How Water Is An Important For Our Lives

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

After more than five years of drought in California, we are just now beginning to see an above-average precipitation,and this is leaving many to ask, "is the drought over?" This last drought was one of the worsts droughts California has experienced in history and it left many panicked and trying to come up with solutions. “Governor Jerry Brown even made one of the first cutback to farmers ' water rights since 1977, and ordered cities and towns to cut water use by as much as 36 percent ” (Zamora,et al..) Overall California has 39 million residents and on top of that California also grows an unbelievable amount of

Californians are being heavily fined for using a certain amount of water a month, which impacts the daily lives of everyone. Water is a natural resource that is crucial to everyone’s survival. Whether if it’s being used for cooking, showering, gardening, washing your car or just simply drinking purposes; water is a necessity for everyone. Though the bill has not yet been passed by congress and officially has not become a law, the issue still remains on the table. The drought in California has taken a massive toll on agriculture, the environment and infrastructure. The drought is on its route to damage California’s climate change. In the past three consecutive years the average rain fall has drastically decreased, and the winter temperatures have increased. Since majority of California’s water comes from the Western Rocky Mountains, the water supply there is dropping resulting in more strict laws and regulations on how much water can be consumed by the average

Have you thought about the importance of water recently? Water provides many things to people, from green lawns to nutritious food. An event that may have spurred these thoughts is the drought in California. They are struggling because there is simply not enough water in California to go around for all of its uses. Measures have been taken to conserve water, but cutbacks have been made on everything, even the giant industry of California agriculture. More water should be devoted to agricultural uses instead of residential uses in California for the following reasons:

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.

California can meet their water needs by using this precious resource much more efficiently than they are presently doing. California has been raising sustainable awareness by adding bulb-lit freeway signs every 10 miles along California Interstate 5 that say “Serious drought, help save water”, they have also printed placards that are posted in sparsely blooming almond and cherry groves, asparagus fields, and mile upon mile of empty dry cracked or tilled earth that warn people to use less water. As California continues to grow, this puts more pressure on their limited water supplies. California needs to figure out a way to manage their groundwater basins to secure the future of agriculture life.

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.

In recent years, California’s water shortage has been an issue and in 2014 an alarming driest historical year has impacted the state in different ways. Because of the lack of rainfall and snow, California’s reservoirs are running insignificant water basins below their capacity. While water shortages are experienced slowly and throughout a length of time, the harshest impacts are noticeable in areas that produce California’s food where wells are used as resource for water in agriculture, and residential areas. Though, most agree the drought is an issue some do not agree. To understand the circumstances, this paper will look at the drought’s impacts on California’s economy for agricultural, famers, and consumers. Also, this written work will examine the environmental consequences of surface water obtainability, and the areas that have encounter the most devastating affects. For most, this paper will examine the allocations of the governor’s drought declaration, and the strategies used by residents to conserver water.

“California’s water future is increasingly uncertain,” says Heather Cooley, in her article California Needs Better Water Management and Pricing Policies (Source A). Agriculture uses 80 percent of California’s constrained water supply and proves to be the primary source of California’s drought. There has been no permanent and largely successful conservation effort to save water. However, with a reformed water management and conservation system, California’s largest industry, agriculture, can thrive while saving water at the same time.

No Californian is impervious to the California drought. The Bay Area, Sierra Mountains, and the Central Valley have all reported record drought conditions. Even with this obvious evidence that has been brought forth for about four years now, farmers have been continuously taking local citizen’s water for their own orchards. The California legislature needs to come to the decision that caps need to be put on large water users so the preexisting residents may receive water.

There is no reason to wait until the day comes that there is not any water coming out of the showers or sinks in people’s homes. It is time to not only begin recognizing how severe California’s drought is, but trying to stop it by conserving more water. There is many reasons that California is in a water drought, but some of the main causes include not getting enough rainfall, over usage of water in homes, and over usage of water outside of homes. People should have a limit on the amount of water they can use within a day and be able to see how much they have used already. If people are able to physically see how much water they wasted then they might stop using so much. In order to conserve more water and prevent California’s drought to worsen

to follow. The Office of Governor Edmund G. Brown (ca.gov, 2015) noted that if everything goes to plan the state could save about 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months. The water shortage the state is facing is unprecedented. This is why is it is crucial for resident to follow any rules or regulations that are mandated by the state and counties. The State Water Resources Control Board (2015) has implemented new emergency water regulations to be put into effect for residents, business and suppliers (SWRCB, 2015). The snow pack of 2014 was measured here in California’s and was found to be the lowest snowpack in 65 years (ca.gov, 2015). In the state of California snow is crucial because once the snowmelts it provide enormous amount of water supply. In the Governors executive order he announced certain plans to be implemented to conserve water. The goal of the Governors executive order is to make California a state that can adapt to less water usage (SWRCB, 2015). The order in which Brown announced to save more water will include: the replacement of 50 million square feet of lawns across the state with landscaping that needs less water, a consumer rebate program for those who use more water and energy efficient appliances, public properties must make cuts in water use, new homes and developments to use water-efficient drip irrigation systems, and to ban watering in urban areas (ca.gov, 2015). Brown in his order

For at least the past four years, California has been in a drought. Since it has been so long of a drought, officials are finally starting to encourage people to diminish their usage of water. When the encouragements are not working, they use force and statewide restrictions are put into place. In an article titled ¨The Wrong Way to Think about California Water¨ by Michael Hiltzik, the author rants on Californians for the amount of water that they use daily, yearly, and constantly. However, the argument only supports one side.

The governor of california Governor Brown has set ‘‘forced water restrictions’’ to reduce water use by 25% but, did we meet this goal? This article does not specifically answer this question that of course many people have.

On April 1st, 2015 California Governor Jerry Brown passed an executive order calling for the reduction of water use in urban areas by 25 percent (average across all counties) relative to 2013 data (Bechtel). These restrictions did not include agricultural water uses despite Agriculture accounting for approximately 80 percent of water use within the state (Bechtel). On June 12, 2015 restrictions were placed on agricultural use that affected up to 114 senior water right holders (Sanders). These restrictions forbid farmers from using rivers that have been severely diminished by the drought as a source of water. However, they can still legally pump groundwater on their property and purchase water in the open market (Sanders). This means they don’t necessarily have to reduce the amount of water they use, it only strips them of one (for some farmers very important) water resource. Supporters of this order include State Water officials, State Senators Jim Nielson and Fran Pavley among other representatives, California farmers, Senior water rights holders, and of course Governor Jerry Brown (Stevens). Felicia Marcus of the State water Resources Control Board states, “Asking people to cut back, take shorter showers and put their lawn on a water diet is very different than fields that are fallow and thousands of people out of work” (Stevens).