by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20220721-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
The map above is the best illustration of the long-term project to create a North American water management system. The North American Water and Power Alliance put forth in the early 1960s by the Parsons Engineering company of Pasadena, CA, and adopted by members of Congress as the project that can match on Earth the Apollo Project of that decade to put a man on the Moon, died in the fallout of the shift from a production and building economy to what we have today– a gambling casino economy. It is time to revive this project today.
The section of this week’s report on page 2, “Nuclear NAWAPA XXI, Desalination, and The New Economy,” excepts a chapter of that report, focused on desalination.
Later in the report is an article on the current status of desalination in California.
Also in this week’s report:
The drought remains the dominant characteristic of life in the almost all the states west of the Mississippi River, as the maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor illustrate. Though the intensity of drought has slightly increased in certain states, a little rain has provided some alleviation to some states.
For California, as headlined in one article, the drought is becoming a catastrophe. More than 800,000 acres of agricultural land has already been fallowed in the state, and new restrictions by the state water board are being announced weekly.
It is not just agriculture that is suffering, but, to quote from the article, “Groundwater levels are dropping and domestic wells throughout the San Joaquin Valley are going dry as California’s third year of drought grinds on.”
There is also a “new policy brief from the Public Policy Institute of California (that) is recommending cost-effective water storage investments as the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is seeing less inflow.
It also offers a damning picture of the thirty-year shift in how the Golden State divvied up water, largely pitting fish species against millions of its residents.”
On the Colorado River, following a “Much Ado About Nothing” press coverage of a minor explosion at Hoover Dam yesterday, it is back to business as usual of dealing with the potential disaster of Lake Mead and Lake Powell rapidly declining water levels.
We have previously reported on the edict by the Bureau of Reclamation that the seven states that share the river’s water must present a plan by August 15 on how they will cut between two and four million acre feet beginning in January next year of the water they withdraw from the river. Whether that will be done or not, the Bureau of Reclamation is prepared to step in and enforce that edict.
The last item this week is:”Calif.’s last nuclear plant faces closure. Can it survive?” This is a fairly comprehensive picture of all the aspects of the fight to keep Diablo Canyon open.
