Insights · March 14th, 2015
The LA Times reports that the ongoing drought in California has left the state’s reservoirs with just a one-year supply of water, according to NASA. January was the driest in California since record keeping began. So far, says the Times opinion piece, the state response consists mostly of some conservation measures and hoping for rain. There is no firm plan for what do do if the drought turns into a 20-year mega-drought. Four steps are recommended:
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1. Mandatory water rationing state-wide.
2. Speed the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014
3. Set up a task force to plan long-range.
4. The public must take ownership of the issue.
This is not a trivial problem and deserves the attention called for here, now.
Some amazing drought images for this story can be found at Stanford News.
Update March 21, 2015: Turns out that it is just the reservoirs that have about a year of water left, but they provide only some of CA’s water. So the situation, while serious, is not as dire as the headline in the original opinion piece suggested. See update at LA Times.
