From Cliff Mass:
Reversing William Shatner's Idea: Moving California Agriculture to the Northwest
A few weeks ago, William Shatner (a.k.a., Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame) offered a solution to California's drought: move water from the water-rich Pacific Northwest down to California.
He even began a kickstarter campaign to raise the 30 billion dollars necessary to build the pipeline.
Shatner is not the first to suggest that California might raid Pacific Northwest water supplies to help irrigate the Central Valley of California or supply the huge population centers of southern CA. Such plans were never feasible: the projects would be too expensive and the water far more costly than other approaches (like desalination). 24th century thinking in the 21st century, perhaps.
But maybe Shatner was on to something, but simply got the idea reversed.
Why move Northwest water to California when you could move California agriculture to the Northwest?
Romulan insanity? A Borg deception? A ridiculous offer to Shatner's Priceline?
As Mr. Spock would say, it is highly logical.
California is an arid region with a large population and an immense agriculture. Too many people and too much agriculture for even the current climate. And it will get only worse as global warming increases temperature (more evaporation), reduces snowpack over the mountains, and lessens precipitation over the southern portion of the state (or so our climate models tell us). Summer temperatures will increase so much that some areas may become too warm for their current crops.
California needs to DECREASE its water-intensive agriculture, including a switch to less water-hungry crops. Less almonds, for example.
In contrast, the situation if very different in the Pacific Northwest. Global warming will reduce our snowpack but will modestly INCREASE our total precipitation. You read that correctly. We will have the same or MORE water. Our growing season will lengthen as temperatures warm, allowing increased agricultural productivity. We also have lots of land in eastern Washington that is fertile, but unirrigated.
What does this situation imply for the Pacific Northwest? Agricultural OPPORTUNITY.
I do disagree with Cliff on Global Warming - I think we are up for a period of cooling with a solar minimum - but he makes a lot of sense.
The San Joaquin valley is California's primary agriculture region. It is about 1,400 square miles in size. The Central Valley is 22,5000 square miles but not all of it is suitable to agriculture.
Washington State lists a bit over 3,500 square miles as being prime agricultural land with 23,000 sq. mi. total in agriculture. We could absorb much of California's crops without too much difficulty.
An interesting thought and we are more likely to build water storage dams and reservoirs than the enviros to our south.
