(With expanded coverage of all the Western States)
by Patrick Ruckert
www.californiadroughtupdate.org/20221020-California-Water-and-Infrastructure-Report.pdf
A Note to Readers
The Western states drought and water crisis, as I discuss in my article, “Southwest Megadrought Threatens Human Survival; “Now” Generation Politicians Respond—What Crisis?” requires the ending of the system in which the central bank of the U.S., the Federal Reserve, must be abolished and replaced with a system of national banking, in order for the credit of the nation to be oriented once again to real economic investment in re-industrializing the nation, building needed infrastructure, financing an expanded space exploration policy, and developing fusion power. Such a policy change is not unique in our nation’s history.
Another generation faced a similar crisis to the nation’s existence as that we face today. That was the U.S. Civil War. We had a president then, Abraham Lincoln, who did exactly what was proposed in the above paragraph, with, of course, a different set of technologies. But he did create a “national banking system” to do so, and it was not controlled by the New York and London banks.
In Lincoln’s Second Annual Message to Congress on December 1, 1862, 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.”
The crisis we face today is also “new.” And we must “think anew, and act anew.”
I include a few more words from Lincoln’s address immediately below, along with a link to the full address.
Abraham Lincoln’s Annual Message to Congress — Concluding Remarks– An excerpt
Washington, D.C.
December 1, 1862
The full message can be found here: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/second-annual-message-9
“The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise — with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
“Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We — even we here — hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just — a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”
The rest of this week’s report:
The U.S. Drought Monitor maps begin the report. Some interesting changes in large areas of the country have moderated drought. Though the northwest states of Oregon and Washington continue to be in serious drought, with rivers and reservoirs, in especially central Oregon, at record low levels.
Then it is on to some reports on the California situation, with articles on the impact of the drought on food prices. And then we have something different, not quite shocking, but much different than what we usually expect from this political and water management bureaucracy: More funding for the large proposed Sites Reservoir has been made available by the Biden administration, and the California State Water Board actually approved the building of a desalination plant.
Now, the State Water Board seems to have lost its way. The Board has announced that its highest priority these days, is not to ensure agriculture in the state gets the water it needs, nor on helping to drive the state to begin building desalination plants, but, spending money, time and staff resources in an examination of how the Water Board itself has, and still is, a racist institution that deprives non-white residents of water. Read the article and ponder their own words.
On the Colorado River we have two articles on the impact the water delivery cuts will have on agriculture, and a report on the falling ability of the dams on the river to generated electricity.
The Feature this week is, as mentioned above, my published article, “Southwest Megadrought Threatens Human Survival; “Now” Generation Politicians Respond—What Crisis? ”
