Bad Water

Most people are rather ignorant of politics and economics and prefer to stay that way. They're the reason that democracy doesn't work. A person who understands politics and economics can vote properly, but two ignorant people outvote the one who put in the work to understand what their vote will do. This is why our Empire is failing. We are decadent and stupid.

 

Our empire civilization is built on oil, on cheap energy and all the machines that use it, like cars and powerplants and tractors to grow our food. We don't have to use our muscles to get big things done. But the cheap oil has been extracted, and all we have left is expensive oil. It costs a lot more. America buys a lot of its oil from Venezuela and Nigeria, Canada and Mexico. NAFTA was a deal to get discounted oil sold across the borders. Venezuela went Marxist and hates us, but they sell us their oil anyway. And Nigeria is run by Islamic kidnappers in the North while xtians in the South are the ones been kidnapped and machinegunned by those same Muslims. The northern Muslims in Nigeria were caught hauling fake ballots across their southern border in the last election, but won anyway despite more "people" voting than actually live in the country. It is a civil war, and the USA pays for the weapons and the massacres and the slavery by buying the oil. This is expensive oil, and its exchanged for blood.

 

There is an alternative. In the last decade, fracking of oil shale in North Dakota in the Bakken formation has gradually increase the supply of domestic oil. While a fully operating US economy requires 20 million barrels of oil per day, only half the people who could be working are, so we're getting by on 14 million barrels per day. That means we're still importing oil. However there's a Saudi Arabia of Oil underneath California, and all we have to do to get it is to take all the drinking water, all the irrigation water, and push the entire population of the state to leave. That's all. It will take hundreds of drilling rigs and decades of effort to frack the entire formation. Keep in mind the area involved is bigger that the entire state of Rhode Island, 1750 square miles, and quite thick so potentially the water estimate and the number of wells involved might be a lot more than my napkin estimate. It could be ten or one hundred times more wells and water demands. And the more crews operating, the more water is needed at any one time. They could conceivably and realistically demand LA's entire water supply, the Feather River and Lake Oroville and all the Central Valley reservoirs normally used for agriculture could be bribed/taken for fracking purposes.

 

The Wikipedia article states that most of the formation is between 5000 feet and 15000 feet deep, and is the primary source rock for most of the state's oilfields. Normally I'd chuckle about threat of faultline movement due to drilling, but most of the big faults converge around 10 km depth, which is 33,000 feet. The drilling areas are deep enough to get into some of the faults. And oil likes to follow faults and folds. So yes, there is potential for earthquakes. Of course, with no drinking water nobody will be hurt by the quakes because we'd all have left before then.  

 

Leaking benzene into the groundwater thanks to fracking, and the 92.4 million gallons of benzene contaminated water lost per wellhead site is a serious threat to health, long term. And with that large area you'd need something like That isn't to say it is impossible to prevent this, but its very expensive. And oil is all about money. You don't do it if it costs more to extract than it is worth to sell. If you wanted to minimize the benzene contamination you'd want to flush the well with clean water several times over after the process, and hope it doesn't leak. You'd also drill surrounding wells and pressurize them so there'd be a flow that would hopefully drag the contaminated water back to the central well. This is tricky and chaos mechanics happens. Some will be missed. Kids will still die.

 

Of course, if the population is gone, and there's no people, there's nobody to complain or get sick from benzene contaminated water. That is optimistic. I wonder what it would take to evict convince 33,000,000 people to leave the best weather in the nation? If you charge them a fortune for showers, clean clothes, and lawns, that would go some way. This rock underlies the largest two of the four cities in the state, LA and San Francisco. There will be drilling rigs in the middle of city lots, and there will be gas blowouts, fires, and explosions. There will also be radioactive radon and argon gas leaks, and sulfur dioxide (rotten eggs) leaks are not just bad smelling but more toxic than cyanide. And the gas, once it gets into aquifers, could cause some excitement at wellheads and water treatment plants. People on wells might see their water tanks explode, or their taps catch fire like we saw in Pennsylvania. Its a health and safety danger, but its a necessary resource to keep the Dollar from crashing and en-pooring all those rich Eastern bastards that screwed up the currency in the first place, than sold US T-bills to the Chinese, Japanese, and EU. All of whom want the oil and can pay more for it than we can. So the oil IS COMING OUT, and so what if Californians die?

 

I suppose you could convince some of the population to move outside the contaminated area if you could increase taxes drastically in the fracking areas so the Sacramento Valley looks comparatively cheaper. Sac Valley is north of the fracking and upstream, so no kids die from leukemia like in Oakland and San Francisco and LA. If you own land over the fracking areas, be aware you do NOT have mining rights just because you own the surface. They can legally drill and tunnel under you and Too Bad if you don't like it. If your livelihood is tied to water rights, be prepared for a legal fight to hang onto that, and be ready to accept a low-ball offer from some investor who will turn it over for a profit to another investor who eventually leases it to the fracking companies. They need all they can get.

 

In the face of the fracking threat, the useless delta tunnel and the bullet train that stops every 30 miles so is slow, from nowhere to nowhere, seems pretty pointless. If the levees fail and the farms go under because their topsoil fertility is ruined by sediment and silt, well, those are water rights easier to buy for the frackers, aren't they? So why fix the levees? And with the water being poisoned, nobody is going to be eating salmon that came from the San Joaquin River. And radioactive water that flushes out of the wells, full of benzene, isn't fit for agriculture or drinking in LA, so LA is going to lose the entire California Aqueduct system, which supplies 82% of their drinking water. And Owens Valley supplies most of the rest, water they're losing in a legal fight over deaths from the silt on Owens Lake, something they're supposed to prevent blowing around in a legal decision LA lost a few years ago. They aren't complying and LA Water and Power is looking at facing murder charges for willful negligent homicide. Can a water agency go on death row when it isn't a person? This leaves LA with its natural rainfall for water supply, which will only provide 150,000 people worth of water thanks to normally getting 12 inches a year in the LA basin. Ground water in LA is already contaminated by oil, spills of toxic waste from the airplane and defense industries, and natural heavy metals. The sea is likewise contaminated by sewage in the current and bays and salt, of course. When fracking gets serious there will be benzene leaking into the sea as well. This is all kinds of disaster but it can't really be prevented. The oil is too valuable. Without the oil, those in power lose control, lose their wealth. And they don't care who has to die provided they retain power a bit longer.

 

If the state of California divides and water rights are successfully renegotiated, more bribes will flow around and there might be some armed responses from Southern States demanding access to water they used to get pumped to them for free. Water wars could go hot, with artillery and SWAT and snipers and explosives. It could get ugly. You think this is a joke, of course, but we've already fought actual wars over water supply. Israel is at war with Jordan and Syria over water. Pakistan and India are at war over the Indus river water supply, a tributary that comes out of Kashmir. Wars were fought over the Nile in the 1980's. A serious treaty designates how much water has to exit the USA into Mexico before the Colorado river hits the Sea of Cortez, and how clean that water is. We had to build a nuclear reactor in Arizona just to desalinate the river for meet the terms of the treaty. It cost billions, and is now shut down due to old age, so LA had to give up its share of the Colorado river and its primary water supply is now threatened by Fracking contamination. Isn't that awesome?

 

Water is such a big deal in the West because we are desert states and we can't live without it. Places without water are empty. Those with it are obvious and frequently populated, often densely, following the water courses. Rivers flowing through rain shadow (banana belts) of mountains make great places for agriculture. The Owens Valley was one of these before LA destroyed it in 1925. Folks here understand the value of water, and in the post-oil world, fracking is going to wreck what we have left all to keep a few fat bastards rich a little bit longer. Thanks, ever so much.