David Horsey on our water situation: Today's LA Times...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. Here is what I dont get, either CA has one year left or it doesnt.

And if that is true, what the HELL is the plan?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. We have about a year's worth of water left now, IF we conserve like crazy.

I think "they" expect we'll rise to the challenge.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

3. But how? Specifically? If the drought continues, HOW do you get your water?

I am asking sincerely, I mean what options are there, if you know?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. I know you're sincere...and I really don't have the answer.

[Warpy]

4. The plan is expecting a normal snowpack next winter

Good luck to them if they don't get it.

What they actually need is above normal snowpack for a couple of decades to refill the reservoirs. There is no indication that they'll get that, either.

This sort of drought has to be seen as the new normal. Growers use most of the water in California and they're the ones who are going to have to make the switch from cheap spray irrigation to more expensive drip irrigation or get out of the business and let the valleys become dust bowls. This is their only choice.

This drought started 13 years ago and the growers have done nothing about it. Now that it's critical, they're panicking and thinking that they can make up the shortfall if people stop washing their cars and watering their shrubbery. Since growers use 80% of the water supply, that's just not going to happen.

[Journeyman]

9. The one year prognosis is not agreed with universally . . .

The situation is definitely grim, and the potential exists for it to become much worse, but at the moment we're not on the edge of total disaster. There was little snowpack this year, but winter rains were much greater than expected and some reservoirs -- Oroville and Folsom -- are at greater levels today than they were last year on this day.

If you're interested, here's an informative read from last week's California Water Blog out of the University of California, Davis:

http://californiawaterblog.com/2015/03/30/the-california-drought-of-2015-a-preview/

The California Drought of 2015: A Preview

This fourth year of drought is severe, but not yet the driest ever. The drought’s impacts are worsened by record heat, which has dried out soils and raised the demands for irrigation, and the historical high levels of California’s population, economy, and agricultural production, and historical low levels of native fish species. There is need for concern, preparation and prudence, but little cause for panic, despite some locally urgent conditions.

<snip>

California will not run out of water this year, or next, if we are careful. We will respond mostly as we did last year, with some modest changes.

<snip>

Economic and environmental factors will dampen many popularly espoused or feared actions, such as widespread ocean desalination, extensive capturing of stormwater, vast reuse of treated wastewater, eliminating exports of water-intensive foods, abandoning major irrigation districts, fog water collection, iceberg towing and importing water from Canada, the Colombia River, the Great Lakes or anywhere else.

Less extreme water management activities should be adequate, less costly and better environmentally, even for much more extreme droughts than today’s. California is not running out of water.

Drastic measures need to be implemented, the sooner the better, and none of them are going to be easy. As I wrote earlier today in a different thread:

We will never have enough water. Because of the myriad demands placed on our system -- agriculture growing products we have no business producing in this State, a population that has far outgrown the meager water we receive here -- because of all this, we entered a period of permanent drought some 45 years ago. We're only now beginning to see the implications of it all.

[Malraiders]

6. They could build these things that harvest water from the

air and cost nothing as they do so:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. Those work just fine, but we need a lot more quantity than those can deliver.

Thanks for the clip.

[Gothmog]

8. Great cartoon