In his 1998 environmental history of Southern California, Ecology of Fear, UCI radical historian Mike Davis argued that one of the major ecological threats to SoCal was massive drought. He cited recent scholarship that showed medieval California saw the Sierra snowpack drop to 25% of its norm (the 1986-93 drought saw the snowpack at 65%) for periods of over 200 years.
At the time some critics said Davis was being overblown and apocalyptic. But today’s LA Times suggests that not only was Davis right, but that we may be on the verge of such a megadrought:
The driest periods of the last century – the Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the droughts of the 1950s – may become the norm in the Southwest United States within decades because of global warming, according to a study released Thursday.
The research suggests that the transformation may already be underway. Much of the region has been in a severe drought since 2000, which the study’s analysis of computer climate models shows as the beginning of a long dry period.
As the article goes on to note, this will inevitably lead to more water wars, both among Southwestern states, as well as intrastate battles between agriculture and urbanites. These battles have, in fact, already begun. San Diego has been battling the Imperial Irrigation District for years over allocation rights, as SD needs more water for its sprawl and the Imperial Valley needs water to continue irrigating the desert. Recently SoCal water districts began paying farmers along the Colorado near Blythe to let their fields lie fallow in order to send more water to the Inland Empire. Monterey County is seeing increasingly intense battles between farmers of the “Salad Bowl of the World” and developers; and the Monterey Peninsula has been under severe water restrictions for 12 years.
Back in January a state water official was quoted in the Chronicle as stating that since the last major NorCal drought, 1976-77, the demand for water has soared. For those of you who don’t remember (or like me weren’t even alive) then, the 1977 drought saw such things like Marin County running a hose across the Richmond Bridge to tap EBMUD’s reservoirs since theirs had run dry. Obviously that will be less possible given the rapid growth in the East Bay since 1977.
Desalination is also mentioned in the article, and the authors (Alan Zarembo and Bettina Boxall) correctly note that CA will come under intense pressure to build such plants. Monterey Bay is witnessing this firsthand. The Monterey Peninsula has been under strict water limits since the state ordered them to stop pumping the Carmel River dry in 1995. To develop an alternative source of water, the region has begun planning a desalination plant right on the bay at Moss Landing. The environmental concerns are serious – after all, the entire Monterey Bay and the coastline for a hundred miles in either direction is federally protected. But it seems there is no other option.
A “permanent drought” will cause all kinds of problems for California. Mike Davis was absolutely right to strike an apocalyptic tone. Sure, it could be worse, we could be in Vegas or Phoenix…but CA is going to have to make some very hard decisions, and some significant lifestyle changes, if it is going to weather this crisis.