November 24, 2016

Current drought conditions

blog-drought
VIA RICHARD BRENNEMAN
CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE

 

 

4 comments:

attM said...

As they say in baseball, "you can look it up," but California's irrigation water depends on a U.S. Supreme Court decision rendered in 1963 which allocates 4.3 maf (i.e., million acre feet) of water out of the bed of the Colorado River annually to California. But the same decision also allocates another 12.2 of the 16.5 maf of water allocated annually to the six remaining states of the Colorado River drainage basin and Mexico. There has never been 16.5 maf of water flow annually in the bed of the Colorado River since records have first been kept.
You figure it out.

Anonymous said...

attM,
You overstate the role Colorado River supply plays in Californian agriculture. The state is more highly dependent on the resources developed through the SWP, the California State Water Project. Your timeline citing 1963 is partially correct, as that's when construction on the California Aqueduct began. However that is merely one component of an elaborate system of water delivery systems throughout the entire state.

Matt said...

Actually, Anonymous, I have overstated not a single word. I cited a Supreme Court decision by specific date. It is not "partially correct." It is precisely correct. I cited the precise volume of water out of the bed of the Colorado River to which California is entitled. I cited the specific volumes of water to which other governmental/administrative jurisdictions are entitled according to the 1963 decision.
I stated specifically that there has never been a volume of water equal to the Supreme Court's arbitrary allocation since records have been kept. My reference to 1963 had nothing whatever to do with construction of the California Aquaduct. That is your pedantic interjection. Again, Anonymous, it's just like baseball. You can look it up.

Greg Gerritt said...

California may get water from several irrigation mega projects, and underground fossil water, but the allocation for waters from the Colorado River were made based on the wettest year in the lst century and the amount of water in the river has never again reached the allocation figure. it is why many years the coorado river does not reach the ocean. it took some sort of legal process to make sure Mexico gets its allocation.

Matt is entirely correct.