claire333 wrote:
I do not live in California, but I always thought it was the same thing over and over every year there. In the rainy seasons they scream...Water! Water! Flood! Flood! In the dry seasons they scream...Drought! Drought! Fire! Fire!
Fire and Flood Cycle Plagues CaliforniaThe primary problem is that water allocation here is run by politicians. Like all politicians, they promise what they can't deliver. With water that means that only rains of biblical proportions can satisfy the promised allocations. That simply isn't realistic, so in GOOD years everybody might get 60%. In dry years they're lucky to get 20%. This summer, they may get 0%.
Another problem is that the collapse of the Teton Dam in Idaho in 1976 has left a deep institutional memory at the federal agencies charged with running the water storage reservoirs. The Teton was built on the worst possible ground, but Washington began to fear that any and all dams may give way if there was too much water, even solid dams. So they draw the lake levels down way too low, and then they have no backup. The two things put together means that the state never has enough water.
And then you have too many people living among poorly managed forests that are full of dead trees, and living among the flammable chaparral of the southern deserts, and then they act surprised when a massive fire devours their houses. They defiantly rebuild, then ten years later another fire roars through. Etc.
I'm all too happy to hand the place back to Mexico if the Mexicans want it back as badly as they claim. They can have most of the rest of their old land back too, since most of it is uninhabitable without the manipulations of modern civilization. They can dislodge the Mormons and the Texans themselves, send the drug lords after them.
01 Mar 2009, 8:55 am
