California drought: State Water Project will deliver no water this summer

For the first time in its 54-year history, the State Water Project, a backbone of California's water system, will provide no water to urban residents or farmers this year because of the severe drought, state officials said Friday. The State Water Project, approved by voters in 1960 and a key legacy of former Gov. Pat Brown, the governor's late father, is a massive system of 21 dams and 701 miles of pipes and canals that moves water from Northern California to the south. It essentially takes melting snow from the Sierra Nevada, captures it and transports it from Lake Oroville in Butte County through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta all the way to San Diego. In doing so, it provides drinking water for 23 million people from Silicon Valley to the Los Angeles basin and irrigates about 750,000 acres of farmland.

California drought: State Water Project will deliver no water this summer

Zero water for farms in calif.
Food prices in the west will double.
This in part is because the treehuggers have blocked new water projects in calif for the last 40 years

Well, California will remember why they had all those dams they've been blowing up so busily. Too bad it means that hamburger will be so expensive for the rest of us. I guess I'll just resign myself to eating pork, chicken, and fish for the duration.

Blaming Treehuggers for a historic drought, classic.

Let me tell you about some of those treehuggers and what they have achieved.

Blocking the Peripheral Canal. Without the efforts of those you are slamming, Northern California would be facing a huge financial boondoggle that in the rare event it should succeed, would give the Westmorelands Water District and Southern California all of the water from up North.

Many of the corporate farmers in that area have benefited from guaranteed water allotments (and low prices) that have traditionally exceeded their needs. If you think they make as much money from almonds as they do from selling the water back to California at a profit, you would be mistaken. These leeches have become billionaires from this scheme.

Wild and Scenic Rivers: Yup all those nice river canyons that people love to recreate at? They would all be reservoirs.
Do you like to go fishing? Well you can forget about that because without those awful Treehuggers there would be no salmon left in California. How about that nice park you like to take your family to by the river? Forget it they are all gone.

When I hear people blame Treehuggers for things like drought, it makes me crazy. Your average person on the street has no clue just how complicated water is in this State. Every single house, development or mall needs water. To date, I have to give it to the Water Managers of this State for doing a great freaking job managing a complex and constantly changing environment.

If anything blame the Treehuggers for California have any water...... Given the opportunity it would have all been bottled up and sold off by now. Something else the Treehuggers blocked...............

BTW I have a family member that was Deputy Director of CA Dept. of Water Resources for many years. He still works in water and is considered a guru on supply and demand issues. That is in part why I had to respond to your post. You are blaming Treehuggers when you should be blaming those that are not.

With the latest craze about atmospheric water generators there is absolutely no reason for water 'shortages'.

Hell even Fema has them now.

I can't help but look at the situation and wonder about the wisdom of building a metropolis and farming infrastructure in an area that has to be supported by an 1100 km water network to begin with.

All of the water is going to go to San Francisco and the surrounding areas. They own most of the water supplies.

Most of the farms will use aquifers to sustain the majority of the crops even if that means major downsizing. I live in central california where most of the reservoirs reside. The biggest concern is that california supplies a lot of food to the rest of the world.

Do you really think they are going to completely shut the tap off to the agricultural fields? No. There would be just too much at stake.

The water you are talking about is just supplemental but not required. It has happened before and will happen again. That's what we get for living in a desert lol.

ArchAngel_X
I can't help but look at the situation and wonder about the wisdom of building a metropolis and farming infrastructure in an area that has to be supported by an 1100 km water network to begin with.

Bet you the Treehuggers would not have done that.....

reply to post by Mamatus


Not blaming them, just pointing out that those dams were built for a reason. The vegetation in California is arid vegetation. The state has been receiving way more moisture than it has historically received. Before blasting away that water storage infrastructure, maybe they should have studied the climactic history of the region.

The area is prone to major and prolonged periods of drought. This is or should have been a known and planned for fact.

Just like the wildfires that are often in the region shouldn't come as a surprise. The arid vegetation on the region is evolved to propagate itself with fire of all things which should be a major clue.

So, no, the lack of dams didn't cause the drought. Natural climate cycles did that, but lack of forethought and planning did have something to do with the current lack of drought readiness.

reply to post by Mamatus


Unchecked immigration helps.

reply to post by ketsuko

You can have the largest cup in the world and it would still be empty. In reality the existing reservoirs in California were more than enough to store what the state needed for all but the very worst of droughts. This is an epic drought and it will hurt the farmers and consumers quite a bit. Sadly most of those farmers have never actually gotten their hands dirty. They have been getting rich selling us back our water.

I am willing to pay a bit more for veggies to deny these autocrats their precious "allotment". Besides, I don't like almonds anyway.

Water management and recylcing it is number 1. All reservoires in Ca, are co-owned by Ca citizens and they will need water, both in farms for food and in their backyards to keep it green. We had a forrest fire that was very bad threatening Penticton years back, and so they cut the outdoor watering. Well the smoke was one thing, but it was the dust particles in the air that activated my asthma for the first time and I nearly died. We definitely watered regularly because if your yard dries out, there will be deaths from respitory illnesses. And all politicians are your servants and minions, they stand under you, not the other way around, and they may not lawfully do anything that harms anyone. Also, any unlawful legislation which they're prone to sign alot lately, is criminal and no one needs to obey it. Just get a group lawyer, pass a hat with others and take the suckers to court and put them in their place, back of line where minions who serve the people belong.

2. Along the lines of the politicians, its time to also not elect anyone who lets the industrial military complex answer to no one and form the working line of the shadow government and to get HAARP under control and only used for good, ie to chill reactor puddles and to cancel radioactive frequency with reverse sine, neutralizing all the isotopes. A GOOD USE FOR HAARP.

Its up to people to not allow really corrupt bad guys in office and then if oops, he lied, take them to court over and over again and get them removed, and put in writing, we will not support this illegal scam of a government we are not paying taxes to you.

If a government refuses to leave after several months of due warning, I would get the people together to elect their own, and only send taxes to them, and get your own police going who can arrest the illegal ones.

I mean its time to do something.

I believe they are conducting weather wars.

But irregardless of that, and their control over water, its time to do really advanced recyling techniques, using green plants to purify the water, like some of the biologists and mavaricks have proposed in the past, and aquaponics which recycles water alot, very low water footprint compared to regular greenhousing. And insist that your politicians STAND UNDER YOU!

In addition, Ca, is an ocean state, humidity is amply available, and the water, albeit radioactive, is also amply available, so I would be using advanced purification and have a system that in little plants just off the shore, uses tide/wave and even the salt, ie as in salt batteries, to power the entire station, and purifies all the water and pipes in ample water to all, they can remove radiation as well.

Time to really bring out the good technologies.

While they're at it, send some low cost power to all the residents too.

reply to post by Unity_99

A Desalination Plant is in the works for San Diego and another being talked about near Monterey. While ocean water is plentiful, people are not going to like the price tag very much. It is widely available technology, just very expensive.

"It essentially takes melting snow from the Sierra Nevada, captures it and transports it from Lake Oroville in Butte County through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta all the way to San Diego."

They can't transport water that doesn't exist. All the water for this project comes from snow in the mountains, and there isn't any snow this year.

I can't seem to insert images right now so here's a link.

Satellite Images 2013/2014

reply to post by Mamatus


Desalination will help the coasts, but it's not going to help the Western interior very much. Vegas is going to be in a world of hurt, and Arizona and New Mexico are in trouble, too.

I've heard mutters that this is possibly a repeat of the drought conditions that drove the Anasazi out of business.

TerrorAlertRed
I can't seem to insert images right now so here's a link.

Satellite Images 2013/2014

Here are your images ( : Yes it is pretty shocking. 10 more giant reservoirs would not have helped as they have not completely filled every available reservoir in the state for quite some time.

TheLotLizard
It has happened before and will happen again.

How is that?

The OP begins with "For the first time in its 54-year history....." which makes it sound like this has NOT happened before. What am I missing?

reply to post by Arbitrageur

They are not speaking of how long since the last drought but for how long the Water resources has been an agency.

Here is a not fun fact.

California in 2013 received less rain than in any year since it became a state in 1850. And at least one Bay Area scientist says that based on tree ring data, the current rainfall season is on pace to be the driest since 1580 — more than 150 years before George Washington was born.

Scientists: Past California droughts have lasted 200 years

Mamatus
reply to post by Arbitrageur

 

They are not speaking of how long since the last drought but for how long the Water resources has been an agency.

Yes of course it's not the first drought, but that's not exactly the way I read it. Are you saying the last time this happened was more than 54 years ago before the agency existed? I still don't understand. Here is the full quote from the OP, to put it in better context:

ANNED

For the first time in its 54-year history, the State Water Project, a backbone of California's water system, will provide no water to urban residents or farmers this year because of the severe drought, state officials said Friday.

edit on 2-2-2014 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

According to the tree ring information, California hasn't seen a drought like this since 1560, when Queen Elizabeth I sat on the throne of England. If the Sierras don't see significant snowfall between now and May, California will indeed be in a world of hurt. However, this kind of thing has happened before, and more than made up for it, in the ensuing months. California usually receives most of its snowfall in March and April.