Posted on 04/06/2015 1:09:03 PM PDT by walford
Liberal policies turn a small problem into a statewide crisis.
My family and I are in Los Angeles this week for some meetings concerning a super-secret venture, which, dude . . . it's super-secret! (But it won't be for long.)
But one of the first things that became clear when we got here is that the state is in the midst of a water crisis - one so serious that Gov. Jerry (Moonbeam) Brown has imposed an unprecedented set of restrictions on the use of water. Friends we visited for Easter tell us the state isn't messing around. They send inspectors around and if they catch you watering your lawn when you're not supposed to be, they'll slap fines on you. Would that we inspected Iran's nuke facilities with as much zeal!
As the Wall Street Journal's Allysia Finley explains, the lack of rain is obviously the source of the problem. But liberal state policies that bow at the altar of environmental groups are not helping at all:
During normal years, the state should replenish reservoirs. However, environmental regulations require that about 4.4 million acre-feet of water—enough to sustain 4.4 million families and irrigate one million acres of farmland—be diverted to ecological purposes. Even in dry years, hundreds of thousands of acre feet of runoff are flushed into San Francisco Bay to protect fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
During the last two winters amid the drought, regulators let more than 2.6 million acre-feet out into the bay. The reason: California lacked storage capacity north of the delta, and environmental rules restrict water pumping to reservoirs south. After heavy rains doused northern California this February, the State Water Resources Control Board dissipated tens of thousands of more acre-feet. Every smelt matters.
Increased surface storage would give regulators more latitude to conserve water during heavy storm-flows and would have allowed the state to stockpile larger reserves during the 15 years that preceded the last drought. Yet no major water infrastructure project has been completed in California since the 1960s.
Money is not the obstacle. Since 2000 voters have approved five bonds authorizing $22 billion in spending for water improvements. Environmental projects have been the biggest winners. In 2008 the legislature established a “Strategic Growth Council” to steer some bond proceeds to affordable housing and “sustainable land use” (e.g., reduced carbon emissions and suburban sprawl).
Meantime, green groups won’t allow new storage regardless—and perhaps because—of the benefits. California’s Department of Water Resources calculates that the proposed Sites Reservoir, which has been in the planning stages since the 1980s, could provide enough additional water during droughts to sustain seven million Californians for a year. Given the regulatory climate, Gov. Brown’s bullet train will probably be built first.
Once beloved by greens, desalination has likewise become unfashionable. After six years of permitting and litigation, the company Poseidon this year will finally complete a $1 billion desalination facility that will augment San Diego County’s water supply by 7%. Most other desalination projects have been abandoned.
This is a classic case of what happens when politicians bow to every whim of environmental groups without really thinking through or understanding the implications of what they're doing. Not enough storage. No new desalination plants. Money for water improvement projects diverted to suit the greenies' agenda. The Sites Reservoir perpetually delayed. California Democrats know where their campaign cash comes from, and they dutifully obey the priorities of their benefactors. When you end up with a severe drought and you're poorly prepared as a result, all you can do is impose restrictions on everyone and maybe ask for money from Washington.
Remember that these are the same people Obama listens to in stonewalling approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Reality be damned. The environmental lobby hates it, so Obama won't approve it. Period. He'd fit right in here.
So much about politics is insane in California, and the inability to deal rationally with the drought is just the most obvious example of the moment. It's beautiful here! The palm trees are tall, the sunshine is warm and the mountains are spectactular. If you have to go on a business trip, you could pick a much worse place. But California's politicians work against so much that could be great here. So if you come, enjoy your stay, but you might want to bring your own water. The politicians and the greenies have made sure it won't be easy to get any here.
California Environmentalists are anti-immigrant.
Later
Oh, of course they will continue to encourage non-citizens to illegally go into California as the water shortage intensifies. Maybe this only sweetens it for the Left. Americans will leave due to the water shortage and the illegal aliens will replace them, making California into the Third World paradise that they are hoping for.
Desalination plants are the obvious answer. And they’d help with that “rising sea level” crap. So why do you oppose them, libs?
Funny how the world survived and thrived prior to the EPA and all the environmental restrictions in CA. They vote down the construction of new power plants because of their environmental impact and then get PO’ed when power must be rationed with rolling brownouts. Cake...eat it, too.
So, how are the golf courses doing?
She said, as we all know, this is a government created disaster. California has been suffering form drought since forever. (it's a frikking desert)
That because the radical leftists will not let them build any new infrastructure something like 70-80% of the run off and precipitation ends up flowing back into the ocean.
She also said the population of Calfornia has doubled in recent decades. Hmmm....But, even so, domestic use is something to the tune of 13% of all water used.
Greentards will kill us all, if we let them.
“Would that we inspected Iran’s nuke facilities with as much zeal!”
Amen to that.
That's not true! Shasta Dam and Oroville Dam are both north of the delta along with a number of smaller dams and reservoirs.
They can buy water from the French Alps.
The “severe drought” began shortly after Judge Vauhgn Walker struck down Prop 8— Coincidence?
Bttt.
bump
To be fair, more dams wouldn’t be much help this year.
Dams can’t collect water that doesn’t run off..
There is also a hard upper limit on how much water can be collected and distributed by water projects.
Unlike desal, which is unlimited given space and power.
Desalination doesn’t do anything about rising sea levels.
All the water taken out eventually winds up back in the ocean.
Just as it does with the natural analogue, evaporation followed by rainfall.
10% of California’s water goes to growing almonds! And California provides 80% of the world’s supply of almonds. Some think that the almond growers are paying too little for the water they are using.
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