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California Declared Totally Drought Free For First Time in Seven Years
California was declared totally drought free for the first time in more than seven years this week, following unusually abundant winter rains and snowfall statewide, according to the government's weekly report on U.S. drought conditions. From a report: The U.S. Drought Monitor's latest survey reflected an astonishing turnaround - at least for now - from a severe, prolonged dry spell that reduced irrigation supplies to farmers, forced strict household conservation measures and stoked a spate of deadly, devastating wildfires. A relatively small swath of California's southern-most region, including most of San Diego County, remains labeled "abnormally dry" on the drought map index, as does a tiny patch at the state's extreme northern end along the Oregon border. But this week marks the first time since mid-December of 2011 that 100 percent of the state has been classified as being free of drought, defined as a moisture deficit severe enough to cause social, environmental or economic ills. Conditions were classified as normal across 93 percent of the state.
They're called lakes. You dam up a river or creek somewhere. When it rains, the water level goes up. When it's not raining, it gradually goes down, because the water is being used municipally.
There's a lake that's 60-70 years old that supplies most of the water to my hometown. There was a drought during my childhood, and I grew up knowing that lake to have two islands, a big one and a little one. Turns out the little one wasn't supposed to exist: that was a bit of lake bed peeking above the water surface because it had gotten so low. After the El Niño storms in the mid-90s, the lake was full to the brim, and remained mostly full for most of my adult life, but slowly dwindled down to record lows after such a long drought, so the point that instead of one island, instead of two islands, it had only two peninsulas, because so much of it had run dry you could walk out to either island on the dry lake bed.
I should go take a look at the lake this weekend, after all of the heavy rains we've been getting lately, and see how many islands there are in it now.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
BS. Cities and towns only use about 10% of the water. The vast majority of water is used for agriculture and for environmental reasons (keeping rivers flowing, wetlands wet, and preventing saltwater inundation in bays). Yes most of the water used by LA metro residents is piped in from elsewhere. But it's a tiny fraction of the water that's redirected around the state. Southern California has very little agriculture - a few orange groves and scattered ground crops. The vast majority of agriculture is in central California (note that the Bay Area is actually in the middle of the state, not Northern California as its generally called, and is adjacent to most of this agricultural productivity).
What needs to happen is for the price of agricultural products grown in California to increase to truly reflect the scarcity of water. Agriculture contributes only 2% to California's GDP, but consumes 80% of its non-environmental water use. California's agriculture industry needs to be charged full price for the water it uses. People in other states will then either pay the higher prices for California crops and livestock, allowing California farmers to afford to buy water from sources in other states. Or they'll refuse to pay the higher prices, allowing production to move to states where it makes more economic sense to grow those crops and livestock. Both of these alleviate the endemic water shortages. But as long as the state government insists on subsidizing its agriculture industry with cheap water, it'll result in water shortages for residents outside of the agricultural areas. That's what happens when you subsidize something - it distorts the economy causing shortages elsewhere.
The real "real problem" is that California has too many people and too much agriculture using too much water.
The highest estimate I could find of pre-contact population in California was about 700,000. Of course natives didn't use massive flood irrigation techniques, so the state's carrying capacity is probably much higher, but we're closing in on 40 million people here combined with an unsustainable Central Valley irrigation system that's already causing salination of the soil and draw-downs of aquifers to the point where land is subsiding.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?