On the 50th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, we should celebrate its successes. San Francisco has stopped the dumping of raw sewage into the Bay. Rivers no longer catch on fire due to flammable contaminants. Wildlife has returned to once abandoned estuaries and wetlands. California has made great strides in protecting our waters for swimming, fishing, and other human activities — in affluent areas.
As the world struggles for consensus on climate action and national policy focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the impacts of climate change occur all around us. Drought, intense heat, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and rising seas, all on a scale not previously seen and often happening concurrently, bear witness to this.
The Ojai Valley in Ventura County is a magical place. Consider its elements: the sweet smell of California citrus blossoms in the spring, the open space preserved by orchards, the seasonal creeks that run free through the cultivated lands. But the Ojai Valley is also a place in peril. That’s because the water source that keeps this inland Ventura hamlet thriving is nearly dry.
When it comes to water conservation, California is burying its head in the winter snow.
Future generations will not look kindly at our leaders’ complete failure to strategically address the state’s water shortages, which will only get worse with climate change.
Two years of some of the worst drought conditions in state history haven’t slowed Big Ag’s demands for more water. Meanwhile, urban users aren’t coming close to meeting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s call to voluntarily cut their water use by 15% from 2020 levels.
I appreciate the Register’s longtime support for the Huntington Beach desalination plant, which can finally start construction if permitted by the California Coastal Commission this coming March. The facility will serve 400,000 Southern Californians and protect public safety and the economy against California’s perpetual drought cycle. “Our support for the project is clear and consistent,” you wrote in your Dec. 23 editorial. Thank you.
In the San Joaquin Valley, water is becoming a commodity equal to life and death.
California is a powerhouse of food production, growing some 40 percent of the country’s fruit, vegetables and nuts. However, the agriculture industry depends on a water supply that’s increasingly fragile and unreliable as the climate warms. As a means to increase access to livable drinking water, community and elected leaders alike are rallying behind “Building More Dams.” But this is simply not a viable solution.
Four words sum up Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest effort to ease the impact of the drought: too little, too late.
California needs to take far more aggressive action to ensure a reliable source of water for 2022 and beyond. Newsom’s administration is targeting unreasonable waste by urban users, who consume 20% of the state’s water. It’s time for him also to get aggressive with Big Ag, which sucks up the other 80%.
We all know we’re in the midst of a terrible drought in California.
And we all know we’ve got an 1,100-mile coastline.
Is desalination the answer to our problems?
No. It comes after water conservation and recycling, and is just one tool among many that might prevent the state from going dry.
Desperation over water scarcity has produced any number of schemes to relieve the crisis. But few are as chuckle-headed as a plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and transport it 200 miles to urban Southern California.
This is the Cadiz water project, which has been percolating along since the turn of the century.
California is experiencing a devastating water crisis, by some accounts the worst in the last 1,200 years. Drought is hammering the two primary water delivery systems on which millions of Californians rely — the Colorado River and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Most of the state — and especially the south San Joaquin Valley and Kern County — is suffering badly. Extensive planning, and solid investments funded by large coffers, have enabled large portions of Southern California to get through 2021 without rationing. But the experience here in the Central Valley is far different. Thousands of acres fallowed. Jobs lost and hours cut. Multiple cities with water restrictions. Wells running dry. These disparate outcomes are highlighting the current inequalities in drought preparedness and a broken system. There is also the sobering reality that Southern Californians may too be thirsty again soon.
