(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20230406-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
A political revolution is underway in the nation now, as I am sure everyone here knows. The best coverage, I think, of the indictment of President Trump, what the charges are, and what it means, potentially, for the Presidential election next year is this article from my colleague at LaRouche PAC, Barbara Boyd: “The Trump Indictment Backlash Storm, One Day In.” I include the complete article in the Feature this week.
In the rest of this week’s report:
Drought in California continues to fade away, with just under one-quarter of the state in Moderate Drought. And less than one percent in Severe Drought.
Following the U.S. Drought Monitor map, we have an update on the status of the Sites Reservoir Project. Twenty years of “planning” and now another six years of construction beginning next year is a good illustration of the bankruptcy of the political class and the limited thinking of water managers, who are good at managing crises, but not solving them.
The snowpack and the rainfall this winter has either matched or exceeded records over the past 50 years. As I reported last week, since the 1862 mass flooding that put the Central Valley under up to 30 feet of water for months, accurate records date back to just the 1890s, and that is for just some of the major population centers.
The flooding continues and will get worse, if not much worse, as the snowpack begins to melt with the warmer weather.
The damage to agriculture is in the hundreds of millions of dollars and is expected to become much more as it is tallied and the Spring flooding to come will inflict further damage.
Even the largest lake west of the Mississippi River has returned. Tulare Lake, which over 100 years ago was drained to create one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world, has been restored by our winter storms.
While a decent snowpack and rain has given a small boost to the Colorado River reservoirs, the river and the water storage levels are still in crisis.
April 1 has come and gone, and the Bureau of Reclamation still has not announced how the cuts of two to four million acre feet are to be apportioned between the seven states. Contentious negotiations are still going on.
