This is really serious. California will run out of water within a year’s time! This should not be so surprising, considering the unseasonably high temperatures and dry conditions we’ve experienced consistently for some time now. Snow levels in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is below normal and as such, our water storage has been declining steadily for more than a decade. We are now in our forth-consecutive year of drought. We have to act immediately. Some suggestions include: mandatory water rationing, accelerating the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act of 2014, setting up a task force that focuses on solving the short and long term effect of our drought-prone state and getting the public to take ownership of this issue by being apart of the discussions and decisions.
Governor Brown recently unveiled a $1 billion drought plan, part of a voter approved bond, to upgrade water infrastructures and aid in recycling and desalination; still, this could take years. And there is reasonable concern that Californians are not as alarmed as they should be, especially considering this will have a profound effect us all in a relatively short period from now.
Sources: California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now? (latimes.com, March 12, 2015). $1 billion in California drought relief may just be the beginning (latimes.com, March 19, 2015).