California: Paradise Burning | Emergency Preparedness | Forums

the politicians in sacramento are holding tens of millions of gallons hostage over a fucking smelt. there's plenty of water in the delta to allow for farming in the central valley. the drought in the north is man made, the one in the south made by mother nature...

http://www.reuters.c.....MB20140313

http://naturalresour.....sueID=5921

• California’s water storage and transportation system designed by federal and state governments includes 1,200 miles of canals and nearly 50 reservoirs that provide water to about 22 million people and irrigate about four million acres of land throughout the state.
• In May 2007, a Federal District Court Judge ruled that increased amounts of water had to be re-allocated towards protecting the Delta smelt – a three-inch fish on the Endangered Species List.
• Because of this ruling, in 2009 and 2010 more than 300 billion gallons (or 1 million acre-feet) of water were diverted away from farmers in the Central Valley and into the San Francisco Bay – eventually going out into the Pacific Ocean.
• This man-made drought cost thousands of farm workers their jobs, inflicted up to 40 percent unemployment in certain communities, and fallowed hundreds of thousands of acres of fertile farmland.

yep. the delta smelt. insane, i know.

now, i'm not saying that rainfall levels aren't down in CA, they are.

what i'm saying (and so are a large number of people on both sides of the scientific/political spectrum) is that we need to start differentiating between Northern and Southern CA. Southern CA hasn't seen nearly the same amount of rainfall the north has seen, yet they're treating everyone the same. they let 300 billion gallons get diverted to the ocean to "protect" the smelt instead of sending it to the farmers, then want to come out and say the farmers aren't getting their water because CA is in a drought. 

only thing is, rainfall is down like 10-15% in places like Sacramento and Tahoe, nothing like southern ca where its down 40-60% depending on the county. yet they act like we're all the same.

and don't even get me started on "water conservation"...

that is 100% correct. 

they even caught one of the biggest advocates of letting your lawn go brown and/or replacing it with desert style flowers/bushes guilty of overwatering....

https://beta.cironline.org/reports/california-water-officials-arent-following-own-call-for-conservation/

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Mike Soubirous is a prodigious water user, pumping more than 1 million gallons per year at his lushly landscaped home on a hot, windy Southern California hilltop.

Soubirous also is a member of the Riverside City Council, which in July voted unanimously to impose tough new water conservation rules in this desert city of 317,000.

Yet as California’s drought worsened from 2012 to 2013, he consumed enough water to supply eight California households – more than any other top water official in the state, records show.

Soubirous knows he should cut his water use to set a good example, he told The Center for Investigative Reporting. But he has a 1-acre lot with cascades of flowering shrubs and a weeping willow tree, and summer temperatures hit 100 degrees. Conservation isn’t that simple, he said

“Do I have to sell my house to set that example, or do I have to just abolish all my shrubs?” Soubirous said. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how I can reduce my water rate.”

Like Soubirous, many of the local officials urging the public to save water during California’s crippling drought actually are profligate water users themselves, a CIR investigation has found.

Water bills obtained via the state’s Public Records Act show that in 2013, nearly half of the officials who supervise the state’s biggest water agencies used more water than the typical California household.

And water officials tended not to cut back as the drought persisted. Even as their agencies scolded ratepayers on conservation, 60 percent of these officials used more water in 2013 than they had in 2012, records show.

Some officials used extraordinary amounts.

In addition to Soubirous, two other officials – a Fresno city councilman and a member of Riverside’s utilities board – pumped more than 1 million gallons in a single year during the drought, records show.

In 2013, eight other officials used more than 1,100 gallons per day. That’s triple the state’s average. Among them was Randy Record, chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which recently launched an advertising blitz to persuade 19 million people to save water.

Fifteen additional officials used double the statewide rate. One was Ashley Swearengin, Republican candidate for state controller and incumbent mayor of Fresno, where residents are allowed to water lawns twice a week now and not at all in winter.

As the drought has worsened, local agencies have kept up a steady public relations drumbeat, urging Californians to take shorter showers, limit car washing and even tear out their lawns in the name of conservation.

This summer, the state told local agencies to enforce tough new rules: Ratepayers can face $500 fines for offenses such as permitting excess runoff from outdoor watering or cleaning sidewalks with hoses. Around the state, according to news reports, neighbors have begun reporting neighbors for wasting water.

When contacted, some water officials bemoaned how much they were spending on water and blamed undetected sprinkler leaks, overzealous gardeners or heavy use of the family swimming pool. All said conservation is important. All vowed to do better.

But not all are following their own water rules. Last month in Riverside, an NBC Los Angeles crew collaborating with CIR on this story witnessed sprinklers running seven nights in a row at Soubirous’ home. Yet in July, Soubirous joined the council in forbidding watering more than four times a week. When asked about it, he acknowledged he might have unintentionally overwatered.