One particularly depressing example from the recent past is what happened in Hays County. The groundwater situation in Hays County is bad, to the point that springs are going dry.
Hays County managed to push something through the state legislature that'd give the Hays Trinity Water Conservation District more power to manage groundwater use (it passed overwhelmingly), but then Greg Abbot vetoed it - likely at the behest of Aqua Texas, a big water utility company that pumps a TON of water and has been pretty blatant about ignoring pumping caps and generally acted in bad faith.
Source: https://archive.is/b1bp1
So desalination only makes economic sense after removing all farms from an area.
Farms growing food crops don’t produce ~5,000$ in profits per acre, even 1/10th that is an extreme outlier. On top of this desalinated water still has significantly more salt than rainwater which eventually causes issues. Subsides can always make things look cheaper when you ignore the subsidy.
Indoor farming can be extremely water-efficient, often at the cost of energy inefficiency, but with low solar prices and the level of sun they have in the Southwest perhaps that can become economical?
I don't know, I just do know that water shortages are a problem, are going to continue to become more of a problem, and there's currently just one technology that's affordable enough that some nations currently use it at scale. So let's get started.
Nobody wants to vote for water rationing, and the state can’t even enforce consumption limits against corporations and the wealthy.
It seems like a problem those in the area will just have to deal with given that they're knowingly walking down that path. If you can't fund desalinization or other options, won't take federal funding, and choose not to region or conserve water then you collectively made your own bed.
It isn't common, but states have absolutely forwent federal funding to stand their ground, and in my opinion they should do it more often. Its a huge weakness in our federal system that states are so dependent on federal funding for long lived programs.
But I have property in Arizona and I have a real hard time imagining this state saying no thank you if offered water. It’s sort of a big deal out there these days.
My main concern there is that states can and should turn down federal funding if it comes with strings the state isn't interested in accepting. Our federal system becomes fairly useless if states are so dependent on federal funding that we can no longer have 50 different experiments running to try out different legislative approaches.
https://www.texaswater.org/prop-4
Texas has also recently started building new reservoirs after a long time of not building any. Bois d'Arc and Arbuckle have recently been finished, others are in progress, and a few more are in planning phases.
There's a lot to hate on about Texas politics but there are some competent people trying to address water concerns. Not saying Texas is doing everything perfectly, we're still drawing on aquifers at an unsustainable rate and need to change that.
This doesn't mean don't conserve, be intelligent, etc.
But this does mean that your water won't "balance out" year to year, you need to look at big 25-30 year intervals.
Right now the single biggest waste of water in Austin is leaky pipes. Like infrastructure pipes owned by the city. Meanwhile our water conservation budget is going to billboards telling people to rush in the shower. The entire population could stop bathing and not reduce enough to make up for the leaks happening in the crumbling water infra.
I think OP is talking more about groundwater depletion:
https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/panhandle-runs-on-water-...
The only real usage of water is evaporation and that's stuff like growing plants and cooling towers.
Many systems also output reclaimed water; it's clean, but not up to environmental standards for discharge or drinking; typically excess clorination. This is often used for municipal irrigation sometimes toliet flushing, etc; uses where water below drinking standards is fine.
A handful of systems discharge treated water into their reservoirs or into acquifer recharge ponds. But there's an ick factor, even when discharge water is often held to higher standards than drinking water, so it's only done when the situation outweighs the ick.
You have seperate drainage for shower water and effluent?
That’s certainly not the case here in Australia.
Here, typically storm water and household waste water are carried over a common system. Usually if it rains more than 3mm in 24hrs the treatment systems are overwhelmed and untreated waste is sent out to sea. Coastal areas anyways.
I hope to see this legislation in TN changed to allow cloudseeding.
Just because it may not be “your thing”…doesn’t mean it’s not worth having.
I think folks get caught up on golf course water usage, but every course around me uses reclaimed water. If houses were built there, that would no longer be reclaimed water, but potable water. Also I am convinced that landscape chemical usage would go up as well.
I have close family and friends in the business, I guarantee that huge efforts go into making sure not a single drop of irrigation isn’t used unless it’s needed. I can tell you that my neighbors don’t pay that much attention to their exact irrigation needs—simply watering for as long as they can, when they can. I doubt seriously that replacing a golf course with more homes would net much water savings…at least around me.
I think the folks who try this ecological impact argument and want to push homes into that space just don’t think through all the consequences or assume there is a greater landscape effort than it actually takes. It’s a lot of work, but is it less that the combined work of 200 homes? Probably not. A couple of tractors vs 200 mowers? Landscape chemicals on perhaps 20 acres of the 150-200 (tees and greens, spot treat everywhere else) vs 3 homes per acre treating their whole lawn? 300-400 more vehicles driving in and out of the area everyday?
You want to outlaw them and let them go wild, I can accept that argument and can’t counter it but for “golf is fun and people enjoy it.” However if the concept that houses are better ecologically…I think that is a huge stretch.
Also, pretty sure you will be hard pressed in 2025 to find courses actively discriminating anyone who has the $$ to spend to play a round. Every course I have played in the last 40 years seems to have all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, ethnicities, and income.
For more people across a broader socio-economic background. I mean come on let’s just acknowledge the elephant in the room: golf is a rich sport for upper-income/rich people that requires a massive amount of space that then often has a deleterious effect on surrounding real estate (i.e. inflates it and prices people out).
Yeah, not gonna attract the lower income folks because it’s not a zero dollar hobby, but from experience I know the middle class is well represented.
For example, the aquifer situation in the Central Valley of California is in some ways similar to Ogallala aquifer in Texas. "If we don't want to end up like Texas, we need to get a handle on this." Enact laws and conservation measures which make it difficult for those coming from out of state to bring their ecologically irresponsible practices with them. Ideally, reduce the ecological impact wrought by well-established California interests as well, but if necessary grandfather them in in order to prepare.
[0] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU01/20250122/117827/HHRG...