State of Emergency in Washington?

Cummins12V98 wrote:
If we are so smart why are we not making fresh water from salt water?

I never said "FRESH WATER" when referring to that amount of water on earth.

Same thing happened in the 80's in the Pacific North West they declared a water shortage and had people water lawns and wash cars only on even days if their house number ended in a even number and same with odd numbers. It was a feel good thing that in reality became a way to increase the water rates. The reason is because people started using a lot less water trying to do the "RIGHT THING" . Then the utilities said they needed to increase rates to cover expenses because less water used meant less revenue and the "SHEEPLE" went along with it! Guess what, the emergency was declared to be over and the rates remained the same.

If there is not an emergency to deal with the politicians have nothing to run on.

I like to keep an open mind about these things. Maybe you are correct and this is all a ruse. I certainly hope so, but the evidence I've seen (rain fall statistics, lower lake levels, lack of snowpack, falling reservoirs and aquifers, etc.) lead me to believe there is a serious water emergency in many of the western states and in particular Southern California and Las Vegas.

I've often wondered about desalinization so I looked into it and found that it is hugely expensive compared to draining fresh water down from the mountains. The current state of the art with regards to desalinization is Reverse Osmosis which forces salt water through semi-permeable membranes. It takes a huge amount of energy to create the high pressures necessary to make this work. Some of that pressure is recoverable so costs have gone down substantially. For cities and drinking water this IS economically worthwhile in many cases.

The problem is that it is 1) way too expensive for agriculture and industrial use, and 2) too late to solve the current crisis. Building an RO plant takes years from conception to licensing and testing. It would take politicians with real vision and conviction to build these plants today. Once the plants are built, water rates will go up dramatically. Then, of course, the drought could simply end based upon increased rain fall.