(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report-February-22%2C-2024.pdf
A Note to Readers
I call your attention to this week’s Feature by including the introduction to it here: It begins on page 12.
Feature: Return to the American System
In honor of Presidents’ Day this week, we present an article published in 2007 by LaRouche PAC. Henry C. Carey was one of the top economic advisors to Abraham Lincoln. And after the assassination of President Lincoln, Carey continued the fight for the American System. It is that American System that once again must be embraced by the United States. That is even more important for Americans to now understand, as the British are now invading the Trump campaign, attempting to impose on the new Trump administration, beginning in January next year, the same damn British System of free trade, rejected by both Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
Also, see the addendum to this report.
The Rest of This Week’s Report
FLASH: Moon landing: US lander successfully touches down in ‘giant leap forward for all of humanity.
The U.S. Drought Monitor for the Western States shows that despite more than a month of storms, the drought still has a hold on significant areas of the West.
Under my title, “The California Snowpack and Reservoirs,” you will find an update on the improved snowpack after the last two weeks of storms, and virtually all the reservoirs in California are now full.
Next, a brief history lesson demonstrating that while this winter’s storms are serious, they still have not done the damage the 1986 series of storms did to the state.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today announced an increase in the State Water Project (SWP) allocation forecast for 2024. The forecast allocation is now 15 percent of requested supplies. That is matched by the Bureau of Reclamation for the Central Valley contractors.
As the saying goes, “better late than never,” but not much better, yet. Had the Sites Reservoir been built years ago, when it was proposed, then more than 1.2 million acre feet of water would be stored there from last year’s and this year’s storms.
Similarly with desalination, and we remember well Governor Newsom’s Coastal Commission more than a year ago rejecting the building of a large plant in Huntington Beach.
Still in drought, the Colorado River Basin and the two major reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, while rising a little do to the recent storms are still at only about 34% of capacity. Once again, as last year, the remainder of the year will avoid major imposed rationing, still the future, as forecast by the Bureau of Reclamation, is one of a steadily declining flow of water into the reservoirs.
