The Sierras provide the state with the majority of our water.  So, our annual snowpack data becomes hugely important.  The last few years have been terrible for the ski business as well as our reservoirs. And this year won’t help either:

Across the 400-mile-long mountain range, the snowpack is holding about 81 percent of its usual water content, according to the fourth Sierra snow survey conducted by the Department of Water Resources.

The department’s snow chief, Frank Gehrke, says the snowpack needed to be between 120 percent and 130 percent of average by the beginning of April to replenish the state’s key reservoirs. (SF Chronicle 4/2/09

The impacts of this data will be swift and long-reaching.  Famers are already scheduled to get only 20% of the water they are normally allocated.  Fields will be left to die to an even greater extent than they already are.  We are in very real danger of losing a large portion of our agricultural base in the next 3-5 years. To put it simply, if we do not get substantially above average snowfall next year, small farmers won’t last and even corporate farms will be struggling.

The news is even worse for the southern Sierra, where the snow pack levels hit only 77% of average.  The question of where SoCal’s water comes from in the new environment keeps raising its head.  We have made several attempts at addressing these questions, but so far we have not actually reached any solutions.  Even the special session on water came up with precious little in the way of concrete actions. While we do have some bond money outstanding for water projects, many are years away and perhaps not even feasible any more.

Whether we need additional water storage sites or other techniques inevitably brings up the many complex environmental questions.  How do we preserve endangered species? Do we really want to dam up rivers and prevent additional salmon runs? And will the dams ruin the beauty of some of these regions?

So far nobody has really addressed these questions, and until we do, we are living with an axe over heads.  California can not survive just holding onto our old water infrastrucutre, it will not meet the needs of a stagnant state, let alone growth, with these ever-decreasing snow levels.

Just some more happy news from your friends at Calitics!