Let me put this in a different perspective: California still gets significant water from snowmelt every year from the Sierra Nevadas. A huge portion of this water is diverted to agriculture. A lot of these places couldn't survive as farms without significant external water like this.
So here's my question: why are we considering making consumers pay for expensive desalinated drinking water instead of diverting snowmelt to drinking water? What we're effectively doing is using expensive desalination for agriculture and making consumers pay for it.
And before anyone says "we need food" well... yes and no. Different types of food require different amounts of water. A decade ago California farmers were exporting almonds and alfalfa to China. Why? Both are water-intensive crops (eg almonds require ~1 gallon of water each; for reference a person only needs 0.5 gallons a day).
Not one mention of agriculture or snow in this article.
So here's my question: why are we considering making consumers pay for expensive desalinated drinking water instead of diverting snowmelt to drinking water? What we're effectively doing is using expensive desalination for agriculture and making consumers pay for it.
And before anyone says "we need food" well... yes and no. Different types of food require different amounts of water. A decade ago California farmers were exporting almonds and alfalfa to China. Why? Both are water-intensive crops (eg almonds require ~1 gallon of water each; for reference a person only needs 0.5 gallons a day).
Not one mention of agriculture or snow in this article.