California Drought

This could potentially have far-reaching impacts on Canada:

_renegotation of water treaties with BC?

-half of fruits and veges grown in NA are grown in California - soaring food prices?

dang that climate change.

You know and I know you'll negotiate because the alternative is they'll just take it otherwise

And one day... that's what they'll will do anyway, because they'll have too...
California's population is almost the same as the entire population of Canada

They'll need water, riots in California or make the Canadian government bow down and piss off it own population

Not hard to guess how its going to go down

Hmm, I'm not sure actually. We (Canada) could use this for some major leverage.

the vegetables/fruit thing is a worry though.

We visited the Hoover Dam and few weeks ago and obviously being in the area, saw Lake Mead and all that gubbings. (talking to a local) If Lake Mead drops another 68 feet there will not be enough water to power Vegas. The powers that be, sent a few feet of water down to Mexico in the last couple of years. (according to the local).

The marina the local used to dock his boat at is now 5 miles inland. There is a flooded town that they said would never be seen again - you can see it.

So why? Why are they watering grass, why have they not got systems where the grey water from washing up and laundry and bathing is flushing the toilets? Why is water not expensive to use in the home?

Canada NEEDS to hold onto it's water IMO and we'll just have to go back to canning and eating things in season or that can be grown in greenhouses out of season.

Agreed. Canned fruit and veg is yummy anyway

Looks like they are being forced to change their culture and water charges will be introduced. Can't help wondering if this will lead to people leaving Cali though - paying for not much water will significantly add to peoples' cost of living, to the costs of doing business, etc.

Politics. That stuff in Chinatown wasn't entirely made up. When you provide water at below cost price to farmers so they can farm in a desert, you shouldn't be surprised that you run out.

As far as I'm aware, the vast majority of water use in California is for farming, not watering lawns, so banning it will have a minimal effect on the water supply.

And, yeah, Vegas is probably screwed.

The question is how....

You need the US for food, as a market place for key products (timber, oil, cars, and seasonal produce)

They need the water bad.... But how long could Canada last without its biggest trading partner ?

My bet... is Canada would concede first

especially is a smart American picked to start the fight in the fall....? a you can bet they've done there home work and know when its need to be done ....

Hopefully a Canadian will start negotiating in the spring not sure Harpers my choice to start

meh, we do a lot of trading with Asia now, at least BC does.

We saw golf courses being watered, town parks being watered etc, if they want green golf courses in the desert then they should use fake grass.

Progressive water charges on all meters. The more you use, the higher your per m³ unit charge is. Simple. You don't penalize the regular Joes, just the medium and heavy hitters. And by higher, I'm talking doubling and tripling the tarriffs, and beyond.

And yes, a lot of those heavy hitters are farmers; production will go down as will GDP. It's that, or you can live in a dried up dustbowl for the next 15 years. You pick.

harsh times for them but could be a win for Canadian farmers?

Only if Canadian farmers can find the land and climate to grow year round...



80% or so water in California is used for agriculture, the remaining 20% is used for everything else. Cutting back on agriculture is hard because California feeds nearly everyone in the US and Canada at some point, so for now they have tried to limit restrictions on farmers. Some of the produce California grows is only grown in California (for the US) and no other state has the ability to pick up the slack because of climate, boils down to California has the fertile land, and climate but lacks the water.

Golf courses can be misleading as its not always drinking water being used, a good chance that it's grey water being used.

Water is not exactly cheap in California, a household of 4 depending on where you live can easily spend 300-400 per month on water, even more if you water grass.

If you venture into normal working class area's you will see a lot of brown yards, water is just too pricey to justify green grass, the area's you see lush and green tend to be upper class area's and frankly those types just don't care.

Municipality's are working on new way's to obtain water that either were too much $$$ to do previously, or the technology had not yet gotten to a point to make it viable.

Orange County for instance has a toilet to tap program in place, instead of dumping treated water into the ocean, it's returned to the underground water sources.

San Diego area is in the process of building a desalination plant which would have been done sooner if not for the environmentalists filing lawsuits at every avenue to try and stop it.

LA is collecting rain water and diverting it from going into the ocean, and using permeable materials for side walks and such so water doesn't just run off and can go underground.

The tricky place is agriculture and the food produced. Canada can't produce enough to feed us our fruits and veggies, and even if canning, we probably cannot sustain our selves on produce without prices going up to horrendous levels making fruit and veggies a treat vs normal food.

No other state in the US can pick up the slack to help.

Food is the tricky part of the whole equation.

Solutions won't happen overnight, but they are in the process of happening, and those in charge are very aware things need to change when it comes to water use.

Another issue is Native Lands who lease out land to companies to bottle water from underground sources, the issue here is the State can't do anything as the State government has no jurisdiction over Native Land, same reason there are casinos on native lands but nowhere else in California.

You just can't jack up water costs as people then won't have the money to pay bills and a whole new slew of issues start happening.

Carlsbad Desalination Project | Home

From toilet to tap: Getting a taste for drinking recycled waste water - CNN.com

Obviously neither are a solution on their own, but they are part of the total solution and if the San Diego plant turns out to be viable in making cost effective water from the ocean, my bet is larger plants will start to pop up along the coast now that the initial environmental issues have been over come.

Most city's in California already do that, as use goes up, the cost of the water goes up.

San Diego rates for instance:

Base fee: $40.62
0 - 8 HCF used are billed at $3.896 per HCF.
9 - 24 HCF used are billed at $4.364 per HCF.
25 - 36 HCF used are billed at $6.234 per HCF.
Each HCF used after the initial 36 HCF is billed at $8.766 per HCF.

It's not a pay a flat rate per year and use as much waster as you wan't down there, the more you use the more you pay.

Now compare that to say Squamish in BC here where its like 300 a year for water, no meters and unlimited use with most people having no clue how much water they even use in a month.

Commercial users could pay more per HCF as they pay a single rate of 4.47 per HCF + a base rate of $20 to $2,580 depending on the size of their meter size.

Not sure the % of water used for commercial (excluding agriculture) vs % used by homes.

Interesting point

It may be beneficial to Canada to sell the water south for more $$ and even consider this in setting a 'west Coast' market rate for Water

Maybe North America a will be the first water commodity region

Time to watch out for upward creep in the water company shares