Drought monitoring
????????? What’s this???
US Drought Monitor reports:
The NYT reports 20% cuts for water users.
Acting in one of the worst droughts in California’s history, state officials announced on Friday that they would cut off the water that it provides to local agencies serving 25 million residents and about 750,000 acres of farmland.
With no end in sight for the dry spell and reservoirs at historic lows, Mark Cowin, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said his agency needed to preserve what little water remained so it could be used “as wisely as possible.”
It is the first time in the 54-year history of theState Water Project that water allocations to all of the public water agencies it serves have been cut to zero.
Weather.com provides some graphic, interactive photos of lake and groundwater changes:
California’s reservoirs are severely depleted due to the ongoing widespread drought conditions in the state. As of Jan. 21, 2014, 67 percent of California was in extreme drought, the second worst category possible on the U.S. Drought Monitor.
According to the California Department of Water Resources, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville are only 36 percent of capacity. Folsom Lake is just 17 percent capacity.
Given all the extensive underground (I believe) petroleum products pipelines running all over the county — would it be impracticably expensive to build water pipelines from, say, the Great Lakes to the West Coast. Look at the big new pipeline everyone’s making such a fuss over routing it through or around an qualifier (sounds like they are going to make billions — a short diversion shouldn’t be too much of a burden).
There are 50 million people living in our three most western states and that number is only going up.
Not sure how diverting (how much?) water to the Pacific might affect the Atlantic flow (the Gulf Stream?) that keeps New York and London from freezing year ’round.
Just a crazy thought — no idea if at all practical.
Why are they not discussing alternative sources? Water from the N. West, desalinization, etc. are viable, but not inexpensive alternatives. Reminds me of the “peak/cheap oil” arguments.
Denis, that seems like an excellent idea. However, I don’t know what it would cost to build and maintain interstate water pipelines (I suspect, tens of billions of dollars), how much water can be moved (if it would add a significant percentage), and water has a low price, unlike oil and natural gas. Nonetheless, it may be necessary with population growth in the West.
Peak Trader,
Wonder how the costs would compare to California’s high speed rail pipe dream — a sick pipe dream according to this Wired Magazine article: Too Often, The ‘Trouble’ With High-Speed Rail Is Misinformation, By Chuck Squatriglia, 04.12.10
Hi guys.
Carrying water over watersheds is quite expensive and at what quantities needed….how does that compare to Keystone in quantity since agricultural water is part of the need, not simply potable water?
Who owns the water in the Great Lakes (the GL compact?) How do we separate Canad’a water from US water? Would it be emminent domain by the Feds?? If the states own the water why would’t it be sold at a much more expensive price…who funds the pipeline? If privatized, then what would be the price the market might bear?? Why shouldm’t the GL compact make the most of a scarce resource?
What is the impact of lowering water levels in the GL on trade and shipping, and the costs of new harbours? Lake Michigan is about 29 inches below average although the mythical polar vortex might help with evaporation (a key component of water loss).
Corev…I don’t think the drought monitor or weather.com could fit that in a short article….who is they in the comment?
Quote: The offices of the world’s first water-focused hedge fund overlook a parking lot in a subdivided landscape developers call the Golden Triangle. The neighborhood gets its water from the Alvarado Water Treatment Plant, run by San Diego’s Public Utilities Department, which gets its water from the San Diego County Water Authority, which gets its water from the larger Los Angeles–dominated Metropolitan Water District, which gets much of its water—in greater proportions during California’s droughts—from the 242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct, which gets its water from a reservoir straddling the Arizona border, Lake Havasu, which gets its water from the 1,400-mile Colorado River, which gets its dwindling water from thousands of streams, snowfields, lakes, and springs in a drainage basin covering nearly 250,000 square miles across seven western states. Without imported water, the 2.7-million-person San Diego metropolis, like much of Southern California, would be no more capable of supporting people than the coastal desert it once was. During my visit, at the height of a hot summer in 2010, I got my water one morning from a secretary, who handed me a tiny plastic bottle—Poland Spring, was it?—from the fridge.
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In the eastern United States, Dickerson explained, water could not be stripped from the land and sold as a separate commodity. The courts there followed English common law. “If you have 10 hectares of land, you get x liters from the Thames,” he said. “If you have 100 hectares, you get 10 times x from the Thames.”
In the west The Homestead Acts …..essentially using up all the water before it reached the others, since none of them owned the land. The law became essentially first come, first served. So long as the water was put to “beneficial use,” not hoarded, the oldest rights were the most valuable—and they could be freely traded.
Lots of GL readers…any opinions??
They are the often (not perpetually) dry states. I don’t understand the need for a short article when the issue is complex.
I await a post or two from you, CoRev. I meant no snark…I have put up
fortyover seventy or so posts on water since 2007.“Who owns the water in the Great Lakes (the GL compact?) How do we separate Canada’s water from US water?” 🙁 We have the Maxim gun and they have not.
Seriously, these are all serious question that would have to be answered to process using the GL to water our West — but nothing uncrossable. The only real barriers are whether or not it could (???) be done (relatively) economically and it whether, or how much, it might harmfully alter nature.
Look; both polls are melting while the drought never ends — the water must be going somewhere, right? Right?
Wow Dennis…apocryphal right away!
since much of the water in California is used for irrigation, it would probably be cheaper to build greenhouses in Illinois to grow your lettuce and strawberries there than to build a large enough pipeline and enough generating capacity to pump water over both the Rockies and Sierra Mountains to water the alfalfa in the San Joaquin Valley…
at any rate the need for water in California is right now; crops and livestock are dying now; they can hardly wait for a pipeline to be built…
As a native of San Diego County, might I dare say, those 25 million could move back to New York or West Virginia and get a drink of water.
Here’s the solution to the West’s water as well as school, infrastructure, healthcare and job shortages:
Let’s give amnesty to twelve million illegals and thus attract another twelve million or so awaiting the next amnesty as they give birth to large numbers of children here.
What could go wrong with that? It’s only fair.
I’d like to see an extension of this article, superposing a graphic of agricultural production and the map of drought conditions.
Mike Meyer, your comment could be construed as “send ’em back where they came from,” but in truth there may be wisdom there. The population booms in the southwest are in part responsible for the water wars there. What incentives might be useful, usable, fair and effective in inducing a shift in population back to the zones where water is more available?
SciFi stories involving water battles between Great Lakes regions and arid regions have become more common in the past 10 years of so. The Lakes are a finite resource also, and there are international concerns.
There will be a solution. But it may include a drastic reduction in population.
Punchnrun, 11.3% of our food production comes from california, most from the central valleys, which is where the drought is most severe…some of these pictures should give you an idea what crops are grown and where…
https://www.google.com/search?q=agricultural+regions+of+california&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=LATwUpGVC8SMyAG6qoGIAQ&ved=0CDQQsAQ&biw=1536&bih=712
you can also click the drought picture provided by dan above for a better view of that..
Dan, why the apparent attitude? Unless I misread your comment: “I await a post or two from you, CoRev. I meant no snark…” I also meant no snark. I also realize you have: “I have put up forty over seventy or so posts on water since 2007.”
Water is one of your passions, and you already know mine, for which you banned me for writing articles.
Punchnrun: THIRST would be a viable incentive. Overpopulation ALWAYS was the problem, its a desert not a rain forest to be cut down for yet another housing development. That water would find best use in that 11.3% agriculture need.