking, in a bad way.

>There. Is. Not. Enough. Water. Anything else you hear is just a lie.

At zero cost for usage sure. But there is plenty of water if you price it.