Sunday, March 23, 2014

Water shortage in California's future, and past, and now, duh


The Sacramento Bee/Capital and California/Matt Weiser, 3/23/14.  "California drought puts spotlight on water theft."

No problem in 40 years,
San Pedro Creek will be full of salt water
"Nearly 30,000 entities in the state hold valid water diversion permits, including individual property owners, farmers and water utilities. Some have meters or gauges to measure their diversions, but the state has no ability of its own to monitor those gauges in real-time. People and entities with water rights are required to regularly report their water use to the state, but many don’t, and the state has no way of knowing if their accounts – self-reported – are truthful.

In average water years, many of these issues don’t matter much. But the weaknesses are expected to complicate matters this year as the state struggles to stretch limited water supplies during the worst drought in 40 years. This spring, it is likely the State Water Resources Control Board will order some water rights holders to divert less water to ensure enough flow for cities and wildlife, something that has not been done since the drought of 1976-77. The state’s ability to enforce such curtailment orders will be sorely tested.

Our estimates are that we’ll be doing substantial curtailments in May, assuming a lack of substantial rainfall,” Howard said. “If it doesn’t start raining, it’s going to be a very big deal.”  Read article.

Related -  KQED,"Climate Watch", 7/22/10,  "California counties face water crunch."  "More than eight out of ten California counties will face frequent water shortages within 40 years. That’s the conclusion of a report released this week by Tetra Tech for the Natural Resources Defense Council." 

Note:  photograph from New York Times, 6/5/08, "Governor declares drought in California."

Posted by Kathy Meeh

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/03/23/6259597/california-drought-puts-spotlight.html#storylink=cpy

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

And when we get a strong El Nino and everything on a hill starts to slide off. The State will say look at all the water that is wasted this year, we have to raise rates again.

Anonymous said...

If you look at how rainfall and snow is measured its an average over the last 150 years. You hardly ever get the same amount of yearly rainfall. In order to get the 28 inches or so of normal rainfall, you have dry years and wet years.

The so called drought is mostly due to a lack of rainfall but more important the deliveries of water to Southern California are hugely flawed in Southern California's favor.

Read up on the Central Valley project and the rate the big agri business pays for water and turns around and sells the water to water districts.

Plus the way the state draws down every lake in the State down to 50% every summer is flawed.

The population of California has doubled since the last drought in the late 70's and nothing has been done to increase the water storage. Yet Southern California and the Central Valley poplulation has grown!

Anonymous said...

Our water dept used to get water from our creeks to help supplement. Do we still?

Anonymous said...

San Pedro Creek

Seriously google can be your best friend if you use it right.

http://bawsca.org/docs/NCCWD.pdf

Anonymous said...

I don't use Google. I saved the newspaper Tribune. I just wanted to see if anyone remembers.