For February 3, 2022
by Patick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20220203-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf?_t=1644087955
A Note to Readers
Welcome back to the drought. At least that is the message almost uniformly being given by media coverage, the water managers, and climate people.
The U.S. Drought Monitor, which during December and January showed a dramatic declining drought intensity, now has frozen in place. Still, Extreme drought covers only 1% of the state, while Exceptional drought is at zero. Severe drought is in effect for 66% of the state.
The forecast for the first two weeks of February is no precipitation expected anywhere in the state. Should that prove to be so, then with the dry January we will have gone half the winter with no rain or snow. And it is not just seriously dry. Entire areas of the state recorded record dryness for the month of January. And Reno, NV, for the first time in 130 years of weather monitoring, saw zero precipitation for the month.
The snow pack at the end of December was at over 160% of average for that date, but now, as of this week, statewide is at only 92% of average for February 1. Further, if the weather remains warm that snowpack will rapidly diminish even more.
The report begins with the U.S. Drought Monitor and then a series of articles on the above topics.
A new development in the fight to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open is this poor excuse argument that it helps fight climate change: “Keep Diablo Canyon open, 79 scientists, academics and entrepreneurs tell Newsom.”
The multiple convicted felon, PG&E and its accomplice, the state of California, has announced that it will allow the company to bill customers for the wildfires its equipment has been found to have started.
Next is this article: “Fight Over Controversial Huntington Beach Desal Project Enters Final Lap in March.”
Following that is the Feature for this week. A reprint of the article I wrote in 2015, which is the history of President Kennedy’s policy of building nuclear-power-desalination plants, first in California, Texas and Florida. The fight for that policy continued into the early 1970s, when derailed by the Vietnam War, the shift of the economy to financial speculation and the rise of environmentalism. Even the first steps to implement the policy with a signed contract for building the first facility in 1964 between the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Atomic Energy Commission, died with that shift.
I include only part I in this report, but a link to the entire series is provided.
