Drought Affecting California's Economy

For this paper water structures and infrastructures were selected as focus points because the longer we wait to fix issues with them, the more expensive it will get, in other words, we are in a race against time. Studying the past it is easy to see how water availability made population explode in an area such as Southern California, where savvy marketing and great politics made it happen. Particularly, for Los Angeles and for the purposes of public narrative, Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert does a great job at understanding and identifying the politics and key figures in getting water to Los Angeles. Great hydrologic structures were created using both manpower and water politics. It is important to state that there are connections between water, politics, environment, and geography when analyzing what the biggest problems involving water structures and infrastructures (Reisner.) We must think of water as both a socio-political issue and a natural resource, whose fate is molded by the understanding of its connectivity to itself, man-made structures, geography, environment, and society. The classes taken in this program have taught us ideals that in order to become a great water resource manager, one must master the political and scientific knowledge to make decisions that are prosperous for society and the environment. Furthermore, one must know the United States’ hydrological history in order to gain manipulation upon the system that makes it both thrive and deteriorate.

Another challenge for people is when you have to transport water from one place to other places for them not to dry up like the Colorado River in El Mayor Mexico. For example the Colorado River some of its water is transported ported through, eastward across the Rocky Mountains to Denver and other cities in Colorado. The Colorado River Aqueduct carries water to metropolitan Los Angeles, and the Central Arizona Project supplies the Phoenix and Tucson areas.” The American canal provides water for the Imperial Valley of southern California, the imperial valley is very active for

William Mulholland had a vision that Los Angeles would one day grow in size , population , and power . His dream came true after he came up with a plan to change the Los Angeles water system forever. Certain that this would happen Mulholland shared his idea with Fredrick Eaton the mayor of Los Angeles hoping that he would approve. At that moment Eaton realized that the water could flow from the Owens River to Los Angeles through an aqueduct . With this idea Eaton sent posers to Owens Valley claiming that Owens Valley would gain power , water , and , money but instead the water was diverted to Los Angeles after the construction of the aqueduct was overseen by William Mulholland .

Overall, California should pass laws to manage the misuse of aquifers to be able to get the drought situation under control. This four year drought should have created some laws by the California government after this long. The citizens are suffering and need water, and the only way they’re going to get it is by California creating

Right now there is a drought in California and it is due to the water usage. Bach in the gold rush due to miners mining for gold, the rivers became polluted and freshwater became limited. After the earthquake in San Francisco that cause a big fire, San Francisco was in dire need of water so they made a plan to built a dam in Hetch Hetchy. Many people argue as to whether to build the dam and in the end the dam was built and that has shape California’s water system hugely. The use of water in California now has not been in the best interest of the state because The amount of water use for agriculture is disportional, laws are making us use more water than needed and the Indians and environment are being harm.

What that says about California’s ground water as a whole is that it is depleting. Ground water has always been an alternative source of water in times of drought, however the continuous use of ground water is having a negative impact on the California landscape. For instance, an article posted on Thinkprogress.org, discussing the, issues of ground water and drilling concluded that, “Deep drilling is beginning to mar the California landscape, lowering water tables and causing the ground to sink” (Geiling).

Vectren Corp. (Underground Construction, 2014) The Author explained in the article, that the plan is to spend some $865 million dollar on the construction of the 1000 mile pipeline. It is said that is will be checked and examined, with the highest federal and state regulations of safety in my in mind. (Underground Construction, 2014) It has been stated that they will install new pipes, to ensure the safety of the plant given the amount pipe that will need to be installed. (Underground Construction,

Would you like to go without a shower for five months? California right now are in an unfavorable and enormous drought. As a result, many citizens don’t have water to drink water, flush the toilet, take a shower, and wash the dishes. Also, Farmers don’t have enough water to harvest crops so if they can’t harvest crops, we won’t have enough food. Therefore, I support the regulations that allow the California Farm Bureau to control groundwater for all citizens.

fields to pipelines in Illinois” (1)had been laid out. The big problem with the plan of the pipeline

A second aqueduct was added in Los Angeles in 1970. This aqueduct began south of the Owens, and just much cheaper

Kharl argues that in the case of the Sierra Nevada’s Owens Valley, located approximately 250 miles north Los Angeles, the valley’s agricultural shareholders and the City of Los Angeles originally sought an agreement that reserved sufficient water for valley residents to maintain their ranching life-style while concurrently exporting the valley’s surplus to the soon-to-be developed San Fernando Valley. Such an agreement would allow rural users to maintain their ranches while concurrently allowing Los Angeles to grow. In 1913, as plans for the Los Angeles Aqueduct finally came to fruition with water flowing from the valley to the basin, years of effort ended with both parties unable to agree to an acceptable division of those waters with the

Fresh water is a valuable resource in Texas and it is anticipated that over the next fifty years supply will cease to meet demand. The current state water plan has many inadequacies and is not considered to be very sustainable, cost-effective, or environmentally-sound. Basically for an estimated fifty three billion dollars, the plan proposes to build twenty six new reservoir sites and a series of long-haul water pipelines which would have environmentally damaging impacts (Hardberger). The state water plan does not account for some items that many environmentalists believe to be critical and mistakenly assumes that we will continue to use water in the same way for the next fifty years (Hardberger). The 2012 Texas State Water Plan should be

“Infrastructure is the four-syllable jawbreaker that governments use to describe the concrete, stone, steel, wires and wood that Americans rely on every day but barely notice until something goes awry (Kelderman).” Due to the state of the economy many lawmakers put the money need to keep infrastructure properly taken care of into things like defense. The federal Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which makes low interest loans to clean up or protect water supplies, has shrunk from more than $3 billion in 1990 to roughly $1 billion in 2007 (Kelderman). The report also suggests that there is an $11 billion dollar shortfall annually needed to bring facilities up to current federal water regulations. As stated in the article “ The State of the Union-Crumbling’, the nation is spending less than 40 percent of the $225 billion needed annually for the next 50 years to maintain the current system of roads, rails and bridges and build enough transportation capacity for a growing population.

The Los Angeles Aqueduct pumps some of the water from the Owens River, about two hundred billion gallons a year to LA. The management of the water is divided among multiple basins and water rights holders along the way, which makes it a bit difficult to fully utilize all the water sources. Because of our current drought and light snow in the mountains these past years; we will most likely resort to the Colorado River for our source of water. Los Angeles has implemented several ways to become more sustainable by using the urban water cycle, which captures, stores, and reuse the water that the city already uses. The Los Angeles Aqueduct delivers is water by gravity, with fourteen hydropower plants, five storage reservoirs, and 142 tunnels.

California Environmental Water Caucus was formed in 1991 to “achieve comprehensive, sustainable water management solutions for all Californians” stated in their official website, ewccalifornia.org. In their website they currently oppose the Tunnels Project because the construction plans does not allow water to flow “for the health of both the Delta and the Bay”