California Drought (and Flood) Update for April 13, 2017

California Drought (and Flood) Update for April 13, 2017

http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org/pdf/20170413-California-Drought-(and-Flood)-Update.pdf

A Note To Readers

One week ago, as President Trump and President Xi of China began two days of meetings at Trump’s home in Florida. Accompanying both Presidents were almost the entire cabinets of both governments. What was on the table was potentially the greatest cooperation potential in history, bringing together the two largest economies in the world for a Win Win agreement of world infrastructure building. That China had offered its expertise and financing of President Trump’s trillion dollar policy had been widely reported for over two months.

And then, during dinner together Thursday evening, the missiles began to fly, as President Trump ordered the attack on Syria. That President Xi did not then walk out and go home was due to his understanding that the new U.S. administration was a work in progress and disruptive surprises were to be expected.

The President’s commitment to better relations with China and Russia, and his commitment to restore the Glass-Steagall banking law, remain still the areas of policy that will define whether he will or will not become, as Helga Zepp-LaRouche put it some weeks ago, “one of the greatest Presidents ever.”

There will be no repair of the California water management system should those traitors within his administration that led him to the attack on Syria remain in any authority. And should the American people not make their removable clear to the President, they will not be removed. That the British have made clear over the past few days that they are driving not only the attempt to remove or paralyze the President, but have been bragging about how they drove his administration into that attack on Syria, should make clear to us all that it was not Russia that interfered in the U.S. political process, but it was that power that we fought a revolution against.

That critical third area of the President’s policy– the restoration of the Glass-Steagall banking law– continues to make the news. With bills to do so in both houses of Congress now, and the President’s budget manager Gary Cohn supporting it, with a real push that crucial policy may quickly redefine all the debate on economic and financial policy.

As I have hoped to make clear in recent weeks, any talk of California’s water present or future entirely depends on developments well beyond the borders of the state. But, this report is about California water, so here is what is what we have this week.

First comes the obligatory Drought and Reservoir maps, followed by some reports on the winter’s snow pack and precipitation– both at or near record levels going back 125 years.

That is followed by the announcement by the Governor that the drought is officially over and the announcement by the Bureau of Reclamation that they will, for the first time since 2006, provide 100 percent of water requested by the Central Valley contractors, which they could have done earlier in the year. By not doing so they royally screwed some farmers who had to make planting decisions a month or more ago.

Then comes a short item on the Governor’s wet dream of getting $100 billion from the Trump administration to repair the state’s infrastructure.

That subsidence is a major problem in the state, especially in the Central Valley is well known. That the aquifers have been permanently damaged is not so well known. A NASA study provides some background to this problem.

Our Oroville Dam report this week includes reports on the repair plans and more on the secrecy the state has imposed on the damage reports.

A new section: This week’s Hysteria Award follows the Oroville Dam report.

Two out of area items round out this week’s report: One is on the collapse of farm income and the other is on how Ecuador, unlike its neighbors Peru and Columbia, did not suffer the extensive damage they did from recent floods. How? They had built the water management infrastructure required.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *