Last winter, California was supposed to bear the brunt of a “Godzilla El Niño” that would go a long way towards alleviating the drought here. Instead, a host of atmospheric conditions largely sent storms that most meteorologists predicted would hit California to the Pacific Northwest. As such, Northern California, Oregon and Washington experienced the majority of the storms while Southern California largely remained warm and dry. The winter storms helped to alleviate the drought in Oregon, but not completely erase it. According to the US Drought Monitor, extreme drought covered 67.29% of Oregon a year ago and 67.96% of Washington State. Currently, 32.78% of Oregon and 92.09% of Washington are drought free. Only 2.63% of Oregon’s land area has severe drought; Washington has none. During the winter of 2015-16, storms that many meteorologists initially believed would “bust the drought” in California eventually tracked to the Pacific Northwest. From December 1, 2015 to March 1, 2016, Seattle received more than 25 inches of rain – one of the soggiest winters on record. However, the lingering effects of the drought remain in both states. Low reservoirs, drought-affected forests and tough growing conditions have all presented challenges to the Pacific Northwest. Continue reading
Category Archives: Economic Impact
Are There Ways to Pay for Water Infrastructure in California and Conserve Water?
While the traditional calendar may still say that there are three more months left in 2016, water year 2016 is now in the books, ending on September 30th. While some parts of California had an about average winter in terms of precipitation (particularly in northern California), other areas did not fare as well. Unfortunately, the Golden State begins the 2017 water year in a sixth straight year of drought. According to the most recent US Drought Monitor, although levels of exceptional drought have dropped from 44.84% at the start of the calendar year to 21.04% currently, 100% of the state still has some form of drought. California is one of only four states in the US with any exceptional drought conditions. (Interestingly, Georgia, Alabama and a small part of Tennessee are the other states currently experiencing exceptional drought.) Continue reading
California’s Water Conservation Regulations and the Law of Unintended Consequences Part 2—Economic Impacts
What are the unintended economic impacts of California’s water conservation regulations?
One must only watch the evening news to surmise that unintended consequences are frequently economic in nature. The prices of oil (and therefore, gasoline), coffee or any other tradeable commodity rises and falls according to policy implementation and political decisions.[1] The water industry recently saw this affect when the Cadiz Inc. stock price plunged following a controversial decision by the Bureau of Land Management declaring that the proposed use of a railroad right-of-way for the Cadiz Water Project “does not derive from or further a railroad purpose.”
When it comes to California’s state-imposed conservation, the unintended economic impacts are those things that affect the pocketbooks of residents and businesses and the viability and vibrancy of communities.
Report on California’s Critically Overdrafted Groundwater Basins has few Surprises but Opens Discussion for Additional Solutions
Land subsidence is not a new topic of discussion in California. It has been a part of California’s agricultural history ever since farmers introduced large-scale wells to pump groundwater from the Central Valley’s aquifers. In a very interesting photo, USGS Scientist Dr. Joseph F. Poland stood next to a telephone pole near Mendota, CA in 1977 to show the effects of land subsidence on the valley floor. As you can see in the linked picture, he put signs on the telephone pole noting where the land would have been in 1925, 1955, and 1977. Dr. Poland’s analysis determined that the valley floor in that area fell approximately 8.93 meters (over 29 feet!) between 1925 and 1977 when he took that picture. Unfortunately, after a century of pumping in the Central Valley, little has yet changed to make the process more sustainable. Continue reading
