Editorial: Rain dances are not a winning water strategy
Publisher’s note: This editorial is from the Dec. 22, 2013, Fresno Bee.
People are uttering the D-word again.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Jim Costa and many other lawmakers in the Democratic and Republican parties want Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state drought emergency.
The first 10 months of 2013 were the driest on record in California, dating to 1895, according to the National Climatic Data Center.
That record follows two years of dry conditions, so several Northern California reservoirs are now at less than 40 percent of capacity, including Shasta and Oroville at 37 percent, and Folsom at 21 percent.
We need more resivors in this state without question. Without more water storage options we are fooling ourselves and working with a system built in 1960. Isn’t that when another Brown was governor. Why are we in a drought every time a Brown is the Governor of this state?
The environmentalist have put us in this position by not letting dams or resivors being built. More water storage can provide clean power, drought relief, habitat for wildlife and recreation. All good things that the environmentalists hate because it may displace some small animal that no one has ever seen or cared about before.
Of please Rhino, dams do not make rain. Climate scientist predicted droughts in the West, and an expanding desert. Dams on the once mighty Colorado river have and will not stop drought. De-salination plants will be the only solution going forward. China has No environmental movement and look at their results.