Can Aquaponics Help With The California Drought?

California has a major water shortage problem according to NASA satellite data. If you like to eat food, you have a major water shortage problem too, according to Mother Jones magazine.

California has only about a year's worth of water stored in its reservoirs at the rate it is currently being depleted, based on information from NASA satellites, said Jay Famiglietti recently in an LA Times Op/Ed column. Famiglietti is the senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech and a professor of Earth system science at UC Irvine. You can see from last year's Mother Jones article that since it takes 1.1 gallon of water to produce an almond, almond milk production might present some issues to California's water supply since 3 counties in California produce the bulk of 99% of all almonds grown in the United States. Five counties in California produce the lion's share of 98% of all US pistachios. Strawberries, grapes, lettuce, tomatoes, 90 or more percent of all of these crops grown in the United States are grown in California. If you like to eat food which you don't grow yourself, California's water problem is your problem too. There may be a solution - it may or may not be too late to implement it, but wouldn't it be a good idea to throw some money at it just in case it's not too late? The concept is called aquaponics, it can be done on either a large scale or a smaller scale and it is a method of growing food which uses 98% less water than conventional farming methods. Between Federal and state drought relief money, Bay Area tech money and Colorado and Washington state marijuana growing money (getting the munchies probably won't feel so great when there's no food at the store, people) there is likely enough money around to float some pretty large scale aquaponics projects. But is there the will to do so and will it be in time? The answers to those questions remain to be seen.