California Water Crisis Essay

As you are fully aware, California has been in a drought for over four years and the declining water level is a growing issue. A water analysis performed by the City of Fresno clearly reveals that in the past 80 years,

The upper basin states (including Colorado) were allocated a much greater percentage of the water than the lower basin states, while the upper basin states were developing at a much slower rate than those in the lower basin, notably California. Nevada (as of 1997) anticipated being unable to rely just on this water by 2015, while in 1997 California was already exceeding its originally allocated supply by diverting unused water from the upper basin states (Arizona.edu, 1997). It goes without saying that this legislation from the early twentieth century is not going to be sufficient in coming years as the development of these regions has progressed at a much faster rate than originally anticipated, and it is the responsibility of state and federal governments, water management companies, as well as appeals from farmers and non-farming residents alike to come to an agreement on how to apportion water and how to implement secondary hydration plans due to the rapidly declining resource that the once-magnificent Colorado River was able to supply us

The almost total development of California was made possible only because of two main water sources: surface water, or water that gathers on the ground, such as rivers and streams; and the groundwater, which is pumped out from the ground. The area also ignites interest on producing a small amount of desalinated water, which is still too expensive to be widely applied.

Yet, humans have limited control on natural events, so this only reinforces the importance of managing water wisely. Recently California’s government has begun to focus more on sustaining and restoring the water supply. Dale Kasler (2016) articulates in his article some of the steps they have decided to make to solve this serious issue. The government has made the following investments: “$415 million for watershed restoration and other environmental aid for Lake Tahoe; up to $335 million for two proposed reservoirs in California, including the Sites reservoir north of Sacramento; $880 million for flood-control projects on the American and Sacramento rivers in Sacramento; and $780 million for flood-control projects in West Sacramento” (para. 10). This could be the first step to restoring the water to California. But these

How do we halt a seemingly endless drought? California has many varying climates from the chilly Sierra Mountains to the parched deserts of Death Valley, but today they all have one thing in common: they are in a drought. The California drought has been a creeping phenomenon that has taken a hold of the state for the past five years. There has been little rain, soaring temperatures, and dropping water levels. The lack of water lead to severe water cuts, the spread of wildfire, and thirsty crops. In order to end the drought, California must conserve water.

Now Arizona is not the typical state that has a lot of precipitation and rain yearly, but it depends off other reservoirs, lakes, and rivers located in other states to for their water supply. After searching and conducting research, it was found that the main impact Arizona is suffering from the drought is decreasing water levels is from Lake Mead (located in Nevada), and the Colorado River, which flows North to South through several U.S. states. Research and data found shows that the Bureau of Reclamation releases water into the Colorado River below Lake Mead to meet water demands of downstream users in Arizona and California, and also to satisfy treaty obligations to the Republic of Mexico. Findings by the Bureau of Reclamation show that Lake Mead water level’s peaked at 1,214.26 in January of 2000. Almost a decade and a half later, recorded in January 2014, the water levels of Lake Mead are now 1,108.75 (Smith, 2014). This findings show that Arizona is continually getting a decline in water from Lake Mead every month that passes, affects thousands of residents living in Arizona, which already lacks water to begin with. If this continues, this can cause many civilians to both stand by and bare the drought as long as they can, or decide to move out of Arizona to states with a better water supply, so they won’t be burdened with the continual burden of having to ration and conserve water. The state has

On March 27, 2014, Wade Graham of the San Francisco Chronicle reported “The Water Revolution California needs.” California is having a severe drought. Wade Graham tells his readers that California is in a serious water crisis. The state of California needs to make strict changes to how water is being distributed amongst farmers and residents. Before all of California’s ecological system is destroyed. Wade Graham believes that water should be priced higher; that way people aren’t wasting water. Water is a limited resource that should never be wasted, and is probably California’s most valuable resource. Unfortunately, many people waste water; instead of conserve water especially when we live in the state of California where we are subject to

The California Water Wars were a series of conflicts between the city of Los Angeles and farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley. As Los Angeles grew in the late 19th-century, it started to outgrow its water supply. Fred Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles, realized that water could flow from Owens Valley to Los Angeles via an aqueduct. The aqueduct construction was overlooked by William ​Mulholland and was finished in 1913. The water rights were acquired through political fighting and deceiving people. Z alley, into the aqueduct. Mono Lake's ecosystem for migrating birds was threatened by dropping water levels. Between 1979 and 1994, David Gaines and the Mono Lake Committee engaged in litigation with Los Angeles. The litigation forced Los Angeles

California has just come out of it’s 5th year of drought. In the last 5 years California has had record high temperatures and record low rain and snow. Even though they say the drought is over our groundwater levels are still down because of overpumping. Overpumping has been happening for 50 to 70 years. To me that is a really long time to overuse our water. Groundwater pumping is taking water from the ground. Most of the people using groundwater are farmers so their crops can grow in dry conditions (drought). Groundwater pumping is taking away from future water reserves which is the water we have to use during a drought. If we keep pumping groundwater out of the ground and don’t put it back in to replace it then it is a very bad use of a very valuable resource. California is lucky that state lawmakers are now beginning to try and regulate how groundwater is monitored and managed. The point of doing this is to try to find a better way to use our valuable resource.Fresh water is one of the basic needs of all living things.California needs to limit the amount of groundwater used by recycling wastewater and

In the article “Richard Goode: California drought crisis is everyone’s fault,” Richard Goode (2015), states that California does not have enough water to provide and everyone is responsible for it. California’s water problem has been an ongoing situation for years. Hydrologists have predicted and advised us about the water deficit in California, but everyone chose to ignore it. California has been pumping its water straight from the aquifer for years and now it is becoming dry. An enormous amount of water is being pumped each year which causes the water table to go low. When the water table is low, wells go dry and people are left without water. Richard Goode mentions, that California will be in a drought until we are able to receive the same amount of groundwater that we withdraw. However, we might be too late.

Due to the lack of rain in the past few years, and particularly in the last few months, California faces severe drought. This is the worst drought in more than one hundred years. The impact of California drought affects community, agriculture, organic ranchers, and dairy farmers. Because of these facts, the United States must rethink the way it uses water. Californians alone are asked to reduce their water usage by twenty percent to prevent water waste.

Is California becoming a desert? Is it using too much? For the past few years California has been in a severe drought which has gotten the people to become desperate and use groundwater to supply themselves. The Farmers of the state are drilling deeper and deeper to obtain more water since California doesn’t have any laws from stopping them. The citizens want the state government to establish laws to stop the farmers from taking anymore water.

Currently California is facing a water shortage. The issue has been addressed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in February. He called for all state agencies to find the way to help in the statewide water shortage. This is California’s third consecutive year of drought and last spring and summer was the worst of the season because it had the lowest amount of water recorded and California’s reservoirs were at their lowest point as well which did not help in the water shortage. Many agencies have been acquired to find possible solutions to the water shortage, the Department of Water Resources has been directed to find solutions to the problem as well as asking people to conserve water.

Water is a precious resource. It is the lifeblood of every living thing on Earth. California is in the midst of a water crisis. Combined with a three (plus) year drought and many people moving into the state there is not enough water to support the crops the farmers need to grow. There is also a tiny little fish that is causing a mess in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Delta water pumps were turned off to prevent the extinction of the tiny little fish. Some farmers have to let their fields sit idle for the fall and spring planting season. This is causing a lot of problems in California. The pumps need to be turned back on. The needs of the people should come before that of a fish.

California has been in a drought for about 4 years now and it has been considered the most severe drought in the last 15 years. The California drought has been causing multiple ongoing problems for the last few years. The state of California has tried to take actions toward ending the drought, but the efforts put forth are clearly not enough to end this drought. The main focus in ending the drought has been water conservation, but many California resident are taking the seriousness of the drought too lightly. The drought has already caused several problems, for example water shortages, dying crops, and wildfires all across the state. If serious actions towards ending the drought are not taken soon, California will continue to surface or may get worse. There are a few ideas underway to try and end the drought in California such as, desalination, wastewater recycling, ground water digging, and the main focus water conservation. All of the solutions to ending the drought will cost a good amount of money, so the fact of the matter is which idea would be most efficient and less costly.