Suggestions for Managing Drought from Israel

Read Seth M. Siegel's Daily Beast story: Israel's Drought Lessons for California. There may be good advice here for us in the El Paso Desert Southwest. Here's a list of his suggestions:

1. Ban flood irrigation
2. Provide tax incentives to purchase drip irrigation equipment
3. Re-use highly treated wastewater
4. Have desalination plants ready for drought
5. Use special (non-GMO) seeds that thrives on useless brackish water
6. Require dual flush toilets everywhere toilets are installed
7. Add conservation to school curriculum
8. Centralize control of water
9. Preserve aquifers
10. Fix infrastructure

Thanks to the EPWU, we already have desal and we are reusing highly treated wastewater. TecH2O continues to be an outstanding learning center for young and old concerining conservation.

In a sense the State of Texas has centralized (or coordinated) planning (if not control) of water. 

Preserving aquifers (especially cutting down on the loss of water by evaporation) is a matter for the El Paso County Water Improvement District.

Texas A&M Research Center is working on the issue of salinity and plant growth.

All of this sounds good. The question is how much are we doing and how well. Stay tuned.

Siegel is the author of Let There Be Water: Israel's Solution to a Water-Starved World.