California’s four year drought is finally starting to get national attention, and since other people are chiming in with their two cents, I figure I will too.  I’m an authority, after all – I’m a geologist, I’ve studied hydrogeology, California’s Central Valley is my home, and I lived a quarter of a century in a place with lots of water: Oregon.

There are some misconceptions about California’s drought that need to be cleared up.  I’ll often hear people chiding Californians, saying, “Well, that’s what you get for using up all the water!”  Here’s the thing – the drought is not the fault of Californians.  People are not to blame, at all, in fact.  There simply is no water.  It isn’t that California has used it all up.  If there is rainfall, and melting snow, Californians use the water.  If there is no rainfall or snow to melt, as is the case now, there is no water to be used.  That’s what a drought is.  It’s a change in the climate for a period of time that has nothing to do with how much water is used by people.  Now, one could possibly argue that the drought is caused by climate change, and therefore the drought is man-made, but our climate models are not sophisticated enough to tie individual drought years to an overall trend of anthropogenic global warming.  So, yeah, all we can say is the drought is natural and that’s kind of tough shit.

Unfortunately, the state’s response to the drought makes it feel like the people of California are to blame.  Recently, tougher restrictions on water usage have been mandated by the state government.  Those mandates are for residents and business to use less water.  The problem with restricting residents is, individual residents barely use any water when compared to other sectors.  In California, a whopping EIGHTY PERCENT of all man-used water is used for agriculture.  That means that the remaining 20% is shared by heavy industry, commercial, and residential.  Now, I understand that every little bit helps, and I am not against conserving water.  However, people need to understand just how little an effect not watering the lawn will have.  Plus, there isn’t a whole lot more conservation that can happen. Californians have already done a tremendous job in cutting water use over the last 20 years.  In 1990 the per capita water use was 232 gallons per day, while in 2010 it was 178 gallons per day.  Most of this drop is attributed to things like low-flow toilets and shower heads.  So, yes, conservation can work, the problem is residential use is just a drop in the bucket.  And no one wants to put water restrictions on agriculture or industry, which brings up the next point…

Agriculture is the big water user is California.  And that is what makes the drought more than just California’s problem.  You see, California has a huge economy.  Not only is it the largest economy of any US state, by far, but it is the 10^th largest economy in the world.  A large portion of that economy is dependent on agriculture and the vast majority of California’s agricultural products are exported to the rest of the United States.  Over 90% of America’s artichokes, walnuts, kiwis, celery and garlic come from California.  California is America’s biggest producer of dairy and dairy products.  California is #1 for spinach, cauliflower, and carrots.  And the list goes on.  So, remember, if you eat fruits, vegetables, or dairy products and you live in the US, you are contributing to California’s water usage.  And it’s not just domestic agriculture: California makes up almost 15% of all US international agricultural exports.  So a drought that affects California’s agricultural output will in turn affect the entire US economy.  So, clearly, it’s important that we do all we can to limit the damage that the drought has on agriculture.  But…

There is no easy political solution to the drought.  That’s the rub of it.  I know people love to argue and they want to come up with solutions for this, but the state government cannot legislate precipitation.  No matter how much water residents conserve, it isn’t going to have a large enough effect to stop the drought.  That isn’t to say there are no solutions at all to this issue.  The most realistic solution is probably a pipeline-aqueduct that would run from the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border, along the seafloor of the Pacific Ocean all the way to Southern California and the Central Valley.  The pipeline could transport millions of acre-feet of water, would cost something on the order of $1 trillion, and take an act of Congress to build.  And that’s the most realistic plan to solve the drought.

So, short of that, California is fucked until Mother Nature rains on us.