California faces a monumental challenge in meeting the water demands of its current and projected population. Climate change, drought in California and the Colorado River basin, legal mitigation in the Owens Valley and the Sacramento / San Joaquin delta, and a rapidly growing population have created severe water shortages that will affect all people and businesses in California this year, particularly in Southern California. Californians. As a result, we will all face significant increases in water rates, and water districts across the state are instituting water rationing programs.

These are the problems in more detail:

Population growth –

In a 2005 US Census study, it was projected that by 2030, California’s population will increase to more than 46 million people, a 37% increase over the population measured in 2000. 46 million people will also increase. they would become the most populous state in the US Most of this growth is expected to land in the central valley and southern California. (Where the demand for water is already high!)

Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Colorado are predicted to be in the top 15 with the highest population growth as a percentage compared to 2000 figures. In particular, Nevada and Arizona are expected to increase populations by more than 100%. It is important to note that these four states depend on water from the Colorado River, which is already depleted.

Drought –

After experiencing two years of drought and the driest spring in recorded history, California’s water supplies are extremely low. This prompted Governor ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER in June 2008 to proclaim a statewide drought condition in California.

Rainfall across the state has been below normal in 2007 and 2008, with many Southern California communities receiving only 20 percent of normal rainfall in 2007, and Northern California this year experienced the driest spring recorded, and most communities received less than 20 percent of March’s normal rainfall. until May 2008.

This has also led to critically dry water conditions in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins. The statewide runoff forecast for 2008 is estimated to be 41 percent below average.

The Colorado River basin, a major source of water for many southwestern states, including California, has also experienced a record eight-year drought, causing current reservoir storage throughout the river system to shrink to little more. 50 percent of the total storage capacity.

El Dorado, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Diego counties witnessed and victims of these record dry conditions after last year’s devastating fires, which resulted in million dollars in damages.

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta –

The Sacramento-San Joaquin delta is located east of the San Francisco Bay Area at the confluence of the Sacramento-San Joaquin rivers. The Delta encompasses 738,000 acres, stretching inland nearly 50 miles. Five rivers flow into the Delta area, accounting for nearly half of the melt and runoff from the entire state. More than two-thirds of the state’s population receives a portion of the Delta’s drinking water.

The Delta is also home to a multitude of migratory fish, wildlife, and waterfowl. It is the largest estuary on the west coast and an important stop on the Pacific flyway. However, the operations of the water project have affected native fish populations, and the Delta delta, once the most populous fish in the estuary, is now on the brink of extinction.

In an attempt to protect the rest of the molten population, Judge Wanger, a federal court judge, ruled in August 2007 that both the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project were operating in violation of the Species Act. Endangered and ordered reductions in the amount of water exported from the Delta. This short order is estimated to have reduced the amount of water that could be drawn from the delta by 50%, compared to previous years.

Climate change: drier droughts, wetter winters …

Global warming is a misnomer because it implies something that is uniform in nature. What is happening to the global climate is very uneven geographically.

As global average temperatures increase and the earth warms, more evaporation from the ground will occur. Therefore, regions that are already naturally dry will tend to dry out more. At the same time, higher evaporation rates, due to global warming, will put more water vapor into the atmosphere, so areas that are close to large bodies of water or in places where atmospheric dynamics already favor higher rates of precipitation, will tend to get wet, increasing the chances of downstream flooding.

The more dramatic the changes, the more we need to depend on reserves and efficient water supply systems to survive.

Environmental Mitigation in the Owens Valley –

In 1913, the city of Los Angeles completed an aqueduct from Owens Valley to the city. Once a productive agricultural area, the Owens Valley was decimated one by one, the owners eventually selling it to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and moving on. Lake Owens was dry in the 1930s when the streams, springs, and the Lower Owens River that fed it dried up. Over-pumping of groundwater in the 1970s further lowered the water table, killing native vegetation and turning much of the region into a dry, dusty desert.

However, the recent court-ordered restoration of Mono Lake and the Lower Owens River, as well as continued dust mitigation in the dry bed of Lake Owens, lawmakers have mandated that more water must remain in the Owens Valley for use “in the valley”. which was previously exported to Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Aqueduct carried just 115,091 acre-feet of water south of the city in 2007-08, which accounted for just 17 percent of the city’s water supply, compared to 62 percent that came from the Eastern Sierra in 2006, based on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s final operations plan for runoff year 2007-08.

This has created another area where the state’s water supply has been reduced. Meanwhile, the demand for water continues to grow …

What can we do?

The problem of not having enough water to meet everyone’s needs is not going to go away, not with the rain or with a government bailout. It is a natural resource that we have severely depleted. With that restriction, our goal should be to try to live within the lowest level of water allocation that we are given, both because of the cost to us each month on our water bill, as well as our global situation.

BUT, I am optimistic on this issue and I know there is A LOT that we can all do. Greater efficiency and greater conservation are the cheapest, easiest, and least destructive ways to meet California’s future water needs. It is estimated that California can save 30% of its current urban water use with cost-effective water-saving solutions.

Existing technologies are available to greatly reduce urban water use without reducing the goods and services we want. Our mission at MyWaterFuture.com is to help everyone find ways to reduce water and money through education and by offering the best water conservation technologies on the market.

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