Every single Californian is feeling the pain of another drought. And we seriously have no idea what a “modest reduction” from 0% of a normal farm water allocation even means.
The real point is that there are things we can do to keep us from constantly ending up in this same position.
We are simply not storing enough of the water coming down as precipitation. Eighteen trillion gallons of rain fell in California in February 2019. Had we been able to capture and store more of that water, we could have mitigated the devastating consequences now facing us.
But even with more storage, if we don’t fix our aging and deteriorating water infrastructure, that water can’t be delivered to Californian’s spigots.
Rather than point fingers, it would be more productive for everyone to unite in pushing Congress to fund water infrastructure in federal legislation.
Congress needs to fund water infrastructure
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In summary
We are simply not storing enough water to mitigate the devastating consequences of the drought now facing us.
By Mike Wade, Sacramento
Mike Wade is the executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition, mwade@farmwater.org.
Re “Balance pain of drought on farmers and fishermen equitably”; Commentary, May 21, 2021
Every single Californian is feeling the pain of another drought. And we seriously have no idea what a “modest reduction” from 0% of a normal farm water allocation even means.
The real point is that there are things we can do to keep us from constantly ending up in this same position.
We are simply not storing enough of the water coming down as precipitation. Eighteen trillion gallons of rain fell in California in February 2019. Had we been able to capture and store more of that water, we could have mitigated the devastating consequences now facing us.
But even with more storage, if we don’t fix our aging and deteriorating water infrastructure, that water can’t be delivered to Californian’s spigots.
Rather than point fingers, it would be more productive for everyone to unite in pushing Congress to fund water infrastructure in federal legislation.
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He has also written about a water infrastructure package that is needed to deal with drought.
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