kind of funny that I have seen this subject come up on four other sites I frequent over the last month, I still see only one long term solution, Desalination plants for drinking water.
What falls from the sky needs to go to the crops. The rest of the story only gets worse for California, California's draw on the Colorado river will be reduced as with the other states on the lower basin of the Colorado, further it is likely that California will have to replace the overages it has drawn from the Colorado river over the last decade.
The reason I mention this is that I believe that California's water problem is not just California's, it is the west's problem, every state that draws from the Colorado river's problem, so it seems reasonable to me that the west needs to help pay for the solution, since every state will benefit from California's ability to reduce its draw from the one river that supports 7 states and 2 countries in the west, any drop of water not taken by California supports more then 1/8 of the country.
Many countries are using Desalination plants, it is time for us to. To date California is the only State to use its allotment of Colorado River water according to the Colorado River Compact of 1922, it has actually used more, taking other states surplus allotments under agreements that the overages will be replaced, problem is the Colorado River Compact was estimated during an abnormal wet time frame that skewed the yearly averages at the time, now we have a better knowledge, more information and can make better calculations as to the actual amount of water provided by the Colorado, and that means that California will lose about 1 million acre feet of water this year from the Colorado River according to the Federal Government.
Fortunately this years snowpack in Colorado is roughly 130% of average, that is enough water to raise lake Powell by 35 feet, roughly 1/3 of what is needed to bring it to full pool, and we are just now entering the time when Colorado begins to get its heavy moisture laden spring snow, when the mountains really begin to add huge amounts of water to the already heavy snowpack, so for us its a pretty exciting time, hopefully we continue the pace and pack a huge amount of water in Powell. What this means for California is anyones guess though, I don't have the foggiest idea, everything I hear is that this water will stay in Powell, the lower basin consumers are on their own but I find that hard to believe, I have to believe that they will add water to Mead but I don't know how much, California's draw on the Colorado River supports such a large population, not just California, we have to do something but California has to help itself also, this is far from over..
