The Observer now in the tank for Proposition 4 ideas

I stand by what I said last April: Prop 4 will be a big economic boondoggle.

I called out librulz (sic) last year October for supporting it while ignoring that it was not only an economic boondoggle but environmentally destructive.

But yet, here's the Observer, running a piece about how we should, even if the science ain't there yet, find a way to use produced water. Beyond the fact that the science may never totally be there, this encourages fracking, even having the rest of us subsidizing it, which of course boosts the climate crisis. 

Sadly, but unsurprisingly, they're not alone. The Sierra Club said vote yes, including supporting it at Lege testimony. (Sadly, a real environmental org like Center for Biological Diversity wasn't there.) That merited another callout. 

Even worse, the Tex-ass Green Party supported it, which led to yet another callout, along with me proclaiming myself an independent leftist at the state as well as national level. As of now, on the three Greens on the state ballot on statewide races, I'll only be supporting one. (It's also sad they got a candidate for lite guv, not guv, and also, no RRC candidate. I do get the ballot fees; maybe next year's Lege will approve what was considered in 2025 and let them be recycled to party coffers.)

And, this once again shows that while the Observer may be left-librul, it's not leftist. 

Strangeabbott's bullshit executive order on data centers

Two weeks ago, I wrote about how Kuff was surely wrong on issues with data centers were a big campaign issue for Democrats, or could be.

Well, now we have Strangeabbott's order on firm electric supply (though the issue of needing water was left semi-AWOL) insuring this isn't a Democratic talking point. And, yes, Strangeabbott did talk about them needing a closed-loop water supply, but the water in that closed loop can still be stolen from existing water, exacerbated by the fact that Tex-ass still thinks groundwater and riverine water are largely separate things.

That is only one part of how this is more bullshit as politics than anything else. 

It should also be noted that Strangeabbott's executive order says not a thing about cryptomining. The Observer notes a cryptomine in water-starved Corpus Christi used 11 million gallons last year, and this year, its water usage is being hidden. Oh? State law allows Corpus to hide individual users' water consumption. 

So, first of all, wake me up when Strangeabbott has a similar executive order on crypotomines.

Secondly, wake me up when both EOs say more about water usage, and water pollution.

Thirdly, wake me up when they mention noise pollution. 

 

Proposition 4 will really, really be a boondoggle

I warned you, even before Charles Perry's plan reached constitutional amendment size.

I warned you after the state admitted it didn't know how much water data centers would use. 

Beyond the boondoggle, I also warned you that environmental orgs and the Texas Green Party weren't telling you it was also an environmental disaster in the waiting, and also warned you that High Plains farmers and ranchers like Suzanne Bellsnyder needed to look in the mirror and admit, per the bible, "physician, and rancher, heal thyself."

Well, without even talking about Prop 4, we know Tex-ass' water needs are a lot more pricey than we knew earlier:

Texas communities will need to spend $174 billion in the next 50 years to avert a severe water crisis, a new state analysis revealed Thursday. That’s more than double the $80 billion projected four years ago, when the Texas Water Development Board last passed a state water plan.

Oops.

Per a Trib link, Prop 4 would be a drop in the bucket on that, but the Perrys of the world may see it as an invite to shovel more cash. 

 

Corpus Christi burns through most its water as local officials fiddle

Inside Climate News reports on how Corpus Christi may face a water emergency within months and run out of water within a year. We're going to see if the anti-environmental Proposition 4 is worth the paper it was written on, or if it's even ready to be implemented. The story notes that a full-scale version of the problem will affect refineries that make the jet fuel for Texas' airports.

How bad? Bad:

Depletion of this region’s reservoirs would lead to “controlled depression” for the local economy, “mass unemployment” and “industrial total shutdown,” according to a two-page report by Don Roach, former assistant general manager of the San Patricio Municipal Water District, which supplies many of the region’s large industrial water users.

He's not the only voice saying this. Here's the guy who used to run the port, and before that ran the port at Long Beach, California:

“The impacts are going to be felt tremendously through the state, if not internationally,” said Sean Strawbridge, former CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, the nation’s top port for crude oil exports, in a 40-minute interview Thursday. “This should be no surprise to anybody. We were talking about this over a decade ago.”

Oh, he agrees with Roach. 

That said, per the old saying, Corpus Christi's problem is just the tip of the Texas iceberg:

“This waiting disaster is under the radar for the rest of the state,” said Roach, who worked 20 years at the water district and retired in 2014. “We hear nothing from the Texas politicians about the seriousness of the situation or any state plan to mitigate it.”

Ouch. 

Speaking of? Corpus' mayor and city manager both refused to talk to Inside Climate News. Their public information manager had an emailed statement about "five year drought" that itself refused to admit that climate change is part of that drought.

That city manager, Peter Zanoni, has been there since 2019, before the five-year drought, and apparently like an ostrich with his head in the sand, per a former city staffer:

James Dodson, a former director of Corpus Christi’s water department who retired this year as a private consultant and was involved in several of those projects, disagreed. He said residents and officials “are crazy not to be panicking.” 

“It’s the very worst scenario that I’ve ever seen,” said Dodson, who oversaw a historic expansion of Corpus Christi’s water supply in the 1990s. “It’s going to be an economic disaster.”

Speaking of the anti-environmental Prop 4? This, also from Dodson:

For years, he said, the city dismissed repeated opportunities to develop groundwater import projects as it maintained a singular and fruitless focus on desalination. That includes projects that the city only recently scrambled to get started. Dodson doubted any will materialize in time.

The story notes elsewhere that pursing desal nearly wrecked Corpus Christi financially.

It's not just the likes of Zanoni who are fiddling while Corpus burns (through its water). Over to you, Gov. Strangeabbott:

A spokesperson for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Andrew Mahaleris, didn’t address specific comments about an impending water catastrophe or disruption of the state economy. In an emailed statement, he said: “Corpus Christi is an important economic driver not only for Texas but also the nation. The State of Texas has made significant investments into ensuring the Corpus Christi area has the water resources it needs to serve citizens and industry alike.” He added that the governor “will continue working with the legislature to ensure Texans have a safe, reliable water supply for the next fifty years.”

You're full of shit. 

Read the whole thing. You should be getting more panicky yourself. (All of the above is just from the first half of the piece.)

The background to all of this is the city cutting blank water supply checks to the refineries, who remain immune from most emergency-declaration water throttling, whenever that might happen, and have done nothing in the way of prep on their own, like private desal plants. 

Texas constitutional amendments vote post-mortem

Post-Proposition 4, the Trib talks about climate change and Texas reservoirs, in ways that neither Prop. 4 itself, nor in different ways, the Texas Green Party did. Fuck em all, including the Trib for not posting this before the election, and calling out High Plains farmers and ranchers like Suzanne Bellsnyder for presumably deliberately ignoring this as well as overpumping of the Ogallala Aquifer, which the Trib never even discusses.

“Wooo we gave tax cuts to the rich and made life shit for the poor! Go us!” That's a quote off social media from the Barbed Wire noting how fucked up the state was in approving all 17 amendments. Give it a read. Here's more:

“Boomers can’t seem to pull the ladder up behind them fast enough,” wrote another. 

“Hard to believe Texans actually voted to protect the wealthy freeloading class from paying their fair share of taxes,” a user posted on Blue Sky. 

“I expect some voters had NO idea what their vote was supporting,” wrote another.

The piece notes only 15 amendments have lost in the past 30 years, per Jon Taylor, chair of the political science department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Taylor adds vote turnout was the best in 20 years, prolly cuz of banning nonexistent taxes.

And on Prop 4, it notes:

In the end, a few measures did pass that actually invest in Texas’ long-term wellbeing. Just enough to say we care! Proposition 4 puts $1 billion a year toward fixing our water system before it crumbles (though there are apparently some arguments to be had about data centers expanding across arid West Texas), and Proposition 14 establishes a $3 billion Dementia Prevention and Research Institute.

And snark on Prop 5:

And Proposition 5 exempts animal feed from taxes, meaning cows are now possibly getting more tax relief than renters.

Totally agreed.

It also throws Austin's neoliberals and any remaining Keep Austin Weird wannabes under the bus on local Prop Q: 

As Taylor told The Barbed Wire, the vote was a “decisive no across Austin’s political spectrum, with affordability driving the vote.”

There you go. 

Once more, Texans, Vote NO on Prop 4

The biggie of the 17 constitutional amendments on the Nov. 4 ballot is Proposition 4. Vote NO, NO, and NO. Any librul or alleged leftist organization telling you to vote yes is full of it. I covered this a month ago, and specifically called out Lone Star "Left" for saying vote yes. It's a boondoggle fiscally AND, even worse, for anybody truly to the left? It's horribly antienvironmental. Since then, I noted something worse: The state doesn't even know how much water these "data centers" will use, and it has basically no regulations to that end.

Lone Star "Left," per Cactus Ed Abbey, seems to believe in growth for growth's sake without admitting that's the theology of the cancer cell.

The Texas branch of League of Women Voters is also wrong. 

So is the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, clearly proving itself to still be Gang Green neoliberals in the environmental organization world, in an official support with no real analysis. 

I mean, that piece even admits voters are being offered a pig in a poke:

At least 50% of the annual allocations must go toward the New Water Supply for Texas Fund and the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT). The New Water Supply for Texas Fund supports various projects - some of which are highly controversial - that add to the total volume of water available to Texans, such as reservoir construction, seawater desalination, reuse of oil and gas wastewater (“produced water”), a statewide water conveyance system, acquisition of water from out of state, water and wastewater reuse, and aquifer storage and recovery. 

The focus of the SWIFT is solely on water infrastructure projects identified in the State Water Plan. This is an important accountability measure because it means there must be some level of support for the project locally for it to appear in the State Water Plan. However, there is no requirement for how this part of the funding must be split between the New Water Supply for Texas Fund and SWIFT.

But still says vote yes. 

Gack! Other environmental groups, Gang Green-ish ones, also favor it. National Wildlife Federation and the Nature Conservancy testified for it in the Texas House hearing.

== 

UPDATE, Nov 3: Sadly, it's even worse! I had gone looking for this a week or more ago, and hadn't found it, but? WithOUT the Sierra Club caveats, the Texas Green Party says vote yes. All they do is cite the Texas Water Fund, created by the state in 2023 legislation for water projects, which in turn only cites the Trib (neolibs) and the Texas Water Development Board (state agency). That even further settles that I am an independent leftist. 

Sierra and other Gang Greeners, I get. But, has nobody in the Texas Green Party read Cactus Ed Abbey's famous dictum that "Growth for growth's sake is the theology of the cancer cell"?

== 

Note to likes of Suzanne Bellsnyder: Agricultural wells are declining because of over-appropriation and climate change on the high plains, like your Texas Panhandle. Marc Reisner wrote about the former 40 years ago. I saw that in action 25-plus years ago in eastern New Mexico, as far as the Ogallala Aquifer.

Sadly, per Ballotpedia, all Democraps in both House and Senate supported it. (Twelve House Rethuglicans were opposed.) Also, sadly, no non-Gang Green environmental org, like Center for Biological Diversity, registered official opposition, whether or not speaking to that end. 

Texas outlets fluff Charles Perry's Proposition 4 instead of saying "vote no"

Proposition 4 is the constitutional amendment to create a permanent state water fund, with an automatic $1 billion per year diverted from state sales taxes into that fund.

Wingnuts, at least some, hate it because, at least for a decade, it establishes permanent funding without legislative approval, and other issues. 

The Trib, Lone Star Left, and presumably other librulz are lining up to kiss it.

Lone Star "Left," per Cactus Ed Abbey, seems to believe in growth for growth's sake without admitting that's the theology of the cancer cell.

Also wrong is is the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, clearly proving itself to still be Gang Green neoliberals in the environmental organization world, in an official support with no real analysis.  

I mean, that piece even admits voters are being offered a pig in a poke:

At least 50% of the annual allocations must go toward the New Water Supply for Texas Fund and the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT). The New Water Supply for Texas Fund supports various projects - some of which are highly controversial - that add to the total volume of water available to Texans, such as reservoir construction, seawater desalination, reuse of oil and gas wastewater (“produced water”), a statewide water conveyance system, acquisition of water from out of state, water and wastewater reuse, and aquifer storage and recovery. 

The focus of the SWIFT is solely on water infrastructure projects identified in the State Water Plan. This is an important accountability measure because it means there must be some level of support for the project locally for it to appear in the State Water Plan. However, there is no requirement for how this part of the funding must be split between the New Water Supply for Texas Fund and SWIFT.

But still says vote yes. 

The Texas branch of League of Women Voters is also wrong. 

Leftists for sure, and more clear-eyed liberals, should not. But for different reasons than wingnuts.

First, as I noted several weeks ago, even before state Sen. Charles Perry expanded his ideas to constitutional amendment level, it's a boondoggle. That was based on reporting by the Monthly, where Forrest Wilder said Perry was trying to revive "a failed 1960s solution."

Second, because the whole idea is the brainchild of a Texas wingnut, it takes climate change into zero account. Nor does it support conservation. But it DOES back environmentally destructive desalinization. And the "reuse" of old "produced" water from fracking.

On all of this, the media in general know it. Lone Star "Left" sure as hell knows, or should know, all of this. Hence "left" in scare quotes.

It also doesn't regulate groundwater pumping. And, Perry lives above the Ogallala Aquifer and knows it's running dry. (Maybe he's hoping to make a buck selling some of its water to East Texas.)

Let the state increase TCEQ grants and low-interest loans for local water infrastructure and get rid of the rest.

I didn't like Perry speaking question-free and interview-free at the Texas Press Association state convention, either. 

Why was a politico speaking at the Texas Press Association convention?

Specifically, per page 6 of the July Texas Press Messenger, I'm talking about state Sen. Charles Perry, who was given the unchallenged open mic time to promote the water plan constitutional amendment he authored.

Beyond the actual problems with Perry's amendment (and it has them, and I'll be voting against), is the ethics problem. NO politico should get free, unchallenged airtime at ANY state's — or national — newspaper convention on a specific political issue.

Period. 

As for those problems?

No. 1, as I noted early this summer, is that it doesn't regulate groundwater pumping. 

No. 2 and related is that it doesn't really say anything about conservation. 

Forest Wilder at the Monthly threw it way under the bus this spring. 

A few takeaways:

Perry, a Lubbock Republican, envisions a multibillion-dollar statewide “water grid” to make sure Texas never worries about the resource again. He is proposing investing in desalinating salty Gulf water, cleaning up the chemical-laden fracking water used to coax oil from the ground in the Permian Basin, and injecting fresh water underground for later use.

Yeah, produced water, chemical-laced even after cleanup, and often radiation-laced, too.

The price? (This was about Perry's overall big dream, not just the amendment, but still):

The whole shebang could cost $162 billion, according to an estimate by the Texas Water Infrastructure Network (TXWIN), a trade association. That’s a staggering figure—about equal to the state’s total annual spending. And it dwarfs the $80 billion worth of projects recommended by the state’s own official water plan, last updated in 2022.

He didn't tout THAT at TPA. 

He also didn't talk to Wilder for his article. 

Texas Progressives talk heat, oil, world politics

Uvalde's mayor denied a research report that a city cop had a chance to shoot the Robb Elementary gunman. I suspect we're going to see more and more denials by both local and state officials in days and weeks ahead.

Odessa may be a small city, not a town, but it's not the largest place in Texas to have water outages from lines that are 50 years old or more. Drought adds to the problem on both water and sewer pipes that are older.

And, speaking of drought? Waco has skipped Stage 1 and gone straight to Stage 2 water restrictions.

So, Marlin hired a director of tourism? The dream of its former, land-grifting, now-booted mayor made true? And, Texas Monthly actually takes his "come visit" ask at semi-face value. Other interesting stuff. Former Mayor Pro Tem Scotty Henderson is featured as the barbecue pusher before Whup's, which does get a brief mention. Sure there's no PR there. And, there is now a "paranormal university" or whatever at the Palace Theater? And the "Coffee and Bites" is pushing CBD stuff hard? Just wow. Interestingly, there is NOT a mention of the Chinese folks who were allegedly kicking the tires on buying the Falls Hotel (No. 8, reportedly in the order of original Hiltons built by Conrad). There's a cursory mention of the old VA, but none of the Houston real estate grifters who bought it and tried to flip it.

Written on the just-passed Fourth, SocraticGadfly offers an expanded book review of "Oh Say Can You Hear, with an in-depth, nuanced take on the National Anthem, including the controversial third verse, and on Francis Scott Key. 

Off the Kuff discusses the two most recent polls of the Governor's race.

Stace ruminates (sort of) on his Thoughts on Viernes about migrant deaths, Abbott's border boondoggle, and the latest on COVID-19. I note that it's "interesting" that even Stace, Democratic stalwart, is getting tired of the "just get out and vote" cries by national Dems.

Can a candidate backed by Jack Danforth block Eric Greitens bid for the Missouri US Senate GOP nod?

Grits for Breakfast covers the history of prosecuting abortion charges in Texas, and notes that the criminal justice reform movement is ill-suited to handle this development.

James Moore delves into the mind of Greg Abbott.

Texas 2036 warns of the wildfire risk this year.  

Robert Rivard reminds us that the Highland Park mass shooter, like the Uvalde mass shooter, could have been stopped before they went on their rampages.  

Jay Jordan reported on a Houston anti-fascist group protecting a family drag show against anti-LGBTQ disrupters.

World items

Per Foreign Policy, of COURSE Merikkka's Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ are mourning the death of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, and the mourning is kind of loosely connected to full facts of Abe's ministerial life.

Chinese censorship at the behest of Xi Jinping Thought is leading to ever-increasing self-censorship at Hollywood movie studios targeting Chinese audiences just as much as American ones. (Of course, the piece ignores Hollywood studios' long history of being gung-ho for American militarism.)

Should Texans vote AGAINST Prop 6?

Fellow progressive blogger Harman on Earth rounds up good reasons for clicking the "no" on Nov. 5 or in early voting.

Why?

Briefly, there's really nothing in the proposition itself to push for conservation efforts, and North Texas and the Hellhole, namely snootier DFW and Houston suburbs, aren't doing anything about it on their own, and didn't during this summer's drought. 

Here's a nugget:

The Texas Water Development Board confirmed that some households in the Fort Worth area have provided irrigation of landscaped yards through the winter months in spite of the drought. In 2011, the state’s driest year on record, much of Fort Worth’s public water, estimated 45 percent, went to landscape watering. By contrast, the City of San Antonio estimated 25 percent of public water was used for watering and landscape purposes for the same period.

The Metroplex and Greater Houston as a whole as a whole use about 40 percent more per capita than not just dryland El Paso, but also as Austin.

Harman notes there's weasel words about how the TWDB should "undertake" to fund water conservation projects, too.

So, unless the state gets power to trump municipalities in times of water crises, we don't need a bill that's going to finance pipelines to big cities and call it "water project."

I agree that the state is woefully behind on what it needs for funding water projects for a growing economy and growing 21st-century population. However, sometimes the good can be the enemy of the best, and with what were already limited strivings for more conservation work weakened further in the final version of the legislation that put this issue on the ballot, I wouldn't object in any way if others voted "no," even if that would lead to tea party folks' crowing.

#Water: Desal is not the Texas answer

Oh, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is trying to make it the answer, sure. Sounds need. Tap a brackish Hill Country aquifer and desalinate it.

Just one problem: "new" water from desalinization costs three times as much as "saved" water from conservation. Or more.

But, desal is a fancy, techie approach, so let's do it. Jerry Patterson's reading from the Dick Cheney Playbook.

As for allegedly improving the value of the Hays County land, this will be done only if an eventual private purchaser isn't billed for the cost of the desal facility.

California: running out of water as seen from space

California water districts appear (for "good" selfish reasons) loth to accept what a pair of satellites is showing: the state is running low on groundwater.

How bad is it? Over the 2003-2010 period, California drew down nearly enough groundwater to fill Lake Mead, and I'll assume that's full-capacity, pre-bathtub-ring Lake Mead.

Looking at the map, some areas in the southwestern part of the Central Valley, around Tulare, look like they don't have a lot of life left.

That said, I wish the Times had produced a similar map for the Ogallala Aquifer. I doubt West Texans would totally wake up, even then, to the severity of water issues, but maybe some would.

Where data has been presented, though, and not just in California, it's been resisted:

In other areas of the world, like northern India, the novelty of the gravitational measurements — and perhaps the story they tell — has led to pushback, scientists say. ...

John Wahr, a geophysicist at the University of Colorado and his colleague Sean Swenson faced opposition for a study on aquifer depletion in northern India. As Dr. Swenson explained, “When in a place like India you say, ‘We’re doing something that is unsustainable and needs to change,’ well, people resist change. Change is expensive.”

In places on high-tension, water-focused borders, like India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine-Jordan-Syria and such, this is understandable in a way, but still lamentable.

An interesting sidebar is that the satellites were launched from Russia and some of their data would have been considered classified before the end of the Cold War. A peace dividend!

American anti-science is an OOPS on water vs. global warming

According to Gallup, Americans worry a lot about water supply (and safety), and not much about global warming, those two being at the top and bottom of their environmental worries.

Americans' anti-science attitude boomerang on themselves is what I take away. Apparently they're too stupid to recognize that, at least in some cases, water shortages are connected to global warming. Either that, or too stubborn, in many red-state cases. I'm smiling a little schadenfreude smile for people of Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, etc.

Don’t drink that water!

At least not if it’s Fiji water. And, I don’t care how many pseudoliberals, from Barack Obama through Al Gore to Arianna Huffington, drink it, either.

Besides that, the New Agey angle to much of its marketing is off-putting.

Goodbye Argentina?

No, no new monetary crisis and IMF austerity measures. BUT, there may be water austerity measures in 20 years, if the World Bank is correct about the future of Andean glaciers.

World headed for ‘water bankruptcy’?

That’s the stark warning coming from this year’s assemblage of the World Economics Forum in Davos.

That said, this being Davos, even though a specific solution or set of solutions to the problem wasn’t mentioned, I’m sure something “market-based” was probably on the minds of many.

Monsanto’s latest slice of alleged brilliance

Genetic engineering drought-resistant corn surely isn’t as simple as Monsanto would have us believe.. Much simpler genetic engineering has often had unanticipated, sometimes unwanted, side effects.

To believe you could re-engineer the New World’s signature grain, which has been grown in dry conditions by Ancestral Puebloans for what, around 3,000 years, and do so with bumper yields, is just ridiculous.

And, it’s the technology-driven part of American exceptionalism. Rather than focus on better water use by farmers right now, the attitude is, let’s just “tech our way out of this”!

Is the West going to get the election short shaft again?

At the best Western-issues magazine around, High Country News, Ed Quillen expresses exactly that worry.

Despite the fact that Barack Obama has put some previously-Red states, like Montana and Nevada, in play, and gotten red-leaning Colorado to start changing colors, Western issues like water supply aren’t being discussed yet.

And, even though John McCain is also, along with Obama, concerned about the reality of global warming AND comes from Arizona, they’re still not being discussed.

If you’re wondering what some other Western issues might be, and how they should be addressed, read the full story. Then, get yourself a subscription.

Straw man in the ‘Cadillac Desert’ critique

Yes, some things about agriculture in California have changed since 1986. That ignores the fact that U.S. farmers in the Desert Southwest, compared to counterparts in places like Israel, are wasteful of water.

But, that’s not the only problem. Marc Reisner’s magnum opus, “Cadillac Desert,” isn’t all about agriculture, and the part that is about agriculture, which is the major part, true, isn’t all about agriculture in Southern California. It’s not even all about agriculture west of the Rockies.

More specifically, a lot of the book is about water impoundment and water rights; another large chunk of it is about the politics of western water; a third chunk is about bureaucratic infighting between Reclamation and the Corps of Engineers; a fair amount of it is not about agriculture at all. O’Hare knows that too, if he’s actually read the book.

So, in saying “Cadillac Desert is not a Bible ,” Michael O’Hare is setting up at least a bit of a straw man if not more than a bit.

And, agricultural use of water isn’t SoCal’s problem anyway; O’Hare is either focusing narrowly on refuting both some misconceptions about “Cadillac Desert” and his straw man version thereof, so narrowly that he won’t tackle the real issue, or else he’s ignorant of the margin of severity of the real issue.

As for other specific straw man claims of theirs, I, for one, whether commenting to Drum’s blog or posting here, have never claimed that agriculture uses 80 percent of California water, or that it is ridiculous to grow certain crops in the desert.

I HAVE claimed that agriculture, at least off Reclamation projects, gets its water at subsidized rates, though I have never actually used the phrase “next to nothing.”

Given that he lumps “energy” and “environment” under one tag, and the paucity of water-related postings under that tag , I’ll assume ignorance.

First, as I’ve blogged before, Lake Mead could be DEAD in a dozen years or so. Along with that, the whole Colorado River could wind up looking like the Amu Darya or Syr Darya in Kazakhstan.

Second, I think O’Hare sets up a straw man version of “Cadillac Desert,” as noted above.

Third, to combine No. 1 and No. 2, doesn’t matter WHO uses the most water if, er…

Lake Mead is dead!

Fourth, there’s this dam, called Hoover Dam, that produces electricity for SoCal and Vegas. Umm, if Lake Mead is dead, Kevin, you ain’t getting any electricity from Hoover Dam for OC. For SoCal, more than Vegas (or Phoenix), this is a serious problem in its own right.

Remember, Der Governator has pledged to get more electricity only from environmentally-friendly sources. Well, at some point in the not-too-distant future, he or a successor may have to REPLACE some electricity that’s CO2 friendly, if not necessarily environmentally friendly in the larger sense.

Fifth, after criticizing David Zetland, O’Hare is wrong himself on his “market-forces” idea of what drives water costs.

What the cost of water represents is the economic resources needed to get it to where someone wants to use it, mostly pumping and for urban water, cleaning and purifying. To get it to agricultural land is much, much cheaper than to get it to your tap pure enough to drink.

As anybody in the West can tell you, who controls water/water rights/water access is a major determinant, whether it’s used for ag or runs out of a city tap. In California, despite sales of water rights to cities (and the issue of whether or not water rights created for agriculture should be fungible or not is an issue O’Hare simply ignores), that is still a consideration, depending on the source of the water.

Other factors that the post ignores is the crop toll of salinized water, the cost to desalinate when farmers finally have to bite the bullet and more.

Sixth, on the enviro costs of Big Ag, O’Hare undercuts himself in his own post.

Seventh, the only reason CD is less relevant is because Reisner died in his mid-50s before he could do a third edition. I have no doubt he would have factored global warming into that third edition.

But, let's get back to the big picture, which is what both O'Hare and Reynolds, his linkee, miss.

To talk about narrow-based water-pricing issues without talking about water-supply issues, is like talking about someone throwing a lit cigarette out a car window in SoCal in August without talking about Santa Ana winds. Or like arguing about whether the lantern Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over was fueled by kerosene or white gas while ignoring high winds as contributory to the Chicago fire. Or, it would be, as you’ll understand, like blogging about Peak Oil by only writing about oil in Oklahoma.

In other words, O’Hare AND Reynolds are straining at gnats when there’s much bigger fish to fry.

Finally, I've got a bitchfest comment about their blog. Right now, at least, TypeKey won't let me post there and Haloscan won't let me trackback. I suspect it's a problem with their blog, not either service.

Shouldn't the "Reality Based Community" be better at allowing and promoting discussion?

Saving Niger River nice gesture but likely no more

A €1 billion pledge to “save” the Niger River sounds like a great idea, but will it really do anything?

As the story notes, the river has fallen as much as 55 percent over the past 20 years and population is due to double in the river’s basin over the next 20 years.

Given the combination of that potential last fact, plus global warming, one thinks the World Bank et al would have been much smarter to spend all the euros on birth control in countries of the Sahel instead.