Posted on 03/13/2015 11:09:46 AM PDT by blam
Tyler Durden
03/13/2015
Authored by NASA Senior Water Scientist Jay Famiglietti, originally posted Op-Ed at The LA Times.
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.
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(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Human population has little to do with it. California's almond trees alone use five times more water (1.1 trillion gallons) than the entire DWP delivers to Los Angeles residents in a year (200 billion gallons).
AMAZING!!!! They mean to tell us the most progressive state with the most restrictive EPA regulations, with the best and brightest people from the left are telling us California only has one year of water left?
Please allow me, a stupid conservative with only limited intelligence retort.
If you decided to build desalination plants five years ago, instead of trying to put in an interstate railway system right through earthquake country, you might not have had this problem.
But then again, you couldn’t afford it anyway since the majority of your taxes fund illegal aliens college and social issues.
Well, there you go. Problem solved. There'll be nothing to worry about once they get their "task force of thought leaders" on the case.
Let the panic begin!
“Global Waaaaaaarming! Wooooooooooo! Worship Gaia or die a heretic! Government is the ONLY answer!”
And that pretty much is a synopsis of what the NASA weenie is saying.
But.. but.. that would destroy mother Gaia!
/ end whiny enviro response.
You just KNOW they would never allow that to be used.
Goes into operation later this year.
Buy almonds now?
And how much water has been wasted by a bunch of elitist a$$holes who INSIST on living in a f—king DESERT, and who INSIST on forcing others to supply them with water?
““The pipe can go right next to the power lines and we can run the pumps with the wind power.””
I have been saying this for the last several years with regards to the Missouri River sending its flood waters down to Texas.
The big problem, as I see it, is if California runs out of water, there will be a diaspora of Californicators that will destroy every other state they land in... Best to give them money, lots of it, to build desalination plants to keep them happy there.
...or maybe plant some almond trees OUTSIDE the desert.
A lot of the water drama in California is propaganda that’s being used to support Jerry Brown’s massive water tunnel project.
If California ever put desalination plants on line (which will never happen) the water would be pumped in to the San Joaquin river for the Delta Smelt. But don’t worry. Malibu will always have green lawns.
And what better way to combat those “rising oceans” than to turn it into drinking water, bathing water, garden water, etc.?
That’s not just California. More and more this also includes Colorado, Utah, Nevada, and Arizona.
I told the wife when we left CA, I never wanted to live in a place that did not have a good water supply.
Look at all those RO cartridges.
The O&M costs on that plant are going to be otherworldly.
Like a virus shattering a cell, they will spread out and infect other states.
Oregon and Washington have fallen. Nevada in view!
Colorado has been Californicated.
Now they are moving on New Mexico and their eyes are on the next prize, TEXAS.
Not nearly as much as goes to farmers who insist on growing crops in a desert and forcing others to supply them with water. 80% of California's water goes to agriculture so that people in other states can have fresh produce all winter.
BFL
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