Signing a $1.1 trillion “infrastructure” bill Aug. 24, 78-year-old President Joe Biden promised that he and his Democrat colleagues would add another $3.5 trillion in infrastructure spending in the near future. But in the $1.1 trillion bill or the expected $ 3.5 trillion bill not one penny is allocated to fix California and the Western states’ historic drought, leaving reservoirs drying up at record rates. Whether Mother Nature obliges with a strong rainy season and snow-pack this winter is anyone’s guess. What’s known for sure is that the West is vulnerable to droughts when many parts of the country are drowning in water. Nothing should be done on the next infrastructure bill until a sizable portion is allocated to fixing the Western states drought problems. Creating systems of aqueducts and reservoirs has been done for centuries but needs a major overhaul in the next infrastructure bill.
Fresh water rivers, including the mighty Mississippi, dumps it’s fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico, lost forever, when the precious resource could be easily recycled in as series of pipes and aqueducts and that could direct fresh water back to the Western states. There’s simply no excuse that any infrastructure bill doesn’t include fixing the water shortage in Western states, especially in California where county water districts are panicking, telling residents to take draconic water conservation and rationing. “The board’s action urges residents, businesses and agencies in the Metropolitan’s 5,200 square mile service area to lover the region’s water demand to stave off more severe actions in the future, which could included restricting water supplies to Metropolitan’s 26-members agencies,” said a Metropolitan Water District report. Places like Ventura and San Bernardino counties face “exceptional drought.”
Low snow-pack in the Sierra Nevada and Colorado Rockies have contributed to the low reservoir levels across California’s Central Valley and to the chain of reservoirs along the Colorado River. Infrastructure planners must get together with the States Water Resources boards to figure out how to get fresh river water from Canada, Washington State and Oregon from draining into the Pacific Ocean, where the valuable resource instantly becomes salt water, subject to reclamation only from desalination, the most expensive way of creating fresh water from the ocean. In British Columbia, the Frazier River drains into Puget Sound, lost forever, when a reclamation system could easily feed pipes and then a series of aqueducts leading from Washington State, through Oregon to California’s drought-stricken Central Valley and then into Southern California and other destinations.
When it comes to the Midwest or South where rainwater and rivers are bountiful, the same thing could be done to divert fresh water from east to west, saving the precious frest waterd before it’s lost in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. officials declared the first-ever water shortage on the Colorado River, an ominous sign for cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix whose water supply largely comes from the Colorado River. Ventura County’s Calleguas Municipal Water District have declared a water shortage, requiring residents to conserve water. Fifty of California’s 58 counties are now in drought conditions around the state while rivers around the Midwest and South are overrunning their banks due to excessive rainfall. No mention has been made in the first or second infrastructure bills about dealing with severe drought conditions in California and the Western states. Congress must prioritize water reclamation in the next infrastructure bill.
Kicking the can down the road isn’t good enough in the current climate change picture that promises more droughts and deluges depending on what part of the country. Gloria D. Gray, from the Metropolitan Water District, said the district must tap into its stored reserves to continue supplying Ventura County sufficient amounts of water. So the time for urgent actions has long since passed, requiring water reclamation in the Western States to be a high priority in the next infrastructure bill. Water conservationists and engineers know what they must do to save precious fresh from draining into the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. Unlike the petroleum industry, there’s little incentive to build water pipelines from North to South or East to West, other than government infrastructure projects. Water resource boards and engineers must figure out a more reliable supply of fresh water.
When the next infrastructure bill comes for debate, water reclamation must be high on the priority list. “We don’t know what next years will bring. We must all find way we can save even more so we have the water we need if this drought continues,” Gray said, not getting that more must be done to fix the problem. No part of the country faces shortages of gasoline and no part of the country must face water shortages. When there’s plenty of water to go around, it’s a matter of simple engineering and priority to assure that water supplies will be consistent all over the country, regardless of what climate change does in the Western states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, faced with a recall election Sept. 14, called on Californians to cut water usage by 15%. While there nothing wrong with conservation, Newsom must get on board to create new sources of fresh water in the near future.
