Groundwater pumping by farmers should be regulated by the state of California. If civilians in the state are being required to cut water usage back by twenty-five percent (Dimick, 2015), then the farmers should have to as well. The drought is a serious issue for California and a large portion of the Western part of the United States. That whole region of the country should be doing as much as they can to preserve their water resources until the drought (hopefully) ends. Otherwise, this could turn into a major issue for the entire country, not just that state.
The state needs to take this issue more seriously and not only think about the water they are consuming but also how it is affecting the climate. “NASA scientists predict that rapidly
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Also stated in the article, this is the first time a restriction on water usage has been mandated by the state. The state is in a crisis of need for water. That being said, I was curious about the average water intake, so I decided to look up how much water the average American Family uses per day. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) the average American family uses 300-400 gallons of water per day. If people are expected to cut their use by twenty-five percent, that means each family will only be required to use seventy-five gallons less than they normally would. That is not a lot at all. Which is why farmers should be doing their part, and be required to regulate their groundwater pumping in the state of California. Furthermore, according to the National Geographic article, the majority of the water used in California is used for agriculture by farmers. It does not seem right to me that the people who are using the most water do not have to follow the new regulations. Additionally, the farmers are pumping groundwater to make up for the lack of surface water (Dimick, 2015). If farmers want to do this, they should have to keep detailed records of exactly how much water they pump each time. Otherwise, the state could run into bigger problems if the farmers completely deplete the groundwater resource as well. Again, this means the farmers would have to be