Proclamation authorizes State Water Board to ban wasteful water uses, boosting conservation efforts.
Following the second driest year on record and with near-record low storage in California’s largest reservoirs, Governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday issued a proclamation extending the drought emergency statewide. He also further urged Californians to step up their water conservation efforts as the western U.S. faces a potential third dry year.
“As the western U.S. faces a potential third year of drought, it’s critical that Californians across the state redouble our efforts to save water in every way possible. With historic investments and urgent action, the state is moving to protect our communities, businesses, and ecosystems from the immediate impacts of the drought emergency while building long-term water resilience to help the state meet the challenge of climate change impacts making droughts more common and more severe.”
– Governor Newsom
Newsome issued an executive order in July calling on Californians to voluntarily reduce water use by 15 percent compared to 2020 to protect water reserves and complement local conservation mandates. The Governor’s action this week comes as the Board reports that in August, California reduced urban water use by 5 percent compared to 2020.
As the West faces a potential 3rd year of drought, we’re extending the drought emergency statewide, making historic investments & taking action to protect communities.
It’s now more important than ever for Californians to save water in every way possible.https://t.co/s2y0FNuwgP
— Office of the Governor of California (@CAgovernor) October 20, 2021
California is experiencing its worst drought since the late 1800s, as measured by lack of precipitation and high temperatures. August 2021 was the driest and hottest August on record since reporting began, and the water year that ended last month was the second driest on record. Most of the state’s counties had been under a drought emergency since July, but Tuesday’s proclamation added the few previously spared regions.
The good news is that major storms are predicted this month, bringing rain and snow to parts of the state. However, recent reports show California would need 140% of its average annual precipitation to end the drought.
The California Department of Water Resources said earlier this month that the 2021 water year which ended September 30th, 2021, had the least rainfall since 1924.
I’m vaccinated.
And more people die of air pollution each year than Covid.
Also more people die of heart disease each year than Covid.
Let’s call a spade a spade. Balls and strikes equally people.
Yes we need to work together. Use common sense. And ease up on the hysteria.
California going net zero carbon is not going to end its droughts or wild fires.
America going net zero carbon is not going to end California’s droughts or wild fires.
Come up with some solutions that are actually going to have a chance of fixing these problems then people will take you seriously.
Build damns, build nuclear power facilities, do proactive forest management and controlled burns, tariff the flip out of countries who don’t quickly get their act together.
That’s how you fix this.
I should say, what’s sad and wonderful. We can’t save people dying of covid who refuse to accept it’s real, but we can help their kids. We have to work together, world gets smaller every day.
I have to laugh, the comments lately are mostly a bunch of pushy denialists shouting into the wind cuz they feel threatened, they are bullies, and they are addicted to any attention including negative. What’s sad is that environmentalists, progressives, and others with concern for the future care about them too, even if they act like a$$holes. It’s time to organize these comments with credentials and stuff, I want to sign in and be able to block spam. See you juicy-licious lovers at Oly Valley soon!
And remember, in California, everything is always a ‘crisis’ or a ‘disaster’ or an ’emergency,’ all of which, naturally, require an infusion of our tax dollars to fund pointless non-solutions and leftist control agendas. Tiny species need protection at the expense of human needs, unless, of course, those humans are the wealthy left, in which case they get a free pass, and screw the tiny species. Who needs Central Valley food, when that little whatever is ‘threatened’? No more dams! We can always glom some water from some other state. Decades-long forest mismanagement that magnifies the damage done by naturally-occurring or human-caused forest fires requires drastic ‘climate change’ initiatives that cost Californians millions of dollars and will solve nothing…because there have always been forest fires, everywhere there are forests (and there have always been climate cycles where it’s hotter and colder, and wetter and drier, and there ‘s never been anything human beings have been able to do about it; and it’s the most stupendously pompous hubris to even think humans can somehow change the world’s climate; if you think in geologic time, I means actually think, not feel, you’ll find data to show geologic climate cycles; just because it hasn’t happened in your lifetime doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before). Who needs nuclear power? We can just plant solar and wind farms all over, since they can supply, oh, virtually no power at all, at tremendous environmental and fiscal expense. Those brownouts and blackouts aren’t really all that bad, are they? The air in California is cleaner than it ever was (I could hardly ever see Catalina in the 80s and can see it every day now), but we have to stop using internal combustion engines, because heavily-spun data says ‘we’re all going to die if we don’t!’ And yet we haven’t, and we were all supposed to have died decades ago, weren’t we? According to the environmentalists, we were. In this case, ignore the fact that there have been hundreds of drought cycles throughout history. What the heck, just ignore data altogether! Don’t even think! Just ‘feel!’ It’s so much more ‘progressive!’ Whatever we do, we should always ignore facts and only act on our feelings, because, you know, feelings are so much less accountable. Our dementia-addled President’s eco agenda, apparently based on the idea of ‘just live without it,’ is illustrative of California’s own leftist political agenda: ‘We take your money and give you a hosing in return.’ Pointless leftist efforts to somehow ameliorate naturally-occurring droughts are just the latest nonsense coming out of California state government.
There have been no damns build in CA since the 60’s.
During the same period the population increased by 3x-4x.
No wonder there is a water shortage. There is a water STORAGE shortage.
There has always been and there will always be dry cycles. You wonder why the original damn system was built? It was built to retain water for drought years. This is 16th century knowledge and technology.
Do math California. Build more damns. Remove lawns and wasteful water hungry landscaping.
Thank you Environmentalists for not allowing new damns to built since the 60’s. Now focus on getting people to remove landscaping that wastes water.