Majority of America's underground water stores are drying up, study finds

Re:Majority of America's underground water stores are drying... by freitzkriesler2 on Wednesday January 24, 2024 @05:08PM (#39123238)

Article mentions California a lot.

There is absolutely zero reason that California's cities cannot be fed with nuclear heated desalinated seawater or heck, traditionally desalinated sea water.

The only thing holding back this engineering solution are NIMBYs, naive greenies, and mountains of legal paperwork.

Water doesn't go away and we have the solutions to make freshwater. The problems are political, not technical.

Tha solves the city consumption problem which can then allow water run off from the mountains back into the valley where it used to be. That will help restore the aquafiers.

Read up on what the California valleys used to look like before the water was siphoned away to the coastal cities.

Edit: the replies and downd00ts to this post are precisely why California is in its current state. All whiners and no solutions. Enjoy your mess and desertification!

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Re:Majority of America's underground water stores are drying... by mjhay on Wednesday January 24, 2024 @05:20PM (#39123376)

The great majority of water usage in California is for agriculture, not "coastal cities." Things like drip irrigation and not growing alfalfa in the desert are far more realistic (and cheaper) than what you are proposing. This is a solvable problem, even with climate change, but there aren't going to be any silver bullets.

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Re:Majority of America's underground water stores are drying... by scythe on Wednesday January 24, 2024 @05:55PM (#39123755)

You're both right. The Owens River Valley was desiccated to ship the water to the Los Angeles region, back when the latter was primarily agricultural in the 1920s.

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Re:Majority of America's underground water stores are drying... by parl_match on Wednesday January 24, 2024 @05:10PM (#39123262)

> before the water was siphoned away to the coastal cities.

Hell, a lot of that wasn't even for cities. Significant and massive lakes, including Lake Tulare, were siphoned away simply to create farmland.

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Re:Majority of America's underground water stores are drying... by hehhehaha on Wednesday January 24, 2024 @07:11PM (#39124456)

Lake Tulare and the Aral sea are both super sad

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Re:Majority of America's underground water stores are drying... by 303uru on Wednesday January 24, 2024 @05:26PM (#39123417)

Pinning water usage on city elites, lol, now that's some mental gymnastics. Ya, I'm not sure "NIMBYs" are going to be super into a nuclear power plant driving a desalination plant with a water pipeline that stretches out into the desert to farms.

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Re:Majority of America's underground water stores are drying... by zer00eyz on Wednesday January 24, 2024 @05:36PM (#39123528)

"nuclear power plant"

We dont build these because people fuck them up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)

Is this the company you want having a nuclear plant in CA?

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