California, water you doing?
Zachary Faria
Many areas in California are dealing with floods after the recent atmospheric river storm. Yet that doesn’t mean a future drought is out of the question.
Farmers in the state’s Central Valley have been rushing from community to community to help other farmers and residents avoid having their homes flooded. Fields, roads, and Kraft Foods factory parking lots are underwater in various parts of the state. The Sierra Nevada has received record amounts of snow, and reservoirs have been replenished. The winter storms have erased nearly three years of drought across Central and Southern California.
Yet the refusal of California Democrats to build more water storage in the state leaves it vulnerable to another drought — and much sooner than you would think. The water that falls on urban areas simply flows out to the ocean. In Folsom, California, 20,000 cubic feet of water per second drifted into the sea because there was no way of storing it.
The farms that are in various stages of flooding now will be left lobbying for water in the next dry season, a cruel irony that has been the norm in California for years now. The state simultaneously has too much water and not enough, unable to deal with either massive storms or prolonged dry seasons.
The more things change, the more Schrodinger’s water system in California stays the same. If only water was as important to California Democrats as abortion or plastic straws, maybe something would be done.