Posted on 04/19/2015 8:10:10 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
As if anyone actually needed another reason to move out of the crazy state of California, now it is being reported that conditions in some areas of the state “are like a third-world country” due to the multi-year megadrought that has hit the state. In one California county alone, more than 1,000 wells have gone dry as the groundwater has disappeared. The state is turning back into a desert, and an increasing number of homes no longer have any water coming out of their taps or showerheads. So if you weren’t scared away by the wildfires, mudslides, high taxes, crime, gang violence, traffic, insane political correctness, the nightmarish business environment or the constant threat of “the big one” reducing your home to a pile of rubble, perhaps the fact that much of the state could soon be facing Dust Bowl conditions may finally convince you to pack up and leave. And if you do decide to go, you won’t be alone. Millions of Californians have fled the state in recent years, and this water crisis could soon spark the greatest migration out of the state that we have ever seen.
Back in 1972, Albert Hammond released a song entitled “It Never Rains In Southern California“, and back then that was considered to be a good thing.
But today, years of very little rain are really starting to take a toll. In fact, one government official says that conditions in Tulare Country “are like a third-world country”…
Near California’s Success Lake, more than 1,000 water wells have failed. Farmers are spending $750,000 to drill 1,800 feet down to keep fields from going fallow. Makeshift showers have sprouted near the church parking lot.
“The conditions are like a third-world country,” said Andrew Lockman, a manager at the Office of Emergency Services in Tulare County, in the heart of the state’s agricultural Central Valley about 175 miles (282 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.
As California enters the fourth year of a record drought, its residents and $43 billion agriculture industry have drawn groundwater so low that it’s beyond the reach of existing wells. That’s left thousands with dry taps and pushed farmers to dig deeper as Governor Jerry Brown, a 77-year-old Democrat, orders the first mandatory water rationing in state history.
The mandatory water restrictions that Governor Brown is imposing are going to be very painful for a lot of people. We have just learned that some California communities will be required to cut their water usage by up to 36 percent…
Californians are going to have to start preparing for a dry summer as the dehydrated state prepares for a water crackdown.
In a somewhat controversial move, California water officials drafted a set of mandatory conservation regulations outlining varying degrees to which communities will be required to cut back on water use, ranging from 8 to 36 percent, depending on their history of water consumption.
The regulations — slated for approval in early May — are part of California’s first-ever attempt at mandatory rationing. Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order requiring a 25 percent reduction in urban water use, a historic step in a series of measures aimed at conservation ahead of the state’s fourth consecutive year of drought.
And of course it isn’t just the state of California that is dealing with drought.
All over the southwest United States, we are seeing conditions that we have not witnessed since the days of the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
In fact, the water level in Lake Mead is now the lowest that it has been since those days, and it is expected to drop even lower in the months ahead…
One of the most stunning places to see its impact is at the nation’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, near Las Vegas. At about 40 percent of capacity, it’s the lowest it’s been since it was built in the 1930s.
“Just to see the rings around it, it’s just … kind of scary, you know,” says Darlene Paige, a visitor from New York. She’s standing at a vista point above the Hoover Dam on the Arizona side of Lake Mead.
That “ring” is the infamous bathtub ring around the rim of the reservoir. The levels have dropped 140 feet over the past 15 years, exposing a white stain on the gravelly brown mountains above the water. The level is forecast to fall an additional 10 feet by this summer.
According to the Government Accountability Office, it is being projected that a total of 40 U.S. states will be dealing with a shortage of water by the end of the next decade.
It has been said that “water is the new oil”, and this is just the beginning. The truth is that as bad as things are here, we are actually in far better shape than almost everyone else in the world to deal with the emerging global water crisis. All over the planet supplies of fresh water are disappearing, and the availability of water is going to increasingly become a major geopolitical issue in the years to come.
And even now, the U.S. government is taking all of this very seriously. In fact, the EPA is already trying to train our kids to take showers instead of baths…
Parents across America who struggle to keep their young rambunctious kids clean now have a new obstacle: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As part of its effort to help save the planet from the dangers of taking too many baths, the EPA’s WaterSense program is trying to convince kids they should avoid bathtubs in favor of showers, which it says is a far more efficient use of water.
“To save even more water, keep your shower under five minutes long—try timing yourself with a clock next time you hop in!” the “WaterSense for Kids” website says.
For most of our lives, most of us have been able to take water for granted.
But now things are changing, and we are going to have to adjust to these new realities.
corrected it
That will be Órale, gabacho.
‘Conditions Are Now Like A Third-World Country’
The roads are in better shape in third world countries....
God will not be mocked.
With the Sierra snowpack at 4% of normal as of May 20, Californians will desperately need what little water remains behind its dams this summer. Authorities have warned some towns like Folsom—home of Folsom Lake—to expect daily rationing of 50 gallons per person, a 60% cut from average household usage.
Yet last month the Bureau of Reclamation drained Folsom and other reservoirs on the American and Stanislaus rivers of more than 70,000 acre feet of water—enough to meet the annual needs of a city of half a million people—for the comfort and convenience of fish.
Government officials who are entrusted with the careful management of our water squandered it in less than three weeks to nudge baby salmon toward the Pacific Ocean (to which they swim anyway) and to keep the river at just the right temperature for the fish by flushing the colder water stored in the reservoirs.
These water releases are so enormous they are called “pulse flows.” They generate such swift currents that local officials issue safety advisories to exercise extreme caution when on or near the rivers. While some of the water can be recaptured downstream, most is lost to the ocean.
While homeowners parch their gardens and clog their showerheads with flow restrictors to save a few extra gallons of water, their government thought nothing of wasting 23 billion gallons to lower river water temperatures by a few degrees.
Tom McClintock May 23, 2014
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304547704579565622649474370
All California needs to do is kick out illegal aliens and they’ll free up a third or more of their water, plus eliminate a whole bunch of trash.
Unfortunately, California is the harbinger of what's to come throughout the United States.
LOx?? What for, LOx?
Add some charcoal, and you could have some serious sudden Local Warming!
LOx?
Liquid Oxygen?
Smoked Salmon?
I want some of both.
When I come down the hill into the little valley on the Snake River here in Idaho,on my way home from work, I smile at all the massive sprinklers soaking the farmers fields and the lawns of custom homes. The rivers are always flowing and we hit good water for our well at 80 ft. but went to 170 ft. Our garden is lush and bountiful and the surrounding area has enough game that I curse the quail that eat my strawberries every year!
We left Calif. 10 years ago and are glad we did. I have an extra 3 acre building lot with access to a boat dock and park on the river if any Freeper wishes to escape to paradise.
” . . . Orange County has no water shortage whatsoever, . . . “
It is interesting the exclusive desert golf courses in Palm Springs and Palm Desert where the president plays when going on his frequent fundraising and speechmaking trips to California seem to be well watered. Of course those courses are for the 1%, why would anyone in the press care to comment about the use of scarce water to create grass in the desert to create a playground for the wealthy? Or possibly the great redistributionist’s hypocrisy in playing the rich man’s sport on desert courses?
Not only will the press not comment, I don’t hear anything from the GOP either.
follow the money——
Bet Dianne Finklestein’s hubby is in there with his hand deep into that till.
Sounds good
Ha!
Where is Orange County getting water to sell that others don’t have?
Apparently it is our excess coming in, for now at least we have some productive wells going and O.C. at least is pumping purified water back into the aquifers. This is what I have been told anyway. Take it with a grain of salt, like many things that end up on FR : )
My wife and I were talking tonight and can’t understand why people with the means to leave continue to live in those little southern towns that have died a slow death. I know two men who retired from the military and moved back to our hometown, a place that I won’t even visit. It’s depressing.
I know exactly what you are talking about. Ensley. Midfield. Bessemer....
OTOH a lot of small Southern towns are great places to live. Maybe the interstate passed them by. Or a 4 lane state hwy. Lands cheap, houses cheap, you can find your own little piece of paradise for not much money. Not good if you have kids though, as they’ll have to go to Co. schools that could be miles away.
Dear California
Look to your West.
Sincerely
Every other state.
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