California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now? (xpost from GD)

[KamaAina]

Given the historic low temperatures and snowfalls that pummeled the eastern U.S. this winter, it might be easy to overlook how devastating California's winter was as well.

As our “wet” season draws to a close, it is clear that the paltry rain and snowfall have done almost nothing to alleviate epic drought conditions. January was the driest in California since record-keeping began in 1895. Groundwater and snowpack levels are at all-time lows. We're not just up a creek without a paddle in California, we're losing the creek too.

Data from NASA satellites show that the total amount of water stored in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins — that is, all of the snow, river and reservoir water, water in soils and groundwater combined — was 34 million acre-feet below normal in 2014. That loss is nearly 1.5 times the capacity of Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir.

Statewide, we've been dropping more than 12 million acre-feet of total water yearly since 2011. Roughly two-thirds of these losses are attributable to groundwater pumping for agricultural irrigation in the Central Valley. Farmers have little choice but to pump more groundwater during droughts, especially when their surface water allocations have been slashed 80% to 100%. But these pumping rates are excessive and unsustainable. Wells are running dry. In some areas of the Central Valley, the land is sinking by one foot or more per year.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-famiglietti-drought-california-20150313-story.html

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. Goodbye Central Valley.

Hello new dust bowl?

[KamaAina]

3. The irony is that many of those who fled the Dust Bowl wound up in the Central Valley

this is how Bakersfield came to be dominated by country music and Cowboys fans.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. Is it irony?

Or is it the same sort of farming techniques that work to subjugate nature rather than work with it causing history to repeat?

[NYC_SKP]

4. I'd like to see the Central Valley returned to it's natural state.

A lot of areas that had ag didn't have ag before the water projects.

And a lot of parts that are covered in suburbs wouldn't have suburbs if not for the water projects.

This was a beautiful state before we started fussing with mother nature.

If we have a dust bowl it will be our fault just as the one in the 30's was: mismanagement of resources and trying to fool mother nature.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Every water district needs to institute measures to promote conservation, punish waste.

It's time for meters at every customer tie-in and tiered water rates.

I live on fewer than 40 gallons per day while others are using hundreds per person.

That's really all we need to do.

However, very sadly, many want to build more desalination plants, which use tons of electricity and which (if the drought subsides) might lead to even more development of places that even now cannot support the population they have.

No more water projects, no more desal plants!

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

7. It really doesn't sound like individual households have been the problem.

But rather agriculture and business as a whole, getting water, pardon the pub, dirt cheap, and using it like mad. Didn't I even read somewhere that Nestle or one of the other bottled drink companies was continuing to mine the reservoirs while the drought worsened?

[KamaAina]

8. Indeed. The state should be charging more for its water.

That would both convince Big Ag to conserve, and raise badly needed revenue.

edit: And yes, Nestle and others are draining the aquifers under Indian reservations in parched SoCal.

[NYC_SKP]

11. True, but by "every customer" I by no means meant to exclude large businesses, like ag, golf courses

and then look at fracking...

[roody]

10. +100

[blm]

5. Tough times ahead.

.

[PasadenaTrudy]

9. "It's Chinatown, Jake" nt

[Auggie]

12. We used 20% less water in the past year than the year before that ...

I don't know how much more we can cut back.