It’s the dead of night on a chilly October evening. You drive down a deserted street in Wasco, California — the isolation of it all sending shivers up your spine. Then you see him:
California’s water shortage has reached a critical stage. At least a dozen communities in Northern and Central California are at risk of running out of water in just 60 days. The areas in jeopardy include Colusa and El Dorado County.
As California’s severe drought moves into a fourth year, state and local water agencies are working on something called “allocation-based rate structures,” a kind of precursor to water rationing that’s all the rage in Sacramento and in some areas such as Santa Cruz, Irvine and Santa Monica. Here’s how it works: Your local water company, special district or city assigns you and your household a number in gallons — a daily water allocation.
It’s worst and getting worst-er. Hundreds of domestic wells in California’s drought-parched Central Valley farming region have run dry, according to AP, leaving many residents to rely on donated bottles of drinking water to get by. With government set to regulate deeper drilling, hope is plunging that a solution to California’s drought will come anytime soon as groundwater levels plunge.
The old man knew of the $500-a-day fine for people caught wasting water. He heard the plea for conservation from Governor Jerry Brown. But the water police can’t scare a person whose water isn’t running in the first place.
During Thursday night’s California gubernatorial debate against Republican Neel Kashkari, California Governor Jerry Brown (D) revealed that nearly 30% of the state’s schoolchildren are either illegal immigrants or do not speak English. Brown, who recently said that illegal immigrants from Mexico were “all welcome in California,” praised his administration’s immigration policies. He said that California is “setting the pace” on immigration laws and mentioned bills he signed that gave driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, made California a sanctuary state (Trust Act), and granted in-state tuition to illegal immigrants (CA DREAM Act).
Water wells in central California have begun to run dry, reports the LA Times. (1) “Extreme drought conditions have become so harsh for the Central Valley community of East Porterville [that] many of its residents dependent on their own wells have run out of water.” Tulare County has confirmed their wells have run out of water, and so far hundreds of homes have no running water.
Among the study’s findings: Immigrants who are in California illegally make up 38% of the agriculture industry and 14% of the construction industry statewide. Half of the immigrants in the state illegally have been here for at least 10 years.
Writing for The Washington Post (WP), journalist Joby Warrick draws attention to what many scientists say is an unprecedented collapse of California’s vast water infrastructure, which is marked by an elaborate system of canals, reservoirs and wells that transfer water from the mountains and other areas to the Central Valley. Altogether, the state contains some 27 million acres of cropland. This system is now failing, say experts, and the consequences will more than likely be unparalleled in California’s history.
Argentine ants, Linepithema humile, are on the march in drought-stricken California, and they’re invading Bay Area homes in droves. It’s considered one of the most invasive species on the planet. “The Argentine ant is a species introduced to our environment – and it has invaded our ant fauna,” said Brian Fisher, curator of entomology at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
They are wrenched from abusive homes, uprooted again and again, often with their life’s belongings stuffed into a trash bag. Abandoned and alone, they are among California’s most powerless children. But instead of providing a stable home and caring family, the state’s foster care system gives them a pill.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto thanked California on Thursday for improving the lives of immigrants from his country, including legalizing drivers’ licenses for undocumented migrants and making it easier for them to work and start businesses. Pena Nieto, on his first trip to the United States since becoming president in 2012, addressed a joint session of the California legislature, detailing economic and electoral reforms enacted back home and emphasizing his country’s social and economic ties to the state. “I want to thank you for what you have done for migrants, especially the ones from Mexico,” Pena Nieto said.
Extreme drought conditions have become so harsh for the Central Valley community of East Porterville, many of its residents dependent on their own wells have run out of water. Roughly 300 homes have received a three-week supply of bottled water after Tulare County officials discovered their wells had gone dry. In all, county officials distributed 15,552 1-gallon bottles of water, and have been filling a 2,500-gallon tank with nonpotable water so residents can flush toilets and bathe.
If you thought that the earthquake that struck northern California on Sunday was something, just wait until you see what is coming in the years ahead. As you will read about below, we live at a time when earthquake activity is dramatically increasing. This is especially true of the “Ring of Fire” which runs roughly along the outer perimeter of the Pacific Ocean.
Hundreds of rural San Joaquin Valley residents no longer can get drinking water from their home faucets because California’s extreme drought has dried up their individual wells, government officials and community groups said. The situation has become so dire that the Tulare County Office of Emergency Services had 12-gallon-per person rations of bottled water delivered on Friday in East Porterville, where at least 182 of the 1,400 households have reported having no or not enough water, according to the Porterville Recorder ( ). Many people in the unincorporated community about 52 miles north of Bakersfield also have been relying on a county-supplied 5,000-gallon water tank filled with non-potable water for bathing and flushing toilets, The Recorder said.
The ongoing drought in the western United States has caused so much loss of groundwater that the Earth, on average, has lifted up about 0.16 inches over the last 18 months, according to a new study. The situation was even worse in the snow-starved mountains of California, where the Earth rose up to 0.