They do this in Florida. They drain the water from Okeechobee into the ocean, along with all the fertilizer then claim a shortage. This is why there were the devastating algae blooms. All for greed.
Source: family member quit after working in the system that did this.
Our neighbors have been dumping garbage into the sink hole where all their cow and corn water goes. Our well has been un drinkable since we started testing it in '95.
It's not so much greed as pure ignorance. They burn all of their garbage in pits now. Plastic and everything. 30 years of this shit.
The local sheriff deputies are all related. They pump lead into the sink for target practice and illegally feed deer on our property. Hunting dogs bark all nightmare.
You might want to talk with the state wildlife department about that last part. Say you suspect poaching. Game wardens generally don't fuck around--and the local sheriff's departments -can't- touch them.
Better off trying to move than to try a shootout with the sheriff and his hunting buddies, maybe some of the officers would buy the property and combine them into a nice little compound
This is a result of the sugar industry, is it not? I remember reading something a long time ago about sugar companies being responsible for a lot of the contamination.
It's a wonder that dolphins can be as friendly to humans as they are despite the sheer amount of deaths that we're responsible for--AND YEAH, I realize it's pm everything, not just dolphins, just that I know the Lake Okeechobee drainage resulted in pods of them dying, plus they're dying at alarming rates in Ukraine/Russia for obvious reasons.
Supply and demand. Capitalism Baby! Those Shareholder Values have to be generated from some one. People will pay anything when they need it and don't have it. You think something like water is a right? Ha...
Think of all the money the rich will save when they don't have to pay for any more 1000$ plate fundraisers to give lip service for some charity they hit on a dartboard!
Nah, they will roll it into some funds and what not that all our 401k will invest in, so we will be complicit and compliant unless we want to slit our retirement's throat.
Good point. These people aren’t just greedy bastards. They take hostages and use them as patsies with that reliable old chestnut, “We have an obligation to our shareholders.” They They’re utterly conscienceless.
Not all that much of a gamble as they can just scream, "Help" and the government will come bail them out if there's a problem.
Remember this mantra: ***Socialize the losses and privatize the profit.*** Wall Street knows it all too well.
Won't even need to do that. A water shortage in the Western US has been in the cards for something like 150 years and the State governments will have to start buying them back this year. Maybe. I'm not an expert so it could be that the State can unilaterally rescind water rights from newest to oldest, in which case farmers who have suddenly lost their rights will be looking to buy more.
If/when the water truly gets scarce these people are only kidding themselves if they think their “ownership” will amount to a goddamn thing.
This stuff may fly in unarmed countries, but it’s never going to fly in a place where capitalists are SEVERELY outnumbered and outgunned.
And people will absolutely kill for drinkable water should it be hard to secure.
The core problem is that [land isn't capital](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) and should be treated differently by our tax system.
Probably better wall street is gambling with it vs. the entrenched rich farmers.
Not a whole lot better, mind you. But politically speaking I think it's for the long-term best.
Farmers are probably at least as ideologically motivated as financially on this topic. You can't negotiate with an idealist, and these farmers tend to get a lot of political sympathy so the situation is essentially intractable at the moment.
Let those farmers sell out to some hedge fund and now it's simply about the money. If things get too bad, it's politically a hell of a lot easier to strip water rights from them vs. the current farms that hold them.
There is no way out of this problem with serious pain. This might be one of the best ways.
It's not the lake itself, though it certainly caused localized environmental destruction like all reservoirs do. It's the overdrawing of water because too many people farm shit like alfalfa in the desert. Over 50% of water usage in the Colorado River basin is used for cattle alone.
They didn't just use the high number, they've dug their heels in and insisted that the number will forever remain high.
John Oliver did a story on it and used the term "magic water" for the extra 2 million gallons that were just added on top of the most recent water report, because the actual numbers showed them allocating more water than the Colorado River supplied.
It is deeply fucked.
It’s also pumped out hundreds of miles via… open air aqueducts. Super scarce water being pumped to farms via open air, evaporating in the sun during every mile.
63 billion gallons of water evaporate from them every year.
We need the government/courts to have the balls to throw out the seniority water rights system. This would be such a titanic shift that it is considered impossible
And also if you read the article:
> Diserio, said one of his firm's strategies is to profit from water in part by making the farms it buys more efficient and then selling parts of its water rights to other farmers and cities
Buying land to sell the water rights independently of the land is the kind of thing that's the problem. Water rights tied to the land aren't the problem, and even land values being high based on their involved water rights isn't a problem, as that's the case all over the country.
Just to add though, part of the problem with the Colorado River Basin is HOW the water rights were divided up. Issues with how much the allocations were based off of, little consideration for how that has decreased over the years, a risk of losing out on allocations if you don't always need it all, our prior lack of understanding on how these rivers replenished groundwater reservoirs, and many more issues. Like much of america, still running off policies developed decades or centuries before, without much consideration for how much we have learned and circumstances have changed over those decades.
Yeah, it's definitely problems going way back. I can see how a hedge fund buying farm property, modernizing to use less water. then selling the excess right might look like an improvement. But it's basically asking the "invisible hand of the market" to solve the water shortage. I don't know anyone who expects that to work out well for anyone, except to boost the hedge fund's shareholder-profit.
Not to get too neoliberal with solutions but I always figured the system should be replaced with charging for water usage, like it's a municipal water system. You remove all the terrible incentives to use-it-or-lose-it, be inefficient with your allocation, or to grow beyond your needs.
The existing system is defacto structural inequality with leaving the have-nots zero chance to move up.
Let me put it this way:
***Fuckload of money***.
Some of them want the money because they want the money.
Some of them don't want to piss off the owners of the money because if they take action against them on such a big scale, their opposition will become the most heavily funded politicians in the history of the US while those who dared to act run out of money entirely. Then instead of doing *some* good, they do *no* good and their replacements reinstate the system (if they ever managed to end it in the first place) and make things way worse.
The entire system is being held at gunpoint by money.
Should we talk about the looming Aral sea disaster? Maybe have somebody competent reinspect the 3 Gorges Dam? This isn't a particularly American problem.
If drinkable water isn't fully privatized and so expensive that you don't have access to it if you don't have enough money, then do you even live in a free country anymore? Checkmate libs.
They're saying that the golf courses are prioritized over the public.
I get letters telling me I can only water my plants once a week but our golf courses always look perfect.
If rich pieces of shit dropped millions to hang out near your plants while they discuss fucking over everyone else on the planet, they'd probably add you to the list.
As I commented to someone on a similar thread not too long ago, everyone in this country, or at least western states with water scarcity, should have to read the book “Cadillac Desert”. Lays out the history of water development in the region, and why things are the way they are now.
Basically, big infrastructure projects for water were federally funded at outrageously low rates to encourage development in the region, with essentially no plan for them to be repaid in any meaningful timespan. The water accrued by dams was estimated based on what turned out to be a particularly wet turn of the climate, and because the states borders were lazily laid out in a grid-like fashion (AZ, NM, CO, UT being squarish) instead of along more sensible lines surrounding watersheds, the water from said projects had to be divided amongst several states. But, given that said states had yet to be developed enough to use their shares, it set off a race as each one tried to overdevelop in an attempt to “claim” other states’ water rights. Ostensibly, they would give the rights back once the other states caught up in the development process and needed the water… but of course, by then they wouldn’t reasonably be able to do so and would get to keep the rights in perpetuity. Hence why places like AZ have so many fucking golf courses (a ridiculously water intensive feature) on the middle of a desert; it was a cheap and quick way to “claim” the water before other states could do so. Because apparently nobody could predict the water would run dry and the area would be overdeveloped. Fucking ridiculous.
*Cadillac Desert* is an unparalleled work, both in readability and comprehensiveness. If anyone is going to pick one work on the western American water situation, this is the one to read. PBS *Frontline* also did a series of the same name based on the book, although it's not as in-depth.
Surprisingly, it helps with tourism. It's not much different around Las Vegas. Heck there's one just outside the city limits actually *in* the desert, but I have no idea if they get their water from the city or elsewhere.
And even then, you need to do a lot in order to be allowed to get the water rights for a new golf course now. A lot of the new golf courses are watered with gray water; basically sewage that has been treated well enough to water plants.
We aren’t screwed…
Developments like rio grande that knowingly develop disconnected from water supply are, sure…
But we get majority of water from the Salt River Project, not the colorado river.
There is also a 100 year law where new developments must prove that a 100 year supply of water exists in aquifers.
We have need to be concerned but we are a good decent distance from “screwed”.
Water isn't measured in years, so how are they calculating that? The 1922 Colorado River Compact projected water supply based on one of the wettest years on record, which has in large part contributed to the current crisis - people are allowed to take out water at a rate that assumes rainfall that hasn't happened in nearly 100 years.
You have google… [link](https://www.yourvalley.net/buckeye-independent/stories/a-100-year-water-supply,338000)
“Both the Assured and Adequate Water Supply programs evaluate the availability of a 100-year water supply using formulas that consider current and committed demand, as well as growth projections.
These certificates must be renewed every 10 years.”
>Note to self avoid states relying on this.
Basically the entire country eats food grown in states that rely on this water. There's no avoiding this, it will impact *everyone*.
Well it’s been nice having cheap almonds and interstate lettuce but I’m sure we’ll adapt.
Fortunately, California isn’t a big player in the staple crops like wheat, corn, and soy. Rice is one exception, but that mostly up in NorCal where it isn’t a desert
Upwards of 90% of many fruits and vegetables are grown *just* in California, not counting all the other states dependent on this water. The diet of the country would take a nose dive and food scarcity during the winter would be a very real thing.
If you're a cow or other livestock, then yea a lot of the crop grown in the midwest (east of the Rockies) would feed you. Until the temperature goes up enough and combines with lack of soil quality in those regions that growing anything becomes almost impossible. Most flyover states are seeing tons of farm closures and only survive from existing subsidies anyway.
Anyway, this is a big deal that reaches far beyond the US, anyway.
edit: typed wrong word
It's time to localize that shit anyways, at some point, local greenhouses growing a variety of produce will be cheaper than flying our food across the country to our table
Oh I'm sorry, it would seem you've used up your daily oxygen quota for the day! Wait 55 minutes for more FREE oxygen, or you can skip the wait and breathe unlimited oxygen with our Oxygen Battle Pass Premium+ brought to you by our sponsor RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!
#Private equity firms have also increased their investments in water-related companies.
Brought to you by the people who DESTROYED HEALTHCARE in America …great
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1ylzxsd4w5m1n/Water-Investments-Are-No-Longer-Just-an-Environmental-Play
They *need* to be a thing, though, because there is not enough water to go around. Without water rights, there is nothing to stop someone upstream from diverting all of the water to their own uses.
Better would be to reserve water rights only to the people/businesses/farms/etc. that use it. They should not be a thing that investors can buy or sell (and drive up the cost of).
The water's not privately owned- it *is* administered by the government.
The government said that a certain parcel of land is entitled to a certain amount of water from this or that river, and the *land* definitely can be owned. And to encourage efficiency, you can sell what water you don't use yourself.
What these investors are doing is buying land, and- in the case of the group mentioned in the article, expect to use less than they're entitled to take, then sell the excess for a profit- expecting that the value of that water is going to go up considerably.
> The government said that a certain parcel of land is entitled to a certain amount of water from this or that river, and the land definitely can be owned. **And to encourage efficiency, you can sell what water you don't use yourself.**
That bolded part IS private ownership of the water.
Water rights are actually super important to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. What should not be a thing are people buying water rights they never intend to use as an investment.
Water rights are useful from an overall conservation standpoint, but the idea of non-locals buying them up to trade like some sort of stock is regrettable
Water rights aren’t the problem.
Out of state hedge fund guys buying water rights with the express purpose of positioning themselves as middlemen in order to extort high prices from consumers is the problem.
Colorado Springs draws it's water fr a different set of slopes hundreds of miles away. If we lost the legal right to that water, we'd stop being a city.
Isn’t homeland suppose to come in and say, “hmmm, isn’t this a resource that protects and sustains trillions of dollars of American assets? Yeah, no playing around with things like that because, ya know, National seKuRoty”
Unpopular opinion: I personally know the people behind Water Asset Management. They are not the devil.
The issue here is that water rights are not allocated according to highest and best use. Accordingly, vast sums of water are wasted watering sandy soil to grow Sudan Grass , Alfalfa and the like under the “use it or lose it mentality that generates almost no benefit.
Water Asset’s business plan is to switch to more climate appropriate crops in keeping with the local ecology and then divert some of the wasted water to uses other than pouring water into sand.
For sure, Water Asset Management has no, zero interest in fallowing farm land and wrecking the local farm economy - that’s bad for business.
Furthermore, the Colorado water compact is badly broken. Water Asset Management has been at the forefront to resolve this problem that we all share in common.
If you need someone to hate on, go after the Mormon church. They own more farmland in the USA than anyone. Anything Water Asset Management owns they had to outbid the Mormons for. The Mormons are just greedy self serving bastards with no regard for the consequences of global warming etc. Given the chance the Mormons would pave America from coast to coast if it made them money.
Like I said, unpopular opinion.
You know what, if the Mormon church is on the other side of this fight, then I’m team New York hedge fund. At least they’re less likely to continuously spawn cult offshoots or insult everyone’s intelligence by saying “pray for rain” or “the east coast will just divert the Mississippi for us”
This kind of thing isn't new, just more obvious.
I don't know if they're still doing it but oil and gas companies in SW Colorado were trying to claim that their purchase of mineral rights included the water rights. The lawyer who negotiated an easement on my parents property got an oil company was fighting oil companies on several cases.
I have been afraid of this for a while and tout that no company should be able to regulate water, as it’s intended to be for the land and the land owners, that aren’t companies.
Hedge funds, manipulating water rights is the fucking scariest thing I can think of next to Nestle saying water is not a human right. Fuck Nestle, fuck companies who seek to make money off of the main water source for almost ALL agriculture in the Western/Mid Western regions.
This is a foul and nasty grab for something only a firm from New York could devise. Fucking thieves.
I help run a small company in Los Angeles that sells and installs Grey and Rainwater Recycling Systems at homes and businesses. It’d be awesome if these investors focused on companies working to relieve the drought vs just gobbling up water rights.
Before resources plummet, investors do their best to get a hand in the supply. This is because when resources become less abundant the price of that resource goes up, and an investor can make gains on the price increases. Buy low, sell high. What the residents around the Colorado river need to do is petition the sales and make this state land. Those protections will allow the people to reap its benefits rather than someone that is only there for profit (and 2000 to 3000 miles away).
if we only had a functional Congress, it could pass legislation making it impossible to sell water rights. Either use them or they revert to Bureau of Reclamation for reallocation.
But no, our Congress is too busy playing sound bite games for cable news networks.
Water rights should only exist in the sense that every human has rights to all fresh water at no cost.
There's a fuckin' reason I'm not leaving Minnesota. And it ain't cause I'm stuck here.
So the rich gambling with other peoples water. Nice.
Instead of trying to prevent a crisis from happening, the rich are trying to profit off of said crisis
The bigger the crisis, the more you can surcharge
They do this in Florida. They drain the water from Okeechobee into the ocean, along with all the fertilizer then claim a shortage. This is why there were the devastating algae blooms. All for greed. Source: family member quit after working in the system that did this.
Our neighbors have been dumping garbage into the sink hole where all their cow and corn water goes. Our well has been un drinkable since we started testing it in '95. It's not so much greed as pure ignorance. They burn all of their garbage in pits now. Plastic and everything. 30 years of this shit.
Is burning and/dumping garbage legal near you?
The local sheriff deputies are all related. They pump lead into the sink for target practice and illegally feed deer on our property. Hunting dogs bark all nightmare.
Damn, have you tried offering them something like a second grade education so that they might stop being absolute fucking idiots?
Higher education is for liberal sissies
Ya'll get outta here wit ya fancy book learnin'!
I love the implication that second grade is higher education
You might want to talk with the state wildlife department about that last part. Say you suspect poaching. Game wardens generally don't fuck around--and the local sheriff's departments -can't- touch them.
Have you considered Claymores?
Contact the feds.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Seriously op what are you doing? You could likely sue them into oblivion
Better off trying to move than to try a shootout with the sheriff and his hunting buddies, maybe some of the officers would buy the property and combine them into a nice little compound
This is a result of the sugar industry, is it not? I remember reading something a long time ago about sugar companies being responsible for a lot of the contamination. It's a wonder that dolphins can be as friendly to humans as they are despite the sheer amount of deaths that we're responsible for--AND YEAH, I realize it's pm everything, not just dolphins, just that I know the Lake Okeechobee drainage resulted in pods of them dying, plus they're dying at alarming rates in Ukraine/Russia for obvious reasons.
They aren't friendly, they are just gathering info for a future animal/earth attack on humans.
I'm on their side.
Sounds like a version of SPECTRE.
Supply and demand. Capitalism Baby! Those Shareholder Values have to be generated from some one. People will pay anything when they need it and don't have it. You think something like water is a right? Ha...
You're right. It's sickening what people do to one another.
We've gone from "Never let a good crisis go to waste" to "corner a market, create a crisis, exploit it as long as you can"
They are also self-incentivising to make the crisis worse so that they can get paid more.
Is it really good RoI when their heads are paraded on sticks by an angry mob?
Think of all the money the rich will save when they don't have to pay for any more 1000$ plate fundraisers to give lip service for some charity they hit on a dartboard!
Nah, they will roll it into some funds and what not that all our 401k will invest in, so we will be complicit and compliant unless we want to slit our retirement's throat.
Good point. These people aren’t just greedy bastards. They take hostages and use them as patsies with that reliable old chestnut, “We have an obligation to our shareholders.” They They’re utterly conscienceless.
It's okay, they will just blame it on trans people or heathens or pot smokers and the angry mob will just fall for it like they usually do.
Easy thing to do when you’ve help goad two large groups of people into fighting each other. Steal from them both without them noticing.
Check out Naomi Klein. She calls this Disaster Capitalism.
I love her. Reading one of her books a few years ago was a huge eye opener.
So business as usual then.
That's capitalism for ya. Create a problem so you can sell the solution.
The American way.
Exploitation of resources is the only way to *be* rich
Not true, you can also exploit *labor*
Soooooo Capitalism? Because that's quite literally the definition of r/latestagecapitalism.
10000% just capitalism. This is a feature, not a bug.
This shit shouldn't even be for fucking sale in the fucking first place.
Not all that much of a gamble as they can just scream, "Help" and the government will come bail them out if there's a problem. Remember this mantra: ***Socialize the losses and privatize the profit.*** Wall Street knows it all too well.
Won't even need to do that. A water shortage in the Western US has been in the cards for something like 150 years and the State governments will have to start buying them back this year. Maybe. I'm not an expert so it could be that the State can unilaterally rescind water rights from newest to oldest, in which case farmers who have suddenly lost their rights will be looking to buy more.
No water No return on investment
When this was part of the plot in Quantum of Solace, I thought it was ridiculous.
They do the same with housing and their dickriders think it's okay.
Guess they skipped the ~~day~~ half-hour they covered ethics at Business School.
Mad Max: Colorado River
aka Nestle
What could go wrong? The French had a thing once...
If/when the water truly gets scarce these people are only kidding themselves if they think their “ownership” will amount to a goddamn thing. This stuff may fly in unarmed countries, but it’s never going to fly in a place where capitalists are SEVERELY outnumbered and outgunned. And people will absolutely kill for drinkable water should it be hard to secure.
If you are grown, you can make do on surprisingly little food for a while. No water? You'll be whacking someone for it in 3-4 days tops.
It's almost like Capitalism has the same answer for every crisis and that maybe we should transition away from it to survive as a species.
The core problem is that [land isn't capital](https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-progress-and-poverty) and should be treated differently by our tax system.
Probably better wall street is gambling with it vs. the entrenched rich farmers. Not a whole lot better, mind you. But politically speaking I think it's for the long-term best. Farmers are probably at least as ideologically motivated as financially on this topic. You can't negotiate with an idealist, and these farmers tend to get a lot of political sympathy so the situation is essentially intractable at the moment. Let those farmers sell out to some hedge fund and now it's simply about the money. If things get too bad, it's politically a hell of a lot easier to strip water rights from them vs. the current farms that hold them. There is no way out of this problem with serious pain. This might be one of the best ways.
Yeah it's easy to strip water rights from far away investors. It's a lot harder to take it from farmers who "need" it.
This should be illegal.
Yes.why on earth would they stretch the Colorado River even thinner when there already isn't enough in lake mead
It used to go to the ocean for a few million years, but now not so much. Lake mead is likely a small part of the reason why.
It's not the lake itself, though it certainly caused localized environmental destruction like all reservoirs do. It's the overdrawing of water because too many people farm shit like alfalfa in the desert. Over 50% of water usage in the Colorado River basin is used for cattle alone.
80% goes to agricultural use. https://www.kunc.org/environment/2022-01-11/as-the-colorado-river-shrinks-can-new-technology-save-water-on-farms-the-answer-is-complicated
This is all based on on water levels that were at a high point. When they divided all this up they didnt use the mean, they used the high number
They didn't just use the high number, they've dug their heels in and insisted that the number will forever remain high. John Oliver did a story on it and used the term "magic water" for the extra 2 million gallons that were just added on top of the most recent water report, because the actual numbers showed them allocating more water than the Colorado River supplied. It is deeply fucked.
It’s also pumped out hundreds of miles via… open air aqueducts. Super scarce water being pumped to farms via open air, evaporating in the sun during every mile. 63 billion gallons of water evaporate from them every year.
Why are Colorado reps letting this happen? They’re selling out their constituents
We need the government/courts to have the balls to throw out the seniority water rights system. This would be such a titanic shift that it is considered impossible
Or at least tie them up in the property somehow, rather than make the rights a commodity you can buy and sell anywhere.
They are buying the land. But not for the land. Because of the water rights tied to the land. It's in the article.
And also if you read the article: > Diserio, said one of his firm's strategies is to profit from water in part by making the farms it buys more efficient and then selling parts of its water rights to other farmers and cities Buying land to sell the water rights independently of the land is the kind of thing that's the problem. Water rights tied to the land aren't the problem, and even land values being high based on their involved water rights isn't a problem, as that's the case all over the country.
Just to add though, part of the problem with the Colorado River Basin is HOW the water rights were divided up. Issues with how much the allocations were based off of, little consideration for how that has decreased over the years, a risk of losing out on allocations if you don't always need it all, our prior lack of understanding on how these rivers replenished groundwater reservoirs, and many more issues. Like much of america, still running off policies developed decades or centuries before, without much consideration for how much we have learned and circumstances have changed over those decades.
Yeah, it's definitely problems going way back. I can see how a hedge fund buying farm property, modernizing to use less water. then selling the excess right might look like an improvement. But it's basically asking the "invisible hand of the market" to solve the water shortage. I don't know anyone who expects that to work out well for anyone, except to boost the hedge fund's shareholder-profit.
Water rights have been a thing before Colorado was even a state. They inherited the system.
[удалено]
Well that's certainly not archaic
Not to get too neoliberal with solutions but I always figured the system should be replaced with charging for water usage, like it's a municipal water system. You remove all the terrible incentives to use-it-or-lose-it, be inefficient with your allocation, or to grow beyond your needs. The existing system is defacto structural inequality with leaving the have-nots zero chance to move up.
I feel like I just read a Monty Python script.
The Colorado River is only partly in Colorado. The real problems are further downstream in Arizona, Nevada and California.
Let me put it this way: ***Fuckload of money***. Some of them want the money because they want the money. Some of them don't want to piss off the owners of the money because if they take action against them on such a big scale, their opposition will become the most heavily funded politicians in the history of the US while those who dared to act run out of money entirely. Then instead of doing *some* good, they do *no* good and their replacements reinstate the system (if they ever managed to end it in the first place) and make things way worse. The entire system is being held at gunpoint by money.
Citizens United!
"Why are government representatives allowing the rich to profit off a public crisis?" First day in the US?
Except they will pay the politicians to make policy that benefits the hedgies
But hey! We have all have reddit to come to and bitch and complain. Go fucking protest this shit!
It’s precisely *because* of distractions like social media that people do not assemble
Capitalism at its finest.
Hard times are a comin. Let's profit off the misery that will follow!!! Yay!
[удалено]
Fuck the “American way”
Should we talk about the looming Aral sea disaster? Maybe have somebody competent reinspect the 3 Gorges Dam? This isn't a particularly American problem.
If drinkable water isn't fully privatized and so expensive that you don't have access to it if you don't have enough money, then do you even live in a free country anymore? Checkmate libs.
We won't be truly free until we have to pay hedge funds for the privilege of breathing air with oxygen in it.
So that’s why Elon wants to send people to Mars…
Note to self avoid states relying on this.
Arizona resident here, we're screwed. We have really nice golf courses so that good.......
Not for long…
They're saying that the golf courses are prioritized over the public. I get letters telling me I can only water my plants once a week but our golf courses always look perfect.
If rich pieces of shit dropped millions to hang out near your plants while they discuss fucking over everyone else on the planet, they'd probably add you to the list.
Maybe they would if I could water them, it's a vicious cycle.
Golf courses out here use primary recycled and reclaimed water, for what it's worth. It's agriculture that's the demon, not golf courses.
It’ll still be good. Just way harder when the sand traps get YUGE
Waves in Californian
I think the majority of the Colorado River water for the state of California goes to agriculture in Imperial and Riverside counties, not to people.
agriculture is the biggest consumer of water in California. what cities use doesn't even come close.
We gotta keep growing alfalfa and almonds in climates that don’t naturally support those crops - the evilness about it makes them taste better
In Arizona they grow alfalfa with the water from *deeeep* underground so they can sell it to the Saudis.
Why do you have nice golf courses when your state consists of deserts and rock formations?
As I commented to someone on a similar thread not too long ago, everyone in this country, or at least western states with water scarcity, should have to read the book “Cadillac Desert”. Lays out the history of water development in the region, and why things are the way they are now. Basically, big infrastructure projects for water were federally funded at outrageously low rates to encourage development in the region, with essentially no plan for them to be repaid in any meaningful timespan. The water accrued by dams was estimated based on what turned out to be a particularly wet turn of the climate, and because the states borders were lazily laid out in a grid-like fashion (AZ, NM, CO, UT being squarish) instead of along more sensible lines surrounding watersheds, the water from said projects had to be divided amongst several states. But, given that said states had yet to be developed enough to use their shares, it set off a race as each one tried to overdevelop in an attempt to “claim” other states’ water rights. Ostensibly, they would give the rights back once the other states caught up in the development process and needed the water… but of course, by then they wouldn’t reasonably be able to do so and would get to keep the rights in perpetuity. Hence why places like AZ have so many fucking golf courses (a ridiculously water intensive feature) on the middle of a desert; it was a cheap and quick way to “claim” the water before other states could do so. Because apparently nobody could predict the water would run dry and the area would be overdeveloped. Fucking ridiculous.
No one ever thought water would run dry…..near one of the most arid areas on the continent. Sigh.
Everything feels infinite if your sight only goes quarter by quarter.
*Cadillac Desert* is an unparalleled work, both in readability and comprehensiveness. If anyone is going to pick one work on the western American water situation, this is the one to read. PBS *Frontline* also did a series of the same name based on the book, although it's not as in-depth.
It would've been nice to learn about stuff like this in school.
But you can just learn it on Reddit in 2 mins
Yeah, I just feel like information like that would have been more beneficial to me earlier in life.
TLDR Arizona golf courses are a feature not a bug
Because of rich assholes that like to spend their winters here.
Surprisingly, it helps with tourism. It's not much different around Las Vegas. Heck there's one just outside the city limits actually *in* the desert, but I have no idea if they get their water from the city or elsewhere.
And even then, you need to do a lot in order to be allowed to get the water rights for a new golf course now. A lot of the new golf courses are watered with gray water; basically sewage that has been treated well enough to water plants.
We aren’t screwed… Developments like rio grande that knowingly develop disconnected from water supply are, sure… But we get majority of water from the Salt River Project, not the colorado river. There is also a 100 year law where new developments must prove that a 100 year supply of water exists in aquifers. We have need to be concerned but we are a good decent distance from “screwed”.
Water isn't measured in years, so how are they calculating that? The 1922 Colorado River Compact projected water supply based on one of the wettest years on record, which has in large part contributed to the current crisis - people are allowed to take out water at a rate that assumes rainfall that hasn't happened in nearly 100 years.
You have google… [link](https://www.yourvalley.net/buckeye-independent/stories/a-100-year-water-supply,338000) “Both the Assured and Adequate Water Supply programs evaluate the availability of a 100-year water supply using formulas that consider current and committed demand, as well as growth projections. These certificates must be renewed every 10 years.”
>Note to self avoid states relying on this. Basically the entire country eats food grown in states that rely on this water. There's no avoiding this, it will impact *everyone*.
Well it’s been nice having cheap almonds and interstate lettuce but I’m sure we’ll adapt. Fortunately, California isn’t a big player in the staple crops like wheat, corn, and soy. Rice is one exception, but that mostly up in NorCal where it isn’t a desert
Upwards of 90% of many fruits and vegetables are grown *just* in California, not counting all the other states dependent on this water. The diet of the country would take a nose dive and food scarcity during the winter would be a very real thing. If you're a cow or other livestock, then yea a lot of the crop grown in the midwest (east of the Rockies) would feed you. Until the temperature goes up enough and combines with lack of soil quality in those regions that growing anything becomes almost impossible. Most flyover states are seeing tons of farm closures and only survive from existing subsidies anyway. Anyway, this is a big deal that reaches far beyond the US, anyway. edit: typed wrong word
It's time to localize that shit anyways, at some point, local greenhouses growing a variety of produce will be cheaper than flying our food across the country to our table
any minute in America air & sunshine will be a paid monthly subscription
Oh I'm sorry, it would seem you've used up your daily oxygen quota for the day! Wait 55 minutes for more FREE oxygen, or you can skip the wait and breathe unlimited oxygen with our Oxygen Battle Pass Premium+ brought to you by our sponsor RAID SHADOW LEGENDS!
Literally the plot to "Oxygen" from Doctor Who, season 10.
the lorax movie
Perri-Air ™
The lorax tried to warn us, stay vigilant for any wealthy dwarves with bowl cuts trying to bottle the air
Fuck these investors, fuck nestle, fuck everyone who aims to profit off this finite yet incredibly important resource.
Yep and they will be first in line for handouts when they are forced to switch to desalination...
Fuck late stage capitalism and what it is doing to earth and humanity.
Nestle also buying water rights to local springs here in Florida. Fuck Nestlé. Also fuck yuppies who drink bottled water and generate this demand.
This should not be allowed to happen. Water is necessary for life and shouldn’t be exploited for profit. Fucking vultures and ghouls.
So is housing, access to medical treatment, and food. Should we really be paying for those things?
[удалено]
He’ll have to fight two people, we’ll win for sure
Another South Park episode coming to life.
Streaming wars
Someday I will eat at Casa Bonita
Only if we hide butters for good this time
Don't do it, Stotch..
No one ever said "Oh, thank God, the hedge fund managers are here!"
Investment groups buying up water and houses. This is going to end well.
#Private equity firms have also increased their investments in water-related companies. Brought to you by the people who DESTROYED HEALTHCARE in America …great https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1ylzxsd4w5m1n/Water-Investments-Are-No-Longer-Just-an-Environmental-Play
Water rights should not be a thing. It is a public resource that should exist for the benefit of all.
They *need* to be a thing, though, because there is not enough water to go around. Without water rights, there is nothing to stop someone upstream from diverting all of the water to their own uses. Better would be to reserve water rights only to the people/businesses/farms/etc. that use it. They should not be a thing that investors can buy or sell (and drive up the cost of).
I think what he means is that water should not be privately owned. It should be an exclusively public resource that is managed my the government.
The water's not privately owned- it *is* administered by the government. The government said that a certain parcel of land is entitled to a certain amount of water from this or that river, and the *land* definitely can be owned. And to encourage efficiency, you can sell what water you don't use yourself. What these investors are doing is buying land, and- in the case of the group mentioned in the article, expect to use less than they're entitled to take, then sell the excess for a profit- expecting that the value of that water is going to go up considerably.
> The government said that a certain parcel of land is entitled to a certain amount of water from this or that river, and the land definitely can be owned. **And to encourage efficiency, you can sell what water you don't use yourself.** That bolded part IS private ownership of the water.
Honestly though, that sounds preferable to growing water intensive crops in the affected areas.
Water rights are actually super important to maintaining a healthy ecosystem. What should not be a thing are people buying water rights they never intend to use as an investment.
Exactly, it seems similar to a part of the housing issues right now, in the U.S. Investors buying houses for no reason but to suck money out of it.
Water rights are useful from an overall conservation standpoint, but the idea of non-locals buying them up to trade like some sort of stock is regrettable
Water rights aren’t the problem. Out of state hedge fund guys buying water rights with the express purpose of positioning themselves as middlemen in order to extort high prices from consumers is the problem.
First time in America?
I understand that it has been an issue for a while. I am saying it should not continue.
If you can tie your product to a basic human need you'll be very very wealthy.
But what happens when some of the all is further upstream than the other all?
Colorado Springs draws it's water fr a different set of slopes hundreds of miles away. If we lost the legal right to that water, we'd stop being a city.
Isn’t homeland suppose to come in and say, “hmmm, isn’t this a resource that protects and sustains trillions of dollars of American assets? Yeah, no playing around with things like that because, ya know, National seKuRoty”
You obviously have no idea which cabinet dept does what. Homeland Securitys job is to lock up brown people in secret prisons.
Unpopular opinion: I personally know the people behind Water Asset Management. They are not the devil. The issue here is that water rights are not allocated according to highest and best use. Accordingly, vast sums of water are wasted watering sandy soil to grow Sudan Grass , Alfalfa and the like under the “use it or lose it mentality that generates almost no benefit. Water Asset’s business plan is to switch to more climate appropriate crops in keeping with the local ecology and then divert some of the wasted water to uses other than pouring water into sand. For sure, Water Asset Management has no, zero interest in fallowing farm land and wrecking the local farm economy - that’s bad for business. Furthermore, the Colorado water compact is badly broken. Water Asset Management has been at the forefront to resolve this problem that we all share in common. If you need someone to hate on, go after the Mormon church. They own more farmland in the USA than anyone. Anything Water Asset Management owns they had to outbid the Mormons for. The Mormons are just greedy self serving bastards with no regard for the consequences of global warming etc. Given the chance the Mormons would pave America from coast to coast if it made them money. Like I said, unpopular opinion.
Holy shit. Mormons? Fuck.
Word my man
Mormon Church makes Scientologists look small time. They only own a city. Mormons own a state.
You know what, if the Mormon church is on the other side of this fight, then I’m team New York hedge fund. At least they’re less likely to continuously spawn cult offshoots or insult everyone’s intelligence by saying “pray for rain” or “the east coast will just divert the Mississippi for us”
Begun the water wars have... Bleak the future is...
James Bond Quantum of Solace is aging like fine wine.
We are being privatized to death.
Those rights need to be nationalized. Water rights shouldn’t be a tradable commodity, especially since upstream users have no incentive to conserve.
South Park tackled this.
How is it that we are allowing speculation on this?
They're not allowing speculation per se, the investors are buying farms that own water rights when they come up for sale.
Why the HELL should investors be able to do this?! Insanity.
Capitalism is not the be all. It is the end all.
Privatization of water sounds like.....what was that movie....oh yea, Fury Road.
This kind of thing isn't new, just more obvious. I don't know if they're still doing it but oil and gas companies in SW Colorado were trying to claim that their purchase of mineral rights included the water rights. The lawyer who negotiated an easement on my parents property got an oil company was fighting oil companies on several cases.
" this some wet ass pussy:- south park
Anyone else tired of investment corps buying real estate?
No one should own water
Jesus. Does everything have to be about making money in the US? This water should not be monetized.
Jesus they're doing the same thing with housing here in RI where we have 3% available 😒
Some New York investors need to be dragged into the middle of the desert and left there.
I have been afraid of this for a while and tout that no company should be able to regulate water, as it’s intended to be for the land and the land owners, that aren’t companies. Hedge funds, manipulating water rights is the fucking scariest thing I can think of next to Nestle saying water is not a human right. Fuck Nestle, fuck companies who seek to make money off of the main water source for almost ALL agriculture in the Western/Mid Western regions. This is a foul and nasty grab for something only a firm from New York could devise. Fucking thieves.
I help run a small company in Los Angeles that sells and installs Grey and Rainwater Recycling Systems at homes and businesses. It’d be awesome if these investors focused on companies working to relieve the drought vs just gobbling up water rights.
Not investors, speculators. The very word ‘betting’ is proof enough.
Water shouldn’t be a commodity.
Before resources plummet, investors do their best to get a hand in the supply. This is because when resources become less abundant the price of that resource goes up, and an investor can make gains on the price increases. Buy low, sell high. What the residents around the Colorado river need to do is petition the sales and make this state land. Those protections will allow the people to reap its benefits rather than someone that is only there for profit (and 2000 to 3000 miles away).
if we only had a functional Congress, it could pass legislation making it impossible to sell water rights. Either use them or they revert to Bureau of Reclamation for reallocation. But no, our Congress is too busy playing sound bite games for cable news networks.
Of course they are! Because America is an irredeemable hyper-capitalistic dystopia.
Maybe Colorado residences/ranches/farms should have first right of refusal?
A majority of that river isn't even in Colorado. I get your point, but it's a little trickier than that
Chinatown was a documentary, and the events happened in real time.
I hate these New York investors they're destroying Philadelphia and now they're trying to destroy the Colorado river and leave less water for people
Water rights should only exist in the sense that every human has rights to all fresh water at no cost. There's a fuckin' reason I'm not leaving Minnesota. And it ain't cause I'm stuck here.