Sharing Mississippi water with California would help feed America

Yes but my point is that getting 30 bales of hay off 10 acres a year (large rounds, my backyard atm) at about 49 acre feet vs 10 acres of almonds at 45 acre feet yeilding 20,000 lb of almonds... (based entirely on snagging a look at google)

One of these is more valuable. And it isnt the hay, so higher water use for lesser useful output in a desert is just plain dumb.

Couple that with there being PLENTY of better places to grow hay, and i can cede that desert climates are better for almonds (not sure we need to be irrigating a desert for them though)

Sorry for your pain, but the world could easily do without almonds if their production means requiring trillion dollar infrastructure (just trying to be realistic about the cost)

 

Numbers, im just taking nredfor88's numbers as baseline on water use

# on hay, in our backfield my neighbor cuts, 0 spraying, 0 irrigation, Indiana

as for almond production, see pic

 

I think California's best bet is desalination if not that why not pump water from the Columbia river?

 

The real question is which is cheaper to produce: MILK from cows or "milk" from almonds?

 

I worked for the US Bureau of Reclamation as a map maker for over 20 years. I'm more familiar with ,out regarding the issues involved. We've seem this water problem coming for many years.
Anyway, kudos for the idea, but not very doable given everything that would be involved. That said, in my opinion, the best answer would probably be about 200, 300, 500 desalination plants along the California, Oregon and Washington coast supply desalinated water to coastal communities and then piped further inland.

 

Looked up some stuff. The estimate is that the carlsbad desalinization plat produces 50 million gallons a day (18.25 billion gallons a year)

california needs about 50 million acre feet a year according to one 2010 study i saw, thats 16.25trillion gallons (ive been using 325k gall per acre ft)

So 890 carlsbad plants for california alone... (though this means 100% desalinisation for absolutely everything)

The plant cost 1 billion, so at a cost of a trillion dollars, california could be relatively water independent through desalinization instead of piping it from mississipi.

Assuming energy costs of 2000$ per acre foot of water to run the plants, thats an operational cost of 100 billion a year after constuction of all 890 plants

 

If problem was for years then why no one in an office did #### to start fixing a problem?

 

California has billions for a a train no one will ride on.
California has billions for food stamps for illegals.
California has money to abort (kill) babies from other states.
But the have no money for desalination plants. Look at what Israel has done with desalination.