Will We Have to Pump the Great Lakes to California to Feed the Nation?

[Bundbuster]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/05/opinion/california-great-lakes-food-supply.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Ak4.Z2P8.K1ZnRHFhOUHo&smid=url-share

The Central Valley of California supplies a quarter of the food on the nation’s dinner tables. But beneath this image of plenty and abundance, a crisis is brewing — an invisible one, under our feet — and it is not limited to California. Coast to coast, our food producing regions, especially those stretching from the southern Great Plains across the sunny, dry Southwest, rely heavily and sometimes exclusively on groundwater for irrigation. And it’s disappearing — fast.

What happens to the nation’s food production if the groundwater runs out altogether? Unless we act now, we could soon reach a point where water must be piped from the wetter parts of the country, such as the Great Lakes, to drier, sunnier regions where the bulk of the nation’s food is produced. No one wants unsightly pipelines snaking across the country, draining Lake Michigan to feed the citrus groves of the Central Valley. But that future is drawing closer by the day, and at some point, we may look back on this moment and wish we’d acted differently.

States are aware there is a problem — many are trying to sustainably manage their groundwater. But it’s not clear how successful these efforts have been. My research team has found that groundwater depletion is accelerating in the Central Valley, in spite of California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. In Arizona, groundwater is only managed in less than 20 percent of the state, leaving a free-for-all in the state’s unmanaged areas. The United States has no plan for the disruptions that will befall our food systems as critical water supplies dwindle, causing the price of some foods to skyrocket and bringing us closer to the time when we may have to consider pipelines to replenish or replace depleted groundwater.

But it’s not something we should be rushing toward. Americans, particularly those living in places like the Great Lakes region, have already shown that they have little stomach for infrastructure projects that would move their local water to remote locations, even if it is to produce the food they eat every day. It’s not just the political climate that makes tapping water resources in the East such an undesirable prospect. We’ve built systems of canals to move water around California and the Colorado River basin, but constructing a transcontinental pipeline or river diversion, at the scale required to sustain U.S. agriculture, would be staggeringly more complex, expensive and environmentally disruptive.

[arlyellowdog]

1. Since a lot of that food goes to China

We can empty the Great Lakes for China.

[OneBlueDotS-Carolina]

2. I'm sure Canada will say, "sure, no problem, have at it" n/t

[Nictuku]

3. Desalination seems a better option to me

They are doing it in Hawaii:
https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/local-news/2024-06-18/oahu-water-desalination-facility-federal-funding


I think the biggest problem with desalination plants is the incredible amount of energy required. But that can be solved by the ocean as well. I just read this the other day (also in Hawaii)

Revolutionary Grid-Scale Wave Energy Generator Deployed in Hawaii
By David Szondy, July 26, 2024
Source: https://newatlas.com/energy/revolutionary-wave-turbine-hooked-hawaii-energy/

Ocean Energy has deployed its 826-tonne wave energy converter buoy OE-35 at the US Navy's Wave Energy Test Site off the coast of the island of Oahu ahead of it being hooked up to Hawaii's electricity grid.
-snip-
The system has not only been tested in Hawaii, but also in Scotland as part of a US$12-million project funded by the US Department of Energy's office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). With a potential output of 1.25 MW, OE-35 harnesses energy from the waves using a remarkable double-flow air system.
-snip-

[thomski64]

4. ..pump the Great Lakes..???...

..fuck that...luckily the Lakes are also Canadian! So whatever
sculldugery is attempted will be an international issue...while i don't trust the States not to "sell our water
down the river" Canada will prevent it.

[diane in sf]

5. How about solar desalination of water from the Pacific. It's a lot closer.

[Sneederbunk]

6. They will go after the Columbia River first.

[pandr32]

7. Did fracking contribute to the loss?

I am not at a familiar except that I heard it required a lot of water.

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. No

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_North_American_megadrought

[LuvLoogie]

8. Private equity will buy up water rights across the globe.

Corporate farms won't adopt centuries old indigenous irrigation methods. But they will bribe politicians for priority.

[Martin68]

9. I am more concerned about the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer that supplies water to farms and residents in

South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. If the aquifer goes dry, more than $20 billion worth of food and fiber will vanish from the world's markets.

[Diamond_Dog]

10. Two words.

HELL NO!

Says this Ohioan.

[CoopersDad]

11. Not gonna happen. And desalination is not a smart option.

We need to stop looking for technological solutions that seem to create more of something in finite supply.

We need to use what we have more carefully, and stop wasting water in so many ways.

Near me, Santa Cruz city residents average just about 40 gallons/day, far less than most of the US per capita.

Near me, crops like berries and cabbage are grown with minimal water thanks to a combination of water-saving practices and some use of partially treated water.

Desalination produces mountains of toxic waste while using tons of energy that is also in scarce supply. Using the sun and wind isn't a cure, it's still an enormous use of energy creating tons of waste.

Hold the population level and stop wasting so much and we might have enough water.

[Bundbuster]

12. Totally agree

When earth's population passed 8 billion last Spring, I made a comprehensive OP here, titled "Earth never had a chance." I pointed out the dangers of runaway population, from Climate Change to habitat loss, to fresh water crises, to.... Incredibly depressing to me, many of the responses were rationalizations of the need for continued population growth, mainly from an economic POV. Even more frightening were all the DUers who really believe that now-unknown technological inventions will surely come to our rescue, so no need to hamper the economy now.

For the nth time, I say that I'm very glad I'm 77, not 27. I fear that cognitive dissonance, greed, lies, and religion will continue to overpower cognizance and reality.

[raccoon]

13. Since the climate is getting warmer in much of the US, why not consider growing more produce

in the states that are closer to the Great Lakes? I bet it could be done, and it would at least somewhat alleviate the problem. Also it would be a lot cheaper than trying to build a pipeline to California. Not to mention having to go to war with Canada.

[NickB79]

14. Better make that pipeline bulletproof, up to and including .50 BMG

We in the Midwest won't react well to anyone taking our water.

[hunter]

16. It would cost less money and use less energy to desalinate water in California...

... than it would to transport fresh water from the Great Lakes to California.

In any case, the most water intensive "crop" in California is dairy cows, many of them raised in quite appalling conditions.

California would have plenty of water if we quit subsidizing industries that do not make the world a better place and we quit farming land that should never have been farmed.

Cheap gallon jugs of milk and cheap plastic-wrapped ground beef don't generally come from happy cows grazing on green grass hillsides.