July 15, 2021 at 1:58 p.m.
California Dreamin': No water but plenty of bad ideas
California Dreamin': No water but plenty of bad ideas
But there's also one thing that southern Californians have so much of that they are drowning in it: Delusion.
If only they could trade.
The region is in the latest of a long series of historic droughts. They live in a desert, and this is what happens when you live in a desert and then pack that desert full of humans, like sardines in a can. Right now, there's 40 million sardines and counting.
That's 40 million people setting up shops that use water. In a desert. That's 40 million thirsty people. In a desert. That's 40 million sweating people needing showers. In a desert.
It's so dry and barren that the good comrades of the great socialist republic of the Left Coast are scrambling. And they have a great idea: Like all good socialists, they believe they should just take everybody else's water.
Some, like actor William Shatner, have floated the idea of building a pipeline to Seattle. He is starting a Kickstarter campaign to raise $30 billion to do it. $30 billion! Captain Kirk is apparently still onboard the Enterprise.
Others want to lay pipeline in the ocean and take water from Alaska. Still others have suggested towing an iceberg from the Arctic. After all, they are melting anyway, so they might as well be put to good use.
Another one of the crazy ideas - but one more seriously discussed over the years and that is being discussed again - is to build a pipeline across the country and across the Midwest and draw water from the Great Lakes.
So far as we know, while there is much discussion about the technical logistics of such an enterprise, nobody has seriously thought what people in the abundantly wet Great Lakes watersheds - and especially in those states bordering the lakes, such as Wisconsin and Minnesota - think about such an idea.
So let us say it politely: There is no way on God's green earth - or on God's drought-stricken southern California desert, for that matter - that you are going to come and steal our water so you can continue in your hypocritical and environmentally negligent socialist enterprises.
And you can be sure that this is one issue that most midwestern Democrats and Republicans will unite around. The confiscation of our water to deliver to a region that has ignored its own climate responsibilities and its own long-term needs is untenable.
For starters, California has never developed a water policy even as its magnificently watered lawns and gardens exploded over the decades, and the resulting debacle is sorely evident. It's all laughable anyway, for there are many reasons beyond political opposition why this Great Lakes pipeline is nothing more than a pipe dream.
One reason is that it wouldn't make economic sense.
That's what a team exploring the idea in the 1980s concluded, estimating that it would take $26 billion just to get the water 500 miles, with 2,000 miles and mountain ranges to go. The price tag today ranges from $60 billion to hundreds of billions of dollars.
It would be a legal nightmare, too. As the state DNR points out, the Great Lakes Compact and Agreement bans diversions of Great Lakes water with limited exceptions, namely, that only a "straddling community" or "community in a straddling county" can apply to move water out of the basin. An exception requires approval of all eight states in the compact, with input from Ontario and Quebec.
That California is drooling over our water - well, if they had water to wet their mouths so they could drool - is not surprising. Instead of developing water policies to deal with a long-term choice to live in a desert, and it's hard to feel sorry for them because it has been their choice, southern California and L.A. have always resorted to stealing the water of others.
Most quintessentially, more than a century ago, an aqueduct was built to transport water from what was then the fertile farmlands of Owens Valley to Los Angeles, soon enough destroying the agriculture there. Most visionary!
Some years later, Los Angeles began to steal water that flowed into Mono Lake north of Owens Valley, which supported a robust ecosystem for migrating birds. The dropping water levels began to lay waste to that ecosystem until litigation by the National Audubon Society forced L.A. to severely curtail drawdowns.
Undeterred, southern California officials have just continued with predatory plans for other parts of the country. So let's destroy the Great Lakes region's economy, let's finish off Midwestern farmers, let's prey on tribal communities.
Of course, if they took their blinders off, the vanguard of the Left Coast Elite could develop sensible policies to take care of themselves. For if they are willing to spend billions of dollars building pipelines and pumps, why not spend that money on west coast desalination plants instead?
Or invest in existing technology to recycle wastewater, which they have not done. As one critic of California's approach has pointed out, Israel recycles 90 percent of its wastewater, which has helped propel it from water scarcity to water security.
What about conserving water? Yes, this would likely require lifestyle changes and either giving up grass landscapes for rock, or paying a much higher price for the green, but, hey, you chose to live in the desert.
From what we understand, the region could do a better job in its groundwater management plans, capturing storm runoff, recycling, and recharging aqueducts.
But the default position of California politicians is to turn a blind eye to any kind of internal policy decisions because, as the coastal elites of America, they believe they are entitled - entitled to protection from self-sacrifice and financial burden; entitled to a lifestyle built on the backs of the lifestyles of others; entitled to everybody's natural resources, especially water.
They should not expect that many - and certainly not a majority of policymakers - will roll out the welcome mat for Left Coasters to take Midwestern water, or the water of the Pacific Northwest, or of Alaska, or of Missouri, or of the Gulf. Expect just the opposite: a flood of rejection.
In the end, there is no legal or economically feasible way for California to succeed in their plans for a Great Lakes Water Heist. But it is yet another egregious example of the fantastical and utterly absurd way the coastal majorities think.
Bottom line? Diversion of water negatively impacts the habitat and environment of the water resource being drained, it encourages wasteful consumption, it is predatory - and as such, given other options, is almost always a bad idea. That's why none of us should be surprised that it is coming from California.
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