Posted on 06/19/2015 7:57:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Things have never been this dry for this long in the recorded history of the state of California, and this has created an unprecedented water crisis. At this point, 1,900 wells have already gone completely dry in California, and some communities are not receiving any more water at all. As you read this article, 100 percent of the state is in some stage of drought, and there has been so little precipitation this year that some young children have never actually seen rain. This is already the worst multi-year drought in the history of the state of California, but this may only be just the beginning. Scientists tell us that the amount of rain that California received during the 20th century was highly unusual. In fact, they tell us that it was the wettest century for the state in at least 1000 years. Now that things are returning to “normal”, the state is completely and total unprepared for it. California has never experienced a water crisis of this magnitude, and other states in the western half of the nation are starting to really suffer as well. In the end, we could very well be headed for the worst water crisis this country has ever seen.
When I said that some communities in California are not receiving any more water, I was not exaggerating. Just consider the following excerpt from one recent news report…
The community of Mountain House is days away from having no water at all after the state cut off its only water source.
Anthony Gordon saves drinking water just in case, even though he never thought it would come to this.
“My wife thinks I’m nuts. I have like 500 gallons of drinking water stored in my home,” he said.
The upscale community of Mountain House, west of Tracy, is days away from having no water. It’s not just about lawns—there may not be a drop for the 15,000 residents to drink.
So what are those people going to do?
And what is this going to do to the property values in that area?
Who in the world is going to want to buy a home that does not have running water coming to it?
Other communities throughout the state are pumping groundwater like crazy in a desperate attempt to continue with business as usual. In fact, it is being projected that groundwater will account for almost all water used in the entire state by the end of this year…
Underground aquifers supply 35 percent of the water used by humans worldwide. Demand is even greater in times of drought. Rain-starved California is currently tapping aquifers for 60 percent of its water use as its rivers and above-ground reservoirs dry up, a steep increase from the usual 40 percent. Some expect water from aquifers will account for virtually every drop of the state’s fresh water supply by year end.
But of course this creates a huge problem. When the groundwater is gone, it is gone for good. Those aquifers took centuries to fill up, and now they are being drained at a staggering rate. In some parts of the state, aquifers are being drained so fast that it is causing thousands of square miles of land to sink…
Californians have been draining water so rapidly from underground aquifers that tens of thousands of square miles of land reportedly are sinking — so drastically that the shifting surface is starting to destroy bridges and crack highways across the state, according to a recent report by the Center for Investigative Reporting.
So what is the solution?
Some of my readers have suggested that desalination is the answer. But the truth is that desalination is very expensive and it is really bad for the environment. The following comes from a recent Natural News article…
For those who are saying, “There’s no water problem in California! It has the entire Pacific Ocean right next door!”, you need to look into the catastrophic environmental destruction tied to ocean water desalination.
Not only does desalination use fossil fuels which emit the very same carbon emissions that the California government insists caused the drought in the first place, the desalination process itself pollutes the ocean with high concentration salt brine that kills marine ecosystems and destroys ocean life along the California coastline.
And that’s on top of all the Fukushima radiation that’s already causing a marine ecosystem collapse in many areas of the coast. Add more salt brine to the mix and you get a state where rich, self-entitled Hollywood celebrities demand their lush, green lawns at the expense of ocean life, climate change and the global ecosystem. If that happens, California will lose all credibility as a “green” state, and its wealthiest residents will be living an ecological lie.
Others have suggested that California can solve their water problems using “toilet to tap” technology…
Potable water reuse – or converting sewage effluent to heavily-treated, purified drinking water – is receiving renewed attention in California in the midst of the state’s four-year drought.
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, “California water managers and environmentalists” are pushing the idea of recycled sewage water. Yet past efforts in the state to employ similar systems have stalled, as opponents have dubbed the concept “toilet to tap.”
How would you feel about that?
Would you be willing to have your family drink water that came from the toilets of your neighbors?
I don’t think that I could do that.
But something has to be done. It is not just the state of California that is experiencing a major water crisis. All over the world, underground aquifers are being drained rapidly. In fact, according to the Washington Post, 21 out of the 37 largest aquifers in the world “have passed their sustainability tipping points”…
The world’s largest underground aquifers – a source of fresh water for hundreds of millions of people — are being depleted at alarming rates, according to new NASA satellite data that provides the most detailed picture yet of vital water reserves hidden under the Earth’s surface.
Twenty-one of the world’s 37 largest aquifers — in locations from India and China to the United States and France — have passed their sustainability tipping points, meaning more water was removed than replaced during the decade-long study period, researchers announced Tuesday. Thirteen aquifers declined at rates that put them into the most troubled category. The researchers said this indicated a long-term problem that’s likely to worsen as reliance on aquifers grows.
Sadly, this is just the beginning. There is a reason why experts refer to fresh water as “the new oil”. Without fresh water, none of us can survive. But we are very quickly getting to the point where there simply won’t be enough of it for everyone on the planet.
As for the state of California, it was once a desert and now it is turning back into a desert. As I mentioned earlier, the 20th century was the wettest century that part of North America had seen in at least 1000 years. During that time, we built enormous cities all over the Southwest that currently support millions upon millions of people. But now we are learning that those cities are not sustainable.
So what should be done? Please feel free to share what you think by posting a comment below…
Although we have always had plenty of water, southern Oregon is also going through a drought and I am worried. you can see our Douglas fir evergreen trees are showing more and more signs of brown on their needles.
“Brown is the new Green...” Yeah, those signs are going up all over California. That’ll stop the drought crisis, right? Wrong. California has been dumb enough to elect moonbats like Brown, Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, and the list goes on and on. There haven’t been any new dams built in the once “Golden State” in decades. The population has increased several times over since the last dam was built. There are no plans to increase storage capacity, and hence, California has domed itself, having succumbed to the environmentalistic whackos. Ho hum...
10% or less for the security of water seems a very small price to pay.
The illegals take showers and drink water....
No No, can’t say anything about them...
Those Mexicans sure are a thirsty bunch...
People keep falling into the lefts trap of talking about how there has been no global warming for the last 10-18 years as proof of no global warming.
That amount of time is irrelevant when you’re talking about climate change but people keep talking about it makes it relevant.
The next time the temperature rises for a couple of years it will then be used as proof of global warming because everyone has agreed 10-18 years is enough time to determine climate change.
By constantly shortening the time frame changes in the weather becomes climate change.
An average of 265,000 cu ft/s of fresh water flows into the Pacific Ocean from the Columbia River. An aqueduct to divert a small portion to southern Oregon would resolve the drought problem in southern Oregon. An aqueduct to California would make some revenue for Oregon.
Umm You don’t have to dump the salt back into the ocean. You can actually truck it north where they need it to keep roads clear during the winter.
Is that true?
Then this is true
Cannabis growers are not helping California during a severe drought as pot plants are sucking up a priceless resource: water.
But if what I heard about moonbeam back in the 1960s not to worry potheads.. That headline actually reads:
California Governor Exempts Marijuana From Restrictions on Water
California Liberals cheer news.
Hardly. By any serious calculation, illegals consume less than 1% of the water in California. 80% goes to agriculture, and of the 20% that's left, the majority goes to landscape watering. Actual human consumption--toilets, drinking, showers--is about 8%, with affluent areas using more than poorer, and illegals make up about 10% of the population.
The fact is that California exports more water to China, locked as moisture content in alfalfa, than illegals consume.
We never had water and could not populate Southern California until water rights were in place. That was done and millions came which was fine.
California had a decade of great rain and Jerry Brown decides to give the water rights away during his first term which has led us to being doomed now.
Legally Jerry should have never been able to give the water rights away.
Oh well, no water for illegals and their children for starters.
So much of the so-called water shortage in CA is propaganda created by Jerry Brown and his cohorts. Rather than build desalination plants for the past number of years, Brown would rather spend billions of dollars on a useless high speed railroad to nowhere.
I live in the Coachella Valley, the low desert of CA east of Los Angeles (Palm Springs and other desert resort cities).
Our drinking water comes from a huge underground aquifer which has been built up over thousands of years. There is more than an adequate supply of water. However, due to population growth, this area has been in overdraft in recent years. That means that we have been taking more water out than is being restored. So, the water companies here have had a major program for several years to convert the huge agricultural areas to drip irrigation from field flooding irrigation, as well as converting residential landscape to so-called desert plant landscaping. As a result, there have been major reductions in water use, and within 5 years, the overdraft situation is projected to be reversed.
In addition, the water companies have converted to using tiered pricing for residential and business use. In other words, the more you use, the higher the water price per unit used.
Most of the many golf courses here have been using recycled water for irrigation. That does two things. It provides an additional source of income for the water companies, and it provides a way to dispose of this water which cannot be used for drinking.
Jerry Brown and crew in their infinite wisdom have decreed that this entire state shall fall under control of his state water board. That board has decreed draconian water reductions for the entire state even though many areas do not have a water shortage.
In the Coachella Valley, we are being told that our water usage must be cut by 36%. If we do not do so, we will be hit with huge financial penalties. For example the surcharge for those in the highest water usage tier will result in a water rate that is 10 times the charge for the lowest tier.
One last thing, while all of this is going on, near the San Gorgonio Pass which is the entrance to our valley from the west, there is a huge water bottling plant on Indian owned land. It is taking water the comes down from the San Bernardino Mountains, water that would have been used to re-charge the underground aquifer. It is selling that bottled water to a major national bottled water company. So, water is being shipped out of this state at the same time that we are being forced to reduce our use.
Nice little trick the left plays with that 80% statistic: they only look at human consumption. The conveniently leave off the amount of water that is diverted for environmental uses like increased river flows for the Delta Smelt. I don't have the number nor the time to find it right now, but I believe the amount that is used for environmental "use" dwarfs what the humans - including the farmers that grow the food we eat - are using.
I wonder what the chances are of all these facts sinking into
the head of the average Californian by 2016.
This Texan will never forget Liberal Nation mocking Perry when after he asked we pray for rain in the infernal ‘11 summer, then the wilfires started with TS Lee.
That said, Lord please restore CA as you have TX, amen.
This is a government made crisis to manipulate
Actually, I think the author made that point - that this is the worst drought in the history of the state of California - but California has only been a state for a little over a century and a half. The author makes the point that the 20th century saw an unusually high level of precipitation for the region. Using proxy data (growth ring data from old-growth trees, etc.), it becomes clear that drought is the normal condition for California. In fact, in the last millenia or so, California has had droughts that lasted decades, and in one case, centuries.
“the catastrophic environmental destruction tied to ocean water desalination”
Bull and s***.
L
Manufactured emergencies courtesy of the federal and state government.
There is probably more water used just to keep golf courses in Palm Springs green than is consumed by every human in the state.
This also goes for Almond and Orange growers. I read that almond groves consume more water than every other crop.
The coastal cities of California, like San Diego, need to build desalinization plants. I was in Aruba recently. They have the second biggest desalinization plant in the world. After Israel. Aruba is a desert island. They get virtually no rain. Yet, I could drink the water right out of the tap and not worry about bacteria. They have plenty of water to irrigate, drink and swim in.
I say let’s go biblical. God is punishing California for starting/advancing Gay Marriage! Especially when the public voted it down .... twice!
(As a practicing LDS (Mormon) I also believe that when the gays surrounded/threatened the Los Angeles LDS Temple about four years ago was when God finally got fed-up!)
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