Parched, but still hoping for a March Miracle

Agriculture, Environment, Wicked Weather, You have got to be kidding

Well, as a farmer, I have a lot of worries, but lately this is what has been keeping me up at night.

California teeters on the edge of the worst drought in the state’s history, officials said Thursday after reporting that the Sierra Nevada snowpack – the backbone of the state’s water supply – is only 61 percent of normal.

January usually douses California with about 20 percent of the state’s annual precipitation, but instead it delivered a string of dry, sunny days this year, almost certainly pushing the state into a third year of drought.

The arid weather is occurring as the state’s water system is under pressure from a growing population, an aging infrastructure and court-ordered reductions in water pumped through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta – problems that didn’t exist or were less severe during similar dry spells in the late 1970s and late 1980s.

It just kills me whenever I hear folks praising all the sunshine we’ve had. How can people be so out of touch?!?

3 thoughts on “Parched, but still hoping for a March Miracle”

  1. Well, because some of us come from states where all we see is water. That’s why we moved here. I didn’t come to get in touch with the ecology of the state. That’s a byproduct of living here. You can’t really help it because people just feel the need to inform you of these kinds of things (which I’m not against at all since it’s my primary source of learning). But, that being said, I came because it’s warm and sunny. :)

  2. Hey Nate,

    Ok, so I guess I’m informing you of “these things?” You should, at the very least, be aware that there are people who rely on the ecology of your state because they are growing the food you eat and the wine you drink.

    Living in an urban environment doesn’t exempt you. You are using resources to live just like the rest of us and those resources come from the aforementioned “ecology of your state.”

    Or, just wish for rain a little bit more and I’ll feel better.

    Thanks,
    ~d

  3. p.s. A really good book to read would be “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver or anything by Michael Pollan, if you’re in to those sorts of things . . .

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