SECRETARY OF INTERIOR MISLEADS ON CALIFORNIA DROUGHT

Excerpt from Wall Street Journal Letters to the Editor:
Your editorial "California's Man-Made Drought" (Sept. 2) about the severe drought and water crisis in California argues that California's water problems could be wished away if our nation were only willing to sacrifice an endangered three-inch fish, turn on a few pumps to move water from Northern California to the Central Valley, and wave a magic wand. The trouble is: The fish are a sliver of the problem, the pumps are already on, and pointed fingers can't make it rain.

California's water crisis is far more troubling than your editorial suggests. The state is in its third year of a devastating drought, caused by a lack of precipitation. In California's Central Valley, where half the nation's produce is grown, many farms and fields are bone dry, unemployment has surged, and the state's inadequate water infrastructure—built 50 years ago for a population half as large—cannot handle the stress. Moreover, California's Bay Delta, upon which 25 million Californians depend for drinking water, is in a state of full environmental collapse.

As a proposed response, your editorial asks the Obama administration to ignore science and convene a so-called "God Squad" that would override protections on watersheds and turn California's water crisis over to the courts. Trying to force more water out of a dying system will only cause more human tragedy, while diverting attention from the governor and the legislature, who face a Sept. 11 legislative deadline to decide whether to fix the broken water system in California after decades of neglect.

Rather than more finger pointing, we need real solutions. After eight years on the sidelines, the federal government has stepped in to help. The Obama administration is investing over $400 million through the president's economic recovery plan to help modernize California's water infrastructure, including over $40 million in emergency assistance to help water-short Central Valley farmers. We have helped move record amounts of water to communities in most need and are taking steps to prepare for a potential fourth year of drought. And perhaps most importantly, the federal government is now engaging as a full partner in the collaborative process that the governor launched two years ago to restore the Bay Delta, and modernize the state's woefully outdated water infrastructure. Though what we need most is rain and snow to fill the reservoirs, these actions will help mitigate the devastating impact of the ongoing drought and deliver help to the families and communities suffering most.

This is the type of locally-driven, solution-oriented, collaborative approach that we must all support—and to which we must all contribute.

Ken Salazar

Secretary of the Interior

Washington

Reply by Wayne Lusvardi:

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar's statement that California "is in its third year of a devastating drought" is misleading. "Drought" is normal in California over a 3-year period. California depends on very short term monsoons and floods to fill reservoirs to meet human demands for several years.

Many Californians remember the "March Miracle" of 1991 where late season monsoon rains suddenly changed a "drought" into a wet season. In 1985-86 there was a monsoon and floods for just 10 days out of 180 days that bailed California out of a drought. What we typically mean by a natural "drought" is the missing of a peak precipitation event.

California calls the sea temperature which influences its precipitation an "El Nino" (Little Boy). What we should call "drought" in Spanish is an Apunta - meaning the lack of a peak precipitation event (punta means peak in Spanish and the prefix "a" means lack of something).

Logically, if everything is a drought, nothing is. Drought is an overworked term. A disbelieving public won't buy the natural "drought" explanation for California's current lack of domestic water supply until policy makers use more accurate terminology. Moreover, what is a "drought" in a managed water system such as California's: a "managed drought?"

Link:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203585004574392932544394924.html

Comments

[Emily Green]

Agree with you about drought being an overworked term. However, I admire the Secretary for demanding that the legislature get its act together.

[John Bass]

Mr Lusvardi, perhaps we can agree that the drought/water scarcity is of concern to human beings.

Maybe we can even agree that a scarcity of water affects farmers and their workers, lawn waterers and car washers, plants, animals, ecosystems, commercial and sportfishermen alike.

And since human beings control who or what gets water in California, this is also a concern to human beings.

Where I disagree with you is on the WSJ idea that it is useful to say that men can make droughts. This is hyperbole. Men can't make drought - they can control the distribution of the water that nature provides. This is a fact, and not one you will disagree with I think.

Mr. Salazar suggests that this a problem that is up to Californians to decide. How will the state redistribute or otherwise control its water redistribution, and how will the various water interests be affected?

This is the question that Salazar puts to Californians. It is that simple, and to frame the situation as something created by "man" yes, I agree with you.