Monday, August 10, 2009

And You Thought the Valley was Bad Now

The California Legislature has spent July in discussion about water laws when it's not brawling about the State budget. According to the SFGate blog, there is legislation passing through without public discussion that will have a huge impact on water supplies, and mainly concerns the conditions around the Bay-Delta water supply for our entire region.

This activity responds to the current political fracas around water supplies, but also reacts to the issue pictured above, which is a projection of July temperature increases out to the end of the century, which is part of a draft report (download pdf) from the California Resources Agency in response to a required Climate Adaptation Strategy from the Governor's office.

A report on the Delta Bill package now working its way through the legislature towards an August 13th public comment hearing is written by the Planning and Conservation League, which is the lobbying arm of the environmental movement. In addition to the Bay Delta specifics, it also makes very clear that California will need to develop very effective strategies in defense of global warming. As you can see, we will not have much water available to us in the future, and the central valley will probably have to be abandoned as a farming resource unless we turn to tequila production to replace our wine industry...