Pros And Cons Of Conserving Water In California

Drought! Conserve water, as a Californian this phrase and others similar to it are all too common now a days. Governor Brown has implemented water cut backs on Californians to converse the little fresh water we have left. However only asking the residents to cut back is unfair and ineffective since we only consume the least amount of fresh water taken in the state compared to agriculture and the environment. Many Californian residents are being unfairly treated by the government when it comes to conserving water. They tell us to cut our consumption and impose fines for those who do not. Many Californian residents including myself have shorten the amount of water we use for our lawns, showers, and car wash. However, as residence we consume

Majority of California’s Agriculture is set up in the Central Valley, its soil and weather is ideal for farms not to mention the abundance of land. The one thing that the Central Valley lacks is water. According to science writer Michelle Nijhuis with the National Geographic Magazine, she stated that in the Central Valley “Farmers have long depended on two interconnected sources of water. Many use surface flows from the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, divvied up according to water rights that date back to the 19th century.” For a complex system that brings enormous amount of water from Northern California to the Central Valley, you would think the Agriculture business would provide a huge economic benefit for California, but it does not. In fact according to Jeffrey Mount with the Public Policy Institute of California he stated, “Today, farm production and food processing only generate about 2% of California’s gross state product, down from about 5% in the early 1960s.” Why divert so much water when we do not even make as much money on a product as we use to back in the 1960. Maybe it’s time for the farmers to pitch in and conserve some water by not producing so much for the next