A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return

morkalork

You all knew how it was going to end, for decades, and did nothing. https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/location-maximum-land-subs...

LanceH

I see parallels between water rights "xxx acre feet per year" without regard for how much water is incoming, and pension funds where they simply declare how much will be paid out. I really can't tell the difference between people being uncaring or just stupid about either.

augment_me

Who cares there is so much more to exploit. For example no-one has yet moved massive freshwater icebergs by boat, and its up for grabs!

marking-time

>In an aquifer that’s permanently collapsed, artificial recharge—pumping water forcibly back underground—is the only option, according to Shirzaei. That’s expensive and carries the risk of triggering earthquakes. I have spent most of my life in the San Joaquin Valley and what I have been wondering about over the past few years is what is the effect removing all that water from the faults. Specifically, does this water removal cause the stresses along the faults to build making the resulting earthquakes larger?

ColdStream

There are some reasonable books by William T Volleman called 'Carbon Ideologies' it is all about Nuclear and Coal power. Regardless of that, they are written focusing on the people that would be reading those books in a few hundred years time. The justification being that those that read it today already understand the issues. As such they are focused on a world that is deeply resource depleted and much hotter. But it is the opening chapter that is very explicit in trying to highlight how most people live today. It isn't that we don't know what is happening or that we do not care, it is just that we have needs and wants that unfortunately have long term blow back. We are just trying to take care of others, but that is leading down a less desirable path. I thought it was a great message that needs to sent to the future. The aquifers are being drained, but it was being done to feed the people. Yes, it could have been handled much better but that core driving force behind it will probably be the same in hundred of years from now. If that message isn't sent forwards, the stories that will be made in our place will not be very kind to us. If that matters or not, that is up to you to decide. And that is the whole debate on 'What is legacy?'.

rayiner

Most of the southwest should not have people living in it. It's a fake place that is enabled to exist by massive and unnatural engineering projects, like dams on the Colorado river. We need to create a long term plan to relocate the population to other parts of the country.

JumpCrisscross

> The only way to know for sure whether permanent compaction has occurred is through expensive core samples or other measurements at depth Wouldn't it be for rain to fall and the aquifer's levels to rebound less than expected?

rayiner

Why can't we work up the political outrage over water-wasting agriculture in California that we managed to gin up over data centers: https://finance.biggo.com/news/202508220112_Data_Centers_vs_... > Alfalfa irrigation (Colorado River): 1.6 trillion gallons annually > Google data centers (global): 6.4 billion gallons in 2023 > Thermoelectric power plants: 41% of total US water use EDIT: that page has a correction to some of the other numbers on the page, but the 6.4 billion gallons number quoted above for Google's data centers is in line with other sources: https://mostpolicyinitiative.org/science-note/data-center-wa... ("Google reported their data center water consumption increased from 4.3 billion gallons in 2021 to 6.1 billion gallons in 2024.").

water-data-dude

For anyone interested in the history of water in the American West (what's different about the west, and how did we get here?), I recommend the extremely interesting and readable book Cadillac Desert, by Marc Reisner.

throwaway2037

I have been reading articles like this for more than 20 years. Really, it feels like click/rage-bait at this point. The answer is pretty simple: (1) Build desalination plants (Calif already has a few) and (2) switch to more efficient uses of water in agriculture (drip irrigation, that is already widely practiced in water stressed areas of the world). Sure it costs money, but California is insanely rich and can afford to make these changes. For the last 100 years, Calif has been farming on "easy mode". Ok, so now it gets a little bit harder. > California’s Central Valley, where one-quarter of the food produced in the United States is grown I am so tired of this quote. It is 25% of total (economic) value , not by calories or volume or weight. This quote is very misleading.

tesnorindian

As the Super El-Nino is at its peak, South India is facing an acute water crisis https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/cauvery-water-managem... #SaveWater #SaveElectricity #SaveFuel Interestingly none of our Govts. or Leaders are talking about conservation yet and the ancient water laws/standards don't take climate change into consideration. For eg. as per BIS IS 1172: 1993 standards an average Indian is entitled to 135 Liters of water per day when the actual supply is not even close to 50 liters per Indian per day. This is level of water crisis India is facing today.

cobbzilla

California has codified a water caste system. In 2015 (my last experience with this), citizens were ordered to cut water use 25% while ~400 pre-1914 claimants with magical "senior water rights" took 90% of the water. [1][2] We conserved, rates still rose, f*ck the poor the most, so that select farmers can use however much water they want. As allowed and protected by law. [1]: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/prog... [2]: https://archive.gov.ca.gov/archive/gov39/2015/04/01/news1891...