I've been thinking a lot about water problems and droughts. And not just as it pertains to California.
In wilderness survival you learn that even in nice conditions, a lack of drinkable water is a serious problem. In that case it is the first thing likely to kill you. In bad conditions it can be even more critical, depending on the circumstances- even though something else might kill you first.
People living in arid regions made a choice that may turn out to be bad. Especially those who kept moving into a dry area after the amount of water available was not enough to support anyone new.
I think that without "government" water projects, the distribution of people and water would be a more reasonable match. It will self-correct even with the artificial "help".
If an area runs out of water, the people and businesses will leave if an affordable and sustainable solution isn't found.
"Government" shouldn't bail out the region (with coercion or stolen property)- and I speak as a person living in such an area.
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A natural North American stream is not a single, deeply eroded gully, but a series of broad pools, as many as fifteen per mile, stitched together by short stretches of shallow, braided channels. The banks drop no more than a foot or two to water, and often there are no true banks, only a soft gradation from lush meadow to marsh to slow open water. If soil washes down from the steep headwaters in flood season, it is stopped and gathered in the chain of ponds, where it spreads a fertile layer over the earth. In spring the marshes edging the ponds enlarge to hold floodwaters.
ReplyDeleteAn untouched river valley usually holds more water than land, spanned by a series of large ponds that step downhill in a shimmering chain. The ponds are ringed by broad expanses of wetland and meadow that swarm with wildlife.
Until the arrival of Europeans in North America, this was, almost without exception, what streams looked like. They were transformed into the gullied channels we mistake for the natural state of streams soon after the killing of millions of beaver.
http://www.patternliteracy.com/150-the-watershed-wisdom-of-the-beaver
I've seen (and wandered) places still like that. You know that kind of environment has got to do more to replenish aquifers than anything where the water makes its way to the ocean as fast as possible.
DeleteThis is why I say it is stupid to soil (or destroy) your own nest. It is why I was an environmentalist long before I figured out I'm a libertarian. I just figured out "laws" aren't any way to protect the environment- private ownership (and education) are better.