(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20221103-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
Following the maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor, you will find in this report a couple brief reports on the weather (we got some rain and snow in California the last few days), and on the threat to the California dairy industry from both the drought and skyrocketing costs for their inputs, like hay for the animals.
The main report this week will be on the statement issued by the U.S. Interior Department and its agency, the Bureau of Reclamation. The statement appears to be the first step in finally following thorough on its threat issued in June that the feds will step in and impose its actions to reduce the withdraws from the Colorado River by between 2 and 4 million acre feet per year, beginning in January, 2023, if the seven states that receive its waters do not come to a sharing agreement on the cutbacks.
I include a just a few paragraphs from the statement by the Interior Department. Reading the bureaucratic verbiage in the statement, I am sure, will leave the reader asking, “what did it say and do.” Otherwise, I include brief excerpts from a number of articles that comment on the move by the federal government, which at least make some sense out of the bureaucratic gobbledygook.
The best of those articles is the one from Joanna Allhands in the Arizona Republic, and she asks, “Finally, the feds may force action to save the Colorado River. What if it comes too late?”
As Allhands makes clear, the Interior Department and the Bureau of Reclamation, having retreated from their June demand that the states have an agreement in place by January, 2023, puts the entire system of providing water to 40 million people and electricity to more than 5 million, at risk.
Two weeks ago in my report, I quoted from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress in December 1, 1862, in which he said to the nation’s leaders, and the American people, “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.” He faced in the Civil War an unprecedented crisis for the nation. He did what no President had ever done before. He broke all the rules, cut through the political bullshit and bureaucratic inertia and saved the nation. Well, unlike Lincoln, the political leaders of the nation, and the states, face an existential crisis on the Colorado River, and they are determined to not think and do anew.
The final news item this week is, “PG&E files for renewal of Diablo Canyon Power Plant licenses,” a necessary step to ensure California’s only nuclear power plant will continue to produce electricity in the years to come.
The Feature this week focuses on another “Climate Conference,” this one named “COP 27,” beginning November 6 to be held at the exclusive and luxury “green resort city” of Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. COP by the way, means Conference of the Parties, so this is the 27th UN sponsored conference of the nations who have agreed to be part of the “discussion” on what to do about climate change.
The article presented here, “Climate Change: the Zombie that would not die,” is by my colleague Robert Ingraham, and he holds back no punches in ridiculing and tearing apart the entire “man-caused global warming” cult. I am sure you will enjoy the article.
