by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20220317-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf?_t=1647573935
A Note to Readers
The drought is spreading to more areas of the country and intensifying. Following the U.S. Drought Monitor, below, articles highlighting this geographic extension of drought follow. From the Pacific Northwest to the wheat growing areas of the mid-west, the need for great water infrastructure projects like the North American Water and Power Alliance(NAWAPA) and an Apollo-like policy for building nuclear-powered desalination projects, could not be more urgent.
See the Feature in last week’s report for full background and links to NAWAPA: California Water and Infrastructure Report For March 10, 2022
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20220310-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf?_t=1647107022
Extensive coverage of California follows. The state is now in the third year of drought, and it is nearly as intense as the fifth year of drought of the last decade. Articles discussing that the state may be in a “permanent drought” are now appearing, along with similar articles claiming that the entire West may be entering the same. Note that the category of “Extreme Drought” in California expanded from 13% of the state to 35% in one week.
Water restrictions are being expanded, especially hitting the agricultural sector, which, as reported previously, include zero allocation from both the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project. The Russian River, which after the December storms relaxed the restrictions, is now about to reinstate them. Gov. Newsom’s call last year for voluntary conservation by reducing consumption by 15%, just took a blow with last month’s report showing Californians actually increased water consumption.
The Westlands Water District, the largest producer of agricultural products in the state, warns of the loss of thousands of farm jobs and tens of thousands of agricultural acreage being fallowed this year.
The snowpack remains at 63% of average for this date, or even somewhat worse than that. At Tahoe, the desperation has the local newspaper heralding the potential of a few inches of snow forecast to fall later this week. That is an area that received about 18 feet of snow in two days in December.
Finally, two articles highlight the insanity of California’s energy policy. One of them begins with this headline: “California’s Climate Fight May Send Its Power Demand Soaring 90%.” And the first sentence reads, “Increasing use of electric vehicles and appliances would add load to strained grid.”
The headline of the second article is also self-explanatory: “California’s green energy mania threatens grid reliability.”
