This article touches base on one of numerous ongoing issues in California right now, drought. The author travels to a few of the various counties that are feeling this drought the greatest. Meanwhile, he also interviews a few farmers on the issues, to get their opinion on the drought. “Generally, farms established before 1914 get their water allotment before farms with lower-priority rights.” (Richtel, page 6).
Did you know that 1.4 trillion gallons were flushed into San Francisco Bay, in 2008 just to save the Delta Smelt? There have been restrictions on water. For this reason, farmers are not getting enough water to use for their crops. In my opinion, the water should be kept for the farmers to use.
If states put their ideas together, there would be a better chance of coming up with more ideas of prevention. There is nothing anyone can do about the climate changes and warmer weather which makes it a lot harder to stop the drought. The main concern of the lack of water resources is the human health. Without all the necessities the human health is going to get worse and could cause many
The California Water Wars involved Owen 's Valley and Los Angeles struggling with each other. Mulholland built a aqueduct, but where did the water come from? The water was provided from the Owen 's Lake. The farmers and ranchers of Owen 's Valley didn 't give up their water rights easily. Fred Eaton and William Mulholland both used lies and a series of trickery and strategies to convince the farmers to give their water to Los Angeles.
According to the Pacific Institute, more than 93% of California’s water footprint is attributed to agricultural products, 47% being meat and dairy (Fulton et al. 3). Animal husbandry requires more water than the production of plant protein, due livestock’s water-intensive feed, such as alfalfa. Among California’s top ten water users, alfalfa is the most water-intensive (Fox). In a given day, a cow consumes 140 to 150 pounds of feed and drinks 30 to 40 gallons of water a day. Moreover, one ton of beef requires 145,000 gallons of water, which is 24,000 more gallons than what is required for a ton of pork, 107,000 more gallons than one ton of root vegetables, and an incredible 133,700 more water than a ton of vegetables (Mekonnen et. al 2012).
Water is one of the state's most troublesome political issues. Due to the lack of water during a dry season water is limited resource especially in the Mojave Basin. This is an ongoing debate is whether the state should escalate the rearrangement of water to its large agricultural and urban areas, or increase conservation and preserve the natural ecosystems of the water sources.
One faction believes that almonds do not live up to the hype, and that they are draining water supplies, damaging the environment, and actually hurting business. California has now endured an 11year drought, which many individuals fear is only a glimpse of things to come (Holthaus). Recently, California Governor Jerry Brown signed off on an action plan to battle the drought, which involves cutting 25 percent of urban water usage (Walker). Many citizens look to almond farming as a major cause of the water shortages. Not only do almond trees require roughly 1.1 gallons of water per nut, but they also require year round watering which other crops do not
At the moment farmer in California are currently using forty percent of the water being brought in from the Colorado river. Just to put this into perspective the average American family uses up to four hundred gallons every day , but that is just ten percent of the water that California is allowing residents to use, therefore forty percent of the water that is being used is an astounding amount especially when the residents number in the millions and still fall short of what the farmers are using. Not to mention that the amount of irrigated farmland is approx. 9 million acres. The Production output of California is 60% of the United States fresh vegetables and
We have to take water from different lakes and rivers around the state and we even get water from other states. When we are not able to get sufficient water, we can always change the crops we are growing to acclimate to our weather
California has to spend billions of dollars to try to keep the water crisis under control. In the article California’s Drought Is Part of a Much Bigger Water Crisis stated “A recent study by U.C. Davis researchers projected that the drought would cost California's economy $2.7 billion in 2015 alone” (Lustgarten 1). Abraham Lustgarten demonstrates that California would have to spend billions of dollars to try and fix the water crisis this year alone. California is therefore going into debt, they don’t have enough money to take care of their state and residents and may have to ask the federal government to step in to help them fix this problem. Another huge problem is how people’s everyday routine is going to change.
California is experiencing a water drought for a while now and the governor of california is planning on putting a shortage on how much people in california use. Over the past three years we have had very little rain water but it's not in just one part of california but in all of california is experiencing a water drought wells are going dry, the governor is making us use less water but farmers are against it because without a certain amount of water there crops cannot grow. Some things people are saying about the water that is being taken away from us is “We are tied to the groundwater 100 percent,”he said,”so ultimately it will have an effect on consumer prices. There’s just no getting around that.”
One of the contributing causes of the Californian drought is the overdraft of the Central Valley Aquifer. With an alarmingly dry winter and California reservoirs dropping fast, groundwater is increasingly being relied on keeping the state hydrated. It now accounts for about sixty percent of California’s water supply. But unlike its rivers, lakes and reservoirs, the state does not consider groundwater part of the public good, meaning it does not regulate groundwater like it does surface water so landowners can pump as much water as they please. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, between the years 1920 and 2013, forty-one trillion gallons have been drained from the Central Valley; that is amount is enough to provide every living person with water for three decades.
After Governor Jerry Brown’s orders to reduce water to help the drought, the water control board developed certain reduction plans for each water supplier in the city. The reductions for water ranges from eight to thirty-six percent for each supplier. The author also states that if California started reductions earlier when the drought started, the drought would have slowly improved due to changes in water usage. Since California put these reductions recently, there would not be any major changes in the drought. Lastly, there will be consideration from cities for different forms of water rationing as
In the article, “California drought: Brown orders 25 percent water use reduction” by Peter Fimrite, Melody Gutierrez, and Victoria Colliver stated, “Gov. Jerry Brown ordered California’s first-ever mandatory water cutback, imposing a 25 percent reduction to force residents and businesses to significantly tighten up water use.” The drought is so bad that the governor has now ordered us to reduce the consumption of water. “Using water-saving techniques can save you money, and diverts less water from our rivers, bays, and estuaries which helps keep the environment healthy,” according to Energy Star's information website. Conserving water isn't just for the environment and the drought, but can also benefit homeowners to save money. “use your essay for this
Take Home Final California is known to have one of the biggest water supply systems. A combination of more than 1,000 reservoirs, groundwater basins, and local and regional water systems. California relies on systems for water storage and delivery systems to supply for cities, farms, businesses and the environment. Americans use over 4 million gallons of water each day. The water is transported through the "Water Transport Process".
