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Even with the presidential race tightening, one issue in a drought-parched region of California has remained constant — water and the lack of it. “Water right now is the number one issue for us in the Central Valley,” said Republican Rep. David Valadao, whose congressional district includes some of the state’s largest agricultural production but has been hit hard by the 5-year-old drought.The drought impact goes beyond agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley. Water tables in rural communities in parts of Fresno, Tulare, Kings and Kern counties have dropped and residential wells are running dry.

 

No matter who wins the White House Tuesday, the next president’s administration will likely immediately face a pressing issue that gets very little national attention: What to do about the drying Colorado River that supplies water to millions of people in the American Southwest.

As the debate rages over the election of the next President, it seems that another debate with significant implications for California has yet to take place. It concerns the one commodity which our state and the planet cannot do without—water. As California enters its sixth year of a historic drought, the solutions from Sacramento have been short in coming and predictions that there will be continuing water shortages are as solid as the belief that the sun will always come up again.

Scientists have begun to account for the topsy-turvy carbon cycle of the Colorado River delta — once a massive green estuary of grassland, marshes and cottonwood, now desiccated dead land. “We’ve done a lot in the United States to alter water systems, to dam them. The river irrigates our crops and makes energy. What we really don’t understand is how our poor water management is affecting other natural systems — in this case, carbon cycling,” said Cornell’s Jansen Smith, a doctoral candidate in earth and atmospheric sciences.

On the day it became official that this was the wettest October in Redding in more than 50 years, the state released water conservation numbers for September. Redding conserved 7 percent based on its 2013 baseline usage. That was down from the more than 20 percent the city saved in September 2015. Still, Redding earlier this year chose not to reduce residents’ water usage from 2013 based on its 100 percent allotment. So the 7 percent reduction was an improvement over zero conservation.