William: Good post and an important issue. Even the Southeastern states are now struggling with a drought of near-Biblical proportions. Carlsbad may have a solution when they put their desalination plant into operation in a couple of years.

William - Very thought-provoking article, I seldom click to read the rest of any article.  You had me hooked and I went to read the rest of the story.  This is indeed of great concern.  Make me wonder where we stand here in Orange County.

One of your biggest fans in Orange County,

Marlene

How could this happen ? Living in Michigan we have so much water. San Diego is on the water, but is it salt water, of course it is, silly question. Keep us updated.

William,

Seems like we've taken our water here (in So Cal) for granted all too long. I think it's something we all need to be concerned with.

Hi Roberta, I think this water issue is going to be very contentious. It is getting to convoluted when a court is more concerned with one women's lawsuit to protect smelt in the River Delta than the tax payers. Maybe humans could become an endangered species and then we could equal rights with the smelt for our water. Desalinization may be our only viable option since we don't have any aquifers that could naturally filter recaptured water like in Lake Tahoe.

Hi Tom, Thanks so much for your vote of confidence. I do try to write in localism about things that have something of interest, even if difficult subjects that create controversy. Many Thanks again Tom, I appreciate your sentiments so much!

Hi Marlene, I am so surprised when I get comments on my local posts. Of course, I love it when it is you! Many Thanks for the great and wonderful support. You are amazing and a true friend.

PS, I am not sure but I think Orange Country handled their water problems years ago. As far as I know, there is no serious shortage there. 

Hi Missy, Desalinization might be our salvation if the powers that be would fund the processing plants. They say it is too expensive. Yet not budgets are discussed and every  year we delay it gets even more expensive. Years ago, there were funds raised for reservoirs because of the propensity of the area to have droughts for years sometimes. They spent the money and never built them. So much for reservoirs. Toilet to tap (grey water) is being discussed for reprocessing and making drinking water. Right. I will want to  buy lots of that stuff. If the water doesn't kill ya, maybe the chemicals will.

Hi Lynda, I think you said it very well. We have neglected this issue for too long . And I know that the longer we put off solutions, the more expensive solving the problem is going to be. Many Thanks for noticing this post. I am always grateful for you insight !

We in the desert feel your pain, William.  Though not under restricted use or mandated conservation effort, it is always a matter of attention here.  It is so pressing in fact that most people ... shrug.  It's just not a sexy topic, and the general public figures that someone above their pay grade will figure it all out for them.  We receive adequate water from the Colorado River, but have also experienced drought conditions for quite some time now.  As we have an average net population gain of about 500 newcomers a day here in the Valley, our community had better brace for the tipping point.  Very interesting that San Diego has the same "ho-hum" attitude from some of its inhabitants.  Maybe if the media would somehow incorporate the water issue into one of their Real Estate hatchet jobs, more people would take notice.

Hi Paul,
The paper is doing an OK job reporting on it as it gets included in the argument between the city attorney's office and mayor. The city attorney wants to enforce a cut back and the mayor wants to get the council to approve some measure to resupply the shortfall of water.  The alternative might be desalination plants but I would guess they will have to pipe the water from north county or south county.

I think that the Colorado compact may be renegotiated in the near future.  If they renegotiated purely by population, Arizona is going to be in for a HUGE shock.

William, the politics of California have always revolved around water. We have more water than we could ever use, but we let 90% of it to flow into the San Francisco Bay and thence into the ocean.

It's all about the rice farmers in the Sacramento Delta and the big ships that go all the way up-river to Stockton. Over 60 years ago a plan was out-lined that could have solved all these problems. It was called the peripheral canal. It might make a good topic for a post.

Bill Roberts

Hi Bill, Since you know a lot about this, write a post on it. It will be just one more aspect of this huge issue that you could shed some light on.  I appreciate you commenting here and this subject is so big, it will take a lot of information discemination to get the public on board to resolve some of this issues. There is a great article in this months Reader called The Perfect Drought. Gives a lot insight in this and what is and what is not being done.

I do hope that bonds will soon be considered for some of  the required infrastructure and hopefully for some of the  accelerated plans for more desalinizations plants. The Carlsbad Plant will be coming on line soon and represents replacement of of approx.10% of the water needed.