Drought reality check: Source of water for more than 23 million Californians is at 33% capacity

[marmar]

from the LA Times:



The difference between knowing something and seeing something
Story by Diana Marcum
Photos by Robert Gauthier






I once interviewed Woody Guthrie’s daughter, and she told me her father believed in the power of names.

Sometimes he would sing just a name over and over as a device of honor. I thought about this at the top of Oroville Dam.

There was a plaque with the names of 34 men who had died in the ?60s while building the dam, the highest in the United States.



.....(snip).....

The lake is at 33% capacity, and photos of Oroville’s drop have been published for years. But, still, that first glimpse: My eyes traveled from the treeline down-down-down burnt-orange cliffs and finally to the water. The houseboats crowded on the narrowed lake looked like they were cars in a choo-choo train.

“Oh God,” we both said.



.....(snip).....

In June, the Oroville Chamber of Commerce put out a plea for people to come visit – letting them know there’s still some water.

People aren’t coming as often – but maybe they should: Lake Oroville’s drop has become a symbol of the California drought. ...............(more)

http://drylandsca.latimes.com/post/125528199917/the-difference-between-knowing-something-and

[djean111]

1. Wow. That is impressive. Will the coming rains from El Nino help at all? n/t

[marmar]

3. From what I was reading this morning, it's not even certain the El Nino will impact CA....

..... it could bypass the state altogether.

[mucifer]

2. Cutting down on eating animals and animal products can help a lot.

[Igel]

4. Cutting down on population growth can help a lot.

Few say that because it's a risky thing to say. Faculty at U. Calif. campuses have been protested and "occupied" for saying it, because most of California's pop. growth is through immigration from other countries and the higher fertility rates common among immigrants, and this has been true for a couple of decades. In the last 20 years it's accounted for most of California's 20+% population growth.

The conservation goal for water is 25%.

Many like or want to encourage immigration. The water resources aren't getting any greater, and every added person makes water consumption there less sustainable.

Every added person also not just uses water directly, but requires food, and that requires water. We can import food, of course, but that pushes water use on Mexico or another country (or state). If it's from another country then we have labor conditions and such, and it affects the trade imbalance and exports jobs as well. Trade imbalance is what used to be called "taking money out of the community", still reflected in slogans like "buy local."

Moreover, one of the first things that happens when you increase a poor person's income--not that California's doing that, of course--is that food quality increases; one of the first increases to food quality is that their family buys more meat, and then shifts from fowl (lower water consumption) to ungulates (higher water consumption).