Water wars on "60 Minutes"

Above, a Central Valley vineyard from Aquafornia on Flickr. In the background, pumps at Chrisman Wind Gap send 2.1 million gallons a minute of NoCal water to pumping plants in the Tehachapi range. On the other side of the Tehachapis the water flows to Los Angeles, Antelope Valley and Lake Perris. [Some SoCal regions use local water, and famously well-managed water at that. Ha ha! She said "well"!] Check out Aquafornia's slide show — following the water from the Delta to locations in SoCal — here.

As if Sean "plump as a manatee" Hannity [don't miss Jon Stewart's slapdown] weren't tribulation enough for California's Central Valley, along comes 60 Minutes with “Running Dry.” 130,000 dead almond trees, OMG! How much more can the Central Valley take? Let's ask someone who actually, you know, does research:

[T]he Californian almond harvest this year was 1.6 billion pounds shelled (up from 1.3 billion pounds shelled last year) accounting for 85% of the world’s almond production. C’mon, Sixty Minutes. I know tractors ripping out trees look awesome, but so does the annual Almond Almanac. A few seconds of searching would have given you some perspective on this. It would have told you how big the imminent impact is going to be. And that even with the drought, there were more almonds harvested this year than ever before.

[Here's the source of that quote. Excellent reading, rated R for language.]

Watch 60 Minutes if you must. As for me, I'll stick to my water blogs. For the straight dope on water out west, go here:

On the public record
Aquafornia
Aguanomics
WaterWired

And check out all these as well, from Emily Green's most excellent Chance of Rain.

California's future foretold

Tenochtitlan, back in the day. Click for bigger.

Crónica de una muerte anunciada, perhaps? From Daniel Hernandez's most excellent blog, Intersections:

And this is where life in the city starts getting a just a bit more stressful. La Prensa is reporting that the Mexico City government will be cutting off the main flow of water to the capital "100%" during the end of Semana Santa, April 9 through 12. We can't repeat it enough: the water supply right now is at critically low levels. El Universal confirms that the Cutzamala valve will be entirely shut off on Thursday, and that the city won't feel the effects until probably Friday, the 10th.

So that's 36 hours without water flowing from the largest supply plant for a city of 20 million people, which, in high cosmic irony, used to look like the image above only about 500 years ago.

Back home in California, I suspect it may be just a matter of time. Read the rest of Daniel's blog post here.

It's California: water, and a wolverine

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much." [Alan Paton]

He had me at "California drought."

Ari Kelman of the most excellent Edge of the American West responds to "several requests for some California drought blogging," and I am so there. West coast water is a topic near and dear to my heart. We used to depend on well water every summer up at the cabin, for one thing. For another, I love roses. And hate high water bills.

Ari turns the blog post Parched over to "a friend who works on state water issues and writes about water and climate change at On the Public Record." Both "Parched" and "On the Public Record" are good reads.

"If you’re a salmon in California, this drought could well be the end of you. This year’s salmon returns were historic lows, and tepid reduced rivers may finish them off. However, if you’re a wildfire in California, dying forests in the Sierras are waiting for you!"

Excerpt:

If you’re a farmer in California, or dependent on farming, the story is very different. The combination of drought and enforcement of the Endangered Species Act means that farmers are getting almost no water from the water projects this year (that may be revised to getting 5% of their usual water, because of the February rains). For many of them, this drought means putting in wells and fallowing everything but their orchards. Cattle and dairies are thinning their herds, because dry pastures are too sparse to feed their cows. Farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley are taking the hardest hit, with unemployment over thirty percent in some towns.

I'm not dependent in any financial sense on my livestock, and don't have enough sheep to talk of "thinning the herd," but I'm giving up all but a few of my Cheviots — I can barely afford to feed them. Hay prices are unreal.

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Drought? But... but... there's snow in the Sierras! Which isn't the same as "snowpack," unfortunately. You can see the white stuff in this short vid of a wolverine posing for a camera trap northwest of Lake Tahoe. Video from YubaNet.com, where you can read more about the handsome critter. I heart wolverines.



Related:
California Drought: Snowpack Inspires Consumers, Worries Water Experts, from Circle of Blue | WaterNews.