by Jack
(Photo-Lake Oroville before and now)
California is facing on the worst draughts on record. Last month, the University of California, Davis, estimated the drought would cost the state $2.2 billion this year in losses and added expenses for the agriculture industry, while cutting 17,100, or 3.8%, of state farm jobs.
The worst recorded dry spell in CA started in 1961, however this draught is not far behind and it could exceed the conditions back then if we have one more dry year.
Democrats have proposed more regulation for farmers to control their water usage. However, the draught will likely be over before the regulations will have any impact this time. The draconian regs may help future draughts, but it won’t do anything for us now, except to impact food prices.
When it comes to real water management with adequate surface water storage Sacramento has been kicking the can down the road for way too long. The result is being felt especially hard in central and Southern CA where farm lands are starting to look like the dust bowl. The demands made on North state water have left lake dams, like Lake Oroville shown above looking pretty anemic.
I decided to explore to see what I could find about water in California and one of the more interesting things I found was the following from a Breightbart article:
You’ll also read that our Presidents solution to this problem after visiting the area was to give the EPA another billion to study climate change. Between this inane idea and our governors bullet train we Californians are up shot creek without a prayer.
At the baby boom generation has taken its place in positions of leadership common sense has left the building. John Lenin inspired a generation to imagine and they thought he meant live life with your head up…in the clouds.
When we look for people to represent us both at the state and federal levels it might be smart to send the dreamers packing and bring the practical thinkers on board.
As if on cue, the Daily Mail exposes the climate change LIE that the Arctic is in meltdown with “stunning images” and information:
Before we allow the environmental stooges, you know the rigid ideological climate change faction, decide what to do about our water problem it would be wise to consider how well they have served us thus far. With billions wasted on questionable science and special interest projects when that money could have brought real solutions there is a lot at stake.
Anybody remember the flooding in 1995 and 1997?
Info about average snowfall in the Sierra here reminds that draught years are painful and expensive but with attention to naturally occurring resources and smart planning we could ease most of the pain!
Droughts are nature’s fault and beyond our control.
Well, not according to the Demoncrats and the Chico Sustainability Task Force. Don’t you know droughts are YOUR fault because YOU are responsible for global warming…er…I mean climate change.
Now, I don’t know what will become of the drought. For all I know it could end in the Fall or go on another year. But I do know that whatever the politicians pass in Sacramento, it will be counter productive and cost us plenty.
In 2015 AB 32 takes effect so costs for diesel and gasoline will go up and some industries will be forced to buy carbon credits. All this will kill jobs and raise our cost of living which is already among the most expensive in the country.
Oh and just to give you one last kick in the butt it looks like the Demoncrats will outlaw plastic grocery bags and force retailers to charge you ten cents or more for a paper bag. And if the Demoncrats at the state level don’t do it the ones on our city council will.
Happy 2015, everybloody! (As Benny Hill would say.)
Bob, you have spoken words of wisdom, thanks for saying it here!
What CA lawmakers fail to understand is the weather patterns here are subject to El Nino and El Nina cycles on the ocean. Putting a water meter on a farmers ag well is the first step in taxing the water he’s using, but as a draught management tool it’s so insignificant as to be absurd. First of all do you know one farmer who demands that his crop be over-watered? I don’t and neither do our legislators. The reality here is the bums in Sacramento failed to manage the balance between surface water storage and population and now they want to take it out on the farmers who put food on our tables. How smart is that? The legislation we see takes a number of things from them too, property rights, water rights, and control over crop management and it adds farm overhead. Regulation enforcement costs all the taxpayers and ultimately this added cost to government will show up as higher consumer prices at the grocery store. On the other hand, surface water storage would have provided more inexpensive hydroelectric power, helped us keep our utility rates down, and it would have been a source of revenue for the state. Imagine the money that would be generated from lake use, more tourism and enhanced property values around those lakes (more property tax revenue). But, Sacramento spent too much time dithering and never made the bold moves when it would have been much cheaper. It’s because these guys are too stupid to look down the road and see what needs to be done, they’re in the moment kind of managers and that’s the worst of the worst and why CA is always in a jam of some sorts.
Jack excellent points:
“…do you know one farmer who demands that his crop be over-watered?”
Simple logic. Over-watering will ruin the crop just as efficiently as under-watering!
“…taxes…regulation…will show up as higher consumer prices at the grocery store.”
Shortages too! The only purpose for all of this mindless crisis law is more money and power for the elites in government! Arrogant, power hungry, greed!
People in business want and need profit. They want it just like any Joe Blo who carts his butt to the Quick stop every week to buy a lottery ticket. They need it to pay dividends to the investors who give them money, They need it to ensure their operating costs, including salaries and benefits for their employees are there every payday, they need it to pay the gargantuan cost of taxes and regulation they pay, and they need it to maintain, grow, and expand their businesses.
Politicians tax these days to pay back special interest groups, factions, who engage in questionable projects that would be better funded in the private sector to test their worthiness.
Taxpayers should not be footing the bill to find out how viable wind and solar power are. that bill should be picked up by fat cats who can afford to gamble on crazy schemes that might or might not be worth while.
Taxpayers work hard for the money they send to government. Government, politicians, who don’t take seriously their fiduciary responsibility to spend our money wisely, who don’t deliver real value for its use, should be thrown out on their butts at the first possible opportunity!
“…surface water storage would have provided more inexpensive hydroelectric power, helped us keep our utility rates down, and it would have been a source of revenue for the state. Imagine the money that would be generated from lake use, more tourism and enhanced property values around those lakes (more property tax revenue).”
Simple common sense! Simple common sense could make California a vibrant and thriving place to live again.
Surprise, we’re not #1, Connecticut is with $48,100 per taxpayer DEBT. But we are right below New York at #8 with $21,400 per taxpayer DEBT.
Alaska got the #1 spot for BEST state with an over $46k per taxpayer SURPLUS.
http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/31/report-five-states-highest-liability-per-taxpayer/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
The price of gas will go up between 8 and 12 cents a gallon in January due to AB 32. And that is just the beginning. It will go up every year after that due to AB 32.
As I am paying 8 to 12 cents more in January for gasoline and as I see the price of everything that uses or is created with fuel rise (which is pretty much everything) I will remember this:
“US physics professor: ‘Global warming is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life”
For reasons that will soon become clear my former pride at being an APS Fellow all these years has been turned into shame, and I am forced, with no pleasure at all, to offer you my resignation from the Society.
It is of course, the global warming scam, with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100058265/us-physics-professor-global-warming-is-the-greatest-and-most-successful-pseudoscientific-fraud-i-have-seen-in-my-long-life/
And the continuing blasts of hot air from Sacramento and DC contribute to even more water evaporation . . . .