My connection is too slow to view the link...BUT...I mentioned this a little while ago after a trip down Interstate 5. The whole stretch was, not very long ago, planted with olive trees after the boom in the olive oil demand. Now the whole stretch of olive trees have been dug up and almond trees line Interstate 5. The groves that haven't been converted are bare ground with the signs saying 'Congress created Dust Bowls' when the facts are the gigantic Agri-business are the ones that dug up the native plants that grow in this desert and plant whatever crop pays the biggest dividends, never mind that they are NOT really food stuff.
I wonder if anyone ever did an estimate of how much water evaporates from the 400 mile long artificial river that runs though some of the hottest areas of the valley.