California Drought Update
by Patrick Ruckert
July 2, 2015
http://www.californiadroughtupdate.org
https://www.facebook.com/CaliforniaDroughtUpdate
Preview
This report makes two important points: First, that the entire California Water Management System is now on the brink of coming apart as the Water Board attempts to juggle supplies from one emergency situation to another. The Board is attempting to juggle too many crisis points now, and a new ones are added each week. Second, the de facto refusal of water districts and farmers to submit to their own destruction by complying with the Water Board’s orders to cease pumping water has the effect of tying one of the hands of the juggler behind his back. What will the Board do? Most likely drop something, and watch the entire inter-related system erupt in chaos. Sort of like the truth of the bankruptcy of the entire Euro system has been made clear by the refusal of Greece to submit any longer to murderous austerity policies of the IMF.
“Agriculture: Fight or die”
That is the headline of a piece in the Stockton Record on June 29, by Andrew Watkins, President of the San Joaquin Farm Bureau. That is the choice for thousands of farmers this year. Watkins goes on to say,
To tell a grower to stop watering now is to say you must kill the food you were growing this year. You will then not use that trucking company to haul the food. The processor who helps get the product ready for the store gets nothing. The grocery store is forced to look elsewhere. And don’t forget the farmworkers who are not needed to harvest the now non-existent crop. At the same time this is the state’s message about food as the state continues to recklessly release water from our reservoirs during a drought year.
When the choice is fight or die, you fight.
Watkins commentary was in response to the State Water Resources Control Board’s order of June 12, to senior water rights holders to immediately cease and desist from withdrawing water from the streams and rivers they normally draw from. I have reported on this order and the law suits that followed over the last two weeks and will not repeat that here.
With that June 12 order was the warning from the Water Board that more announcements of curtailments were coming, which on June 26, they fulfilled. Here is an excerpt from the Board’s order:
With drought conditions continuing into the summer months, the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) extended curtailments on the Merced River for senior water rights dating back to 1858; and all pre-1914 and post-1914 appropriative rights on the Upper San Joaquin River.
The Upper San Joaquin River runs from upstream of Friant Dam to the confluence with the Merced River. Today’s announcement affects 16 water rights held by eleven owners.
A curtailment notice is also being sent to the City of San Francisco for four appropriative water rights on the Tuolumne River dating back to 1903, based on the notice sent on June 12. Those notices had omitted the San Francisco water rights because the city’s water right dates had been entered into the State Water Board’s database incorrectly.
Note, water rights that date back to 1858 are now being restricted, which has never been done before. The Desert Sun reported on June 26, that:
“The cuts announced Friday affect five water agencies that collectively serve more than 300,000 acres of farmland, as well as Pacific Gas & Electric, a handful of individual water users and Vulcan Materials Company, the nation’s largest provider of gravel and other construction material.”
There are too many balls in the air
As I reported last week, the Water Board and the Bureau of Reclamation had cut the release of water from Shasta Lake by 20 percent to save colder water for later this summer for salmon, forcing the release of more water from Folsom and Oroville reservoirs in order to ensure salinity levels in the Delta are not intolerable. Now Folsom lake will reach a critical level by September, threatening the water supply of as many as 200,000 people.
The juggling of water resources by the Water Board became more difficult as they added a new ball to those they already have in the air with the announcement on June 30, that to ensure that six Northern California water districts don’t run out of water, that, for the first time, the Delta-Mendota Canal will be reversed to transfer water north from the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County to the city of Tracy in San Joaquin County. “This is the proposal? Unbelievable,” said one water official. Construction of the canal was completed in 1951, and it has always, until now, shipped water to farmers from north to south.
Here are some excerpts from a report on June 30, from KXTV:
“Nine giant pumps are being installed in three locations to lift canal water a total of 18 feet along a 62-mile stretch from the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County to the city of Tracy in San Joaquin County.
“We’re making it flow in the opposite direction,” said Bob Martin, engineering director for the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority, which operates the canal under an agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
“The Del Puerto Water District, the West Stanislaus Irrigation District, the Patterson Irrigation District, the Banta-Carbona Irrigation District, the Byron Bethany Irrigation District and the city of Tracy together had banked 80,000 acre feet of water in the San Luis Reservoir to get them through the summer.
“Typically, they would pull water from the Delta-Mendota Canal closer to the Delta and exchange it for the water stored in the reservoir farther south.
“Last month, they were notified there wouldn’t be enough water in the canal this summer for them to trade.
“The pump installation is expected to cost up to $700,000 with the water districts paying nearly a half-million dollars per month just for fuel to run generators that power the pumps.
“Although the project is expensive, Martin said there was no alternative.
“The situation is so dire that if our districts don’t get this water, they lose their orchards,” Martin said.”
Martin is referring to the fact that these farmers already have $1.3 billion worth of crops in the ground.
While most of the juggling is taking place in northern California, the southern part of the state is not far behind, as seen in the report below on the new threat to the Los Angeles water supply from the falling level of Mono Lake.
It is this juggling game that should clarify the hysteria of the Water Board in response to the resistance of farmers and water districts to their orders. At least four lawsuits by districts are now in the courts, and as many as two-thirds of those ordered to cease taking water have not complied. As reported last week the State Attorney General in her statement to the court in one case shocked everyone by stating that the Water Board has no legal authority to order the restrictions, nor to enforce fines and penalties. But, then then the attorney for the Water Board stated that yes, the notices to stop diverting water were ‘informative’ and don’t carry fines, but that the state would respond to unauthorized water draws with penalties, using its power to protect diminishing water supplies.
The punch line is simple: If the farmers and the water districts will not submit to the orders of the Water Board, then the entire juggling act will come apart, and all the balls will be dropped. All the transfers, cut-offs and emergency measures will not prevent a disaster erupting somewhere in or throughout the system. As I headlined it last week: “Something Is About To Break!”
This is echoed by others. As reported by E&E Publishing on June 25, under the title, “Calif.’s quirky water rights system is showing its age,” referring to the response of one water manager to the cutback of releases from Shasta Lake, which will reduce water deliveries by as much as 250,000 acre-feet:
“‘I’ve been in this region my entire life. I’ve never seen anything like this before,'” said Rick Gilmore, general manager of the Byron Bethany Irrigation District, which supplies farms and suburban water users in the San Francisco Bay area. “‘I believe the state of California’s heading toward a catastrophic disaster, which could change California forever.'”
“If Tehama-Colusa isn’t able to buy the water it had counted on, farmers will have to tear up grapevines, almonds, olives, pistachios and walnut trees — permanent crops that need watering each year in order to stay alive. General manager Jeff Sutton estimates farmers will lose $500 million to $1 billion in crops, in addition to the $30 million worth of transfer water.”
And as reported by the Association of California Water Agencies on June 24,
“Bill Diedrich, a member of the San Luis Water District Board of Directors, said the cut in flows could ruin currently planted crops.
“‘The whole house of cards comes down if we can’t finish our crops,’” said Deitrich. He added that if the flows are stopped this summer the water that would have been delivered should be replaced from August to November.”
Damage Report
All water users will be paying more for less. The East Bay Municipal Utility District announced that beginning July 1, all customers will see a drought surcharge of up to 25 percent on their bill. In addition, those who do not conserve enough will be warned and then face enforced water restrictions and cutoff.
In the last three weeks 105 well failures occurred in Tulare County alone. State officials report that 1,908 well failures thus far in the whole state affect about 9,500 people, with more failures being reported each week. Seventy percent of the failures are in Tulare County.
While all sectors of agriculture are suffering, the dairy industry is probably taking the biggest hit. California supplies 20 percent of the nation’s dairy products. With milk prices low and costs high, more and more dairy farmers are either going out of business or are relocating to other states. The costs to dairymen has especially been increased by the loss of locally grown silage, hay and pasture, which raises feed costs as they rely more on imports from other states.
As mentioned above, further cuts to the water supply of Los Angeles from the low level of Mono Lake may be just around the corner. Southern California normally receives from the State Water Project enough water into the Los Angeles area to be able to fill the Rose Bowl every hour and one-half. But, this year it will receive only 20 percent of that amount. And one-third of Los Angeles’ water comes from the beautiful Los Angeles Aqueduct which takes water from Mono Lake and Owens Lake in the eastern Sierras. With those two sources cut, Los Angeles and southern California generally has only groundwater and the Colorado River left to supply the water needs of 25 million people.
The Los Angeles Times reported on June 24, under the title, “Mono Lake’s ecological crisis is a blow to wildlife, L.A. Water supply,” that:
“In recent months, the Department of Water and Power has reduced its take from Mono’s tributaries by more than two-thirds. Still, the 1-million-year-old lake is within two feet of the level that state officials say threatens the alpine ecosystem at the base of the eastern Sierra Nevada.
“In April, the DWP reduced its annual water exports from 16,000 acre-feet to 4,500 acre-feet, when gauges recorded the surface level at 6,379 feet in elevation. An acre-foot of water is enough to supply two households for a year.
“In a separate effort to conserve meager eastern Sierra snow runoff, the DWP dammed the Los Angeles Aqueduct this year. That closure will remain in place until November so the DWP can fulfill obligations such as dust mitigation on Owens Lake, which dried up after the city water agency opened the aqueduct in 1913.
“Usually, the aqueduct supplies Los Angeles with a third of its water.”
Wildfires are breaking out all over the West, with California already recording more than 1,000 more fires so far this year than on average. Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada all have fires burning now. Especially for the northwest states and Alaska, fires this early in the summer are highly unusual. One fire official is quoted saying that this fire year could be “catastrophic.”
The fires are, of course, related to the drought and the unprecedented heat wave that has seen temperature records fall by the dozens. The Los Angeles Times reported on June 1, that the last four years have been the driest such period in downtown Los Angeles in almost 140 years. Temperatures in the 100s are being recorded throughout California’s Central Valley and in eastern Washington and Oregon. Weather forecasters report that has been produced from a dome of high pressure surging northwestward to encompass a large area of the western states. Drought conditions, meanwhile, continue to intensify in both Oregon and Washington.
When not ignoring the law the Water Board plays with numbers
On July 1, the Water Board proudly announced that state water use for May was 29 percent below that of May, 2013 (the comparative year for measuring compliance with Governor Brown’s Executive Order mandating a 25 percent cut in water use). As noted by Families Protecting the Valley, the boast is really very empty, as the 29 percent reduction is just for urban areas, which only use 10 percent of the state’s water. Families reminds us that by trumpeting this “accomplishment” the Water Board is conveniently ignoring the 50 percent plus of the state’s water that is reserved for “environmental purposes,” and that there have been no cuts there.
And the reservoirs
From a report by the University of California, found here: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/8m26d692 , “Storage in California’s Reservoirs and Snowpack in this Time of Drought,” this is excerpted from the summary:
“Thus, while the State’s reservoirs overall are unlikely to empty completely in this continuing drought year, reservoir storage may decline to levels that have not been witnessed in the past 45 years, and the major reservoirs will empty far more thoroughly than other reservoirs, in aggregate, if history is our guide.”
Depopulation proponents keep rearing their ugly heads
Taking their cue from the incessant and pervasive propaganda promoting depopulation as the solution for every problem facing humanity, and Governor Brownshirts repeated statements that the people of this state have violated the natural ability of the state to support them, others have, wittingly or not, joined the cause.
On June 27, the Sacramento Bee, in an article titled, “California drought resurrects old population growth concerns,” among other items they report on, is this:
“Earlier this month, with his East Bay community facing the prospect of losing its only source of water, Edwin Pattison appeared before residents at a town hall meeting and lamented the strain of California’s growing population on dwindling water supplies.
“‘When you increase a population significantly,’” said Pattison, general manager of the Mountain House Community Services District, “’you reach a point of what’s called ‘demand hardening,’ and you cannot conserve your way out of a situation where there’s just too many people and overcommitment of demand across the spectrum.’”
As for Jerry Brown, the article states:
“Brown, who governed California before from 1975 to 1983, has expressed concern about growth’s impact, saying in Los Angeles that ‘we run up against certain limits.’
“However, Brown said, ‘We can accommodate more people. I believe we can certainly take another 10 million, but we have to do it in a different way.’
“He said Californians must ‘find a more elegant way of relating to material things, and you have to use them with great sensitivity and sophistication.’”
Exactly what Brown means by “a more elegant way,” I’m sure, would be of interest to the people of East Porterville, who have been without running water for more than a year. Perhaps he is suggesting that they dress up in their Sunday best to go to the church parking lot to take their showers?
Expressing a more real view of the world, the article quotes one demographer to good effect:
“The state Department of Finance projects California will grow from about 39 million people now to more than 51 million by 2060.
“But concern about growth runs counter to demographers’ greater worry: Not that California is growing too fast, but that its population is growing too slowly.
“‘It’s totally the wrong question,’” said Dowell Myers, a University of Southern California demography professor. ‘Without immigrants, California would be dead as a doornail. We don’t have enough children right now as it is to replace the workforce and the tax base … when Californians retire.’”
June 30, 2015
In an unprecedented debasing of the Presidency, Barack Obama lowered himself to the level of TV presenter for the British Empire, interviewing Sir David Attenborough in the White House for BBC’s June 28 hour-long program on “BBC America.” His lavish praises of the genocidalist (“I grew up on your films,” “We’re honored to have you here,” etc.) were exceeded during the program only by the BBC narrator’s own exaltation of the “great man,” Attenborough.
Embellished by the most expensive, “feel-good” videos of exotic animals, fish and corals, Obama unveiled a new, right-side-floor teleprompter for his questions. He offered insightful comment, such as, “We’re not doing a very good job of dealing with climate change,” and “Climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it.” He said his two teenaged daughters “don’t have any doubts about the science of climate change”—that presumably was supposed to settle the matter. Attenborough enthused that, “young people understand that our species has no right to destroy and despoil the Earth,” and cited Kenya (pop. density: 26/sq. km compared to U.K.: 116/sq. km) as exemplary that “population growth is one of our huge problems.”
Here is the man whom the debased impostor president was interviewing so gushingly. Attenborough gave the keynote speech at the Royal Society for Music and Art conference, in March 2011, presided over personally by Prince Philip, for whom Attenborough is a senior adviser:
“It remains an obvious and brutal fact that on a finite planet, human population will quite definitely stop at some point. And that can only happen in one of two ways. It can happen sooner, by fewer human births — in a word, by contraception…. The alternative is an increased death rate, the way which all other creatures must suffer, through famine or disease or predation. That translated into human terms means famine or disease or war over oil or water or food or minerals or grazing rights or just living space. There is, alas, no third alternative of indefinite growth….
“We now realize that the disasters that continue increasingly to afflict the natural world have one element that connects them all — the unprecedented increase in the number of human beings on this planet, as Malthus warned. But no one proposes the necessary measures to curb human population, which makes every problem worse….
“There are over 100 countries whose combinations of numbers and affluence have already pushed them past the sustainable level…. It is tragic that the only current population policies in developed countries are, perversely, attempting to increase their birth rate, in order to look after the growing number of old people. The notion of ever more old people needing ever more young people, who will in turn grow old and need even more young people, and so on, ad infinitum, is an obvious ecological Ponzi scheme….”
What then, when the “BBC America” narrator purred, “He and President Obama agree that population growth is one of the major issues in today’s world.”
