California, is running out of water. 90% of the state is experiencing this exceptional drought
and they are facing one of the worst water shortages in history. How did the conditions
get so bad, and how will this impact the state’s water supply for years to come?
California experienced a very mild spring and summer which caused the historic drought to
begin. Due to the lack of rain and extremely hot temperatures, the ground began to dry out.
In San Hose, they have only seen half of their normal rainfall this year which has diminished
any hope that rainwater could help alleviate some of the water reservoirs. San Francisco declared
a water shortage emergency and called for a 10% reduction across the water usage system.
At this point you may be thinking, is the water shortage occurring because of California’s
water distribution system, or because a physical shortage of clean, drinking water?
When it comes to water distribution, California’s water is broken down into 3 different aqueducts.
The Colorado river aqueduct comes down from the Colorado river and serves 19 million people.
Branching off from the Colorado river aqueduct is the California Aqueduct, serving another 19
Million residents. A third supply lime branches off from both of these aqueducts. The Los Angeles
Aqueduct courts directly through the city and serves nearly 4 million residents. This aqueduct
is responsible for filling the enormous, 2.5 billion gallon la resovwar. This is the iconic
resouvwar where the city of losa angeles placed over 90 million black shade balls over the surface
to prevent evaporation. Most of california’a aqueducts were build during the 19th century,
ranging from the early 1900’s to the 1960’s. But these water supply sstems were not designed in
the most effieicnt way, with pumping stations setup at various locations to pump the water
up mountain ranges and higher elevations. When the water finally reaches the nearly 1500 reservours
throughout California, damsn equally distribute the water so they do not overfill and back up
the supply lines. But because of the 2021 drought, there is no threat of overfilling. The damns are
letting watert flow through as freely as possible to continusly supply the resovwars. With no
slowdown in the water usage by California’s residents, the station began to get out of
control. In late September, officials in Marin Country California were competing with the crown
prince of Saudi Arabia to purchase 3 portable water desalination plants. The crisis is so bad,
the state officials would be willing to take water directly from the ocean
using desalination plants and then adding it to the reservoirs throughout the state.
Most of california’s water needs actually go to farming. With 80% of the state’s freshwater going
to farms and only 20% to the population. The aging water system is one of the causes to the slow
delivery of fresh waterm with most of the sytems being conatructed over a century ago. For years
residents in California have been worned of a looming water crisis, but the situation has never
gotten to this extent. The Satelite images your seeing show the shear amount of water that has
evaporated from Lakes througnout California. While these images at least show some water in the lake,
others have completely dried up with no water left to pump out for treatment. So where does the
situation go from here. With lakes empty, and a lot of stress on Caluifornia’s water supply line,
how can this problem be resolved and what can California do to prevent this in the future?
The main supplier of california’s aqueducts is the Colorado river, which Declared its first
water shortage, in august of 2021. Supplying nearly 40 million people across 4 states,
the river cannot keep up with the intense needs of dry states like California. According to NOAH,
there is nearly a 50/50 chance at what will happen to california’s water supply this winter
with some forcastign enough precipitation to end the drought and others forcassting that it will
continue. January is when California see’s its most precipitation, and they will desperately need
it to replenish their water supply lune throughout the state. But looking at California as a whole,
there are various opinions about the state’s future with a water system at capacity.
With a rising population, will the state be able to support more people during long term
droughts like this one, or will the water supply line stay maxed out. If the drought conditions
continue through next year, California’s water supply could be at a tipping point, and only
time will tell if the century old water distribution lines will be able to handle it.
On the other side of California is the port of los angeles, which is going through a completely
different crisis. Over 70 cargo ships are backed up off the port of los angeles,
causing supply chain issues across the world. To learn why the port is so backed up,
click the video here. Thank you for watching and please subscribe if you enjoyed the video.