www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20210805-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf?_t=1628268644
This week’s report is a portrait of a disaster. The megadrought in the West has unleashed the dogs of Hell on the people of California. The disaster does not stop at the state’s borders, but encompasses the entirety of all the Western states, but this report will focus on California, and the unprecedented consequences of governments over the past 40 years failing to build upon the largest and most complex water management system in the world, which California had by the early 1970s.
We begin with the drought. The U.S. Drought Monitor for California, for the second week in a row, shows almost half of the state is in the most serious drought category– “Exceptional Drought.” Much of the west also records a similar statistic.
Climatologists, weather forecasters and water researchers are now calling this megadrought the worst in 1200 years. And for the two-plus centuries of our nation’s existence, the drought is labeled “unprecedented.”
Also unprecedented is the action of the California state government and it’s State Water Resources Control Board in cutting off more than 10,000 farmers from withdrawing water from the San Francisco Bay Delta, the rivers feeding into the Delta and the Russian River, just over the past two weeks. This is in addition to both the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project shutting down by 100% all deliveries of water two months ago. That has affected thousands more farmers and completely cut-off the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California from its annual allocation of 3 million acre feet of water.
The State Water Resources Control Board acted two days ago to completely shut down water to the farmers in the San Francisco Bay Delta, something that has never been done previously. More than 7,500 farmers there are being completely cut-off in the middle of crop growing season.
Already, it is estimated, that more than 500,000 acres of the best farm land in the world has been fallowed this year, and thousands of farmers are reporting that the crops they do harvest will be a fraction of even last year’s crops.
The farm organizations are calling “foul” over the actions of the state and will most likely seek court action to stop the cutoffs.
Of course, all these drastic actions would have been completely unnecessary had California– in partnership with the federal government– built water infrastructure during the past 40 years, but has built nothing. Following the completion of the Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project, infrastructure building here, and pretty much nationwide, was halted as the economy was turned into a Wall Street gambling casino. What was perfectly adequate then, for the 20 million living in the state, has, for 25 years now, made it impossible to provide water to the 40 million here now.
The number of wells going dry is now in the hundreds, and it may become thousands, as desperate farmers increase their pumping of ground water for their crops. Not just individual wells, but entire small towns have lost their only supply of water. Emergency water deliveries and the installing of water tanks by the hundreds by the state and local governments are being undertaken to address the emergency.
In California, and especially just north of the California border, in Oregon’s Klamath Basin, thousands of farmers and ranchers have been completely cut-off of all irrigation water as the Klamath River and Klamath Lake have hit record low levels.
Meanwhile, Lake Mead behind the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River is reaching new record low levels almost daily. Not only will an emergency be soon declared, and starting with Arizona, water deliveries to the states dependent on the river will be cut beginning next year. In addition, already electricity production from the dam has been cut by 20%. Forty million people in the southwest states depend upon the Colorado river for water and electricity.
Electricity production in California, already crippled by the Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom governorships over the past decade’s insane attempt to shut down all fossil fuel produced electricity and to rely upon intermittent sources, like solar and wind, has given the residents of the state the highest electricity prices in the nation, and has made the state vulnerable to interruptions of power. Already this summer, warnings have been issued calling on businesses and residents to cut back usage. The system operator of the state’s power supply has warned that the state may be 3,500 megawatts short this summer and as much as 5,000 megawatts short next summer. With that, of course, Governor Newsom is also facilitating the shut down of the state’s only operating nuclear power plant, which will cut another 2,500 megawatts out of an already critically short production capacity.
Hydropower, too, has declining power production due to low water levels in all reservoirs, and just today the power generated by Oroville Dam was completely shutdown as the water level in Lake Oroville fell below the necessary level to maintain production.
The final section of this report is on the wildfires sweeping the state and the entire West. The fires this year are unprecedented, in the numbers, the acres burned and intensity. As of July 30, more than 5,700 fires have erupted in California. Over half a million acres have already burned in the state. Last year at this time it was 130,000 acres burned, while as of today it is 504,000 acres. Last year was the worst fire year on record with 4.3 million acres burned. This year it may be worse. Yesterday, Greenville, a town of 1,100 people, burned to the ground as the Dixie fire, still out of control, grew to over 280,000 acres, making it the eighth largest fire in California fire history.
