California Takes Water Straight to the Bank
Citing two years of low precipitation and barren water reserves, California officials have announced a plan to purchase water from Sacramento Valley farmers and sell it to Southern state agencies - a program that’s been dormant in the Golden state for 17 years. The fear of yet another drought this year is pushing the programs revival: statewide precipitation this year has only been 45 percent of average, making it the fourth driest year of the 114 years on record.
“We’re hoping for the best, that we’re going to have a good storm season and be able to meet the needs of California,” said state Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow. “However, we would be negligent if we didn’t prepare for the worst.”
This “water bank” was last used in 1992, during the final year of a six year drought. Those that sold water were in districts holding generous, century-old water rights on the Sacramento, Yuba and Feather rivers. The buyers were urban communities in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas. The largest buyer in ‘92 was the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Schwarzenegger officially declared a drought this past June, stating that nine counties in the farm-rich Central Valley are in a state of emergency due to low water supplies after two years of below-average rainfall. In the Northern Sierra, this spring and summer were the driest on record since 1921. Additionally, 2007 and 2008 made up the ninth driest two-year period in 88 years of record keeping for the Northern Sierra.
