Wake up, California. We may be in a Pacific decadal oscillation mega-drought that will only become worse, or perhaps we will have escaped it, but our children won’t. We need to demand from our politicians and water board managers more than words and bandages. They won’t quench our water needs.
Capture more stormwater, whenever it arrives. Prevent evaporation from the California Aqueduct’s open canals. Start desalinization plans that for more than 20 years have been described as taking 10 years to build and fast track them similar to the reconstruction of damaged freeways caused by the ‘94 earthquake. Demand our water agency managers visit Israel to study their methods rather than Hawaiian vacation conferences. Consider everything, including diverting annually four million feet of Alaskan water 1,400 miles to Lake Shasta.
Yes, these solutions may not satisfy all of our needs and they will be expensive, but spending hundreds of millions of dollars on lawn removal and a bullet train to nowhere would have paid for some of this. Water usage penalties already charged is another source of funds. When will our representatives make water a priority? Demand that they do.
Bob Helper