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During the drive from the Capitol to Lake Tahoe this week, Gov. Jerry Brown could see the damage wrought by four years of drought. Rivers have turned to dribbles, parched forests threaten to ignite with a fateful spark, and meadows where snow should be piled high are instead completely bare.

When Brown stepped out of the car, he made history by announcing the first statewide mandatory water restrictions, ordering Californians to slash their water use by 25%.

It wasn't the way he intended to make his mark in his final term as governor, but Mother Nature had other plans. With no relief from the drought in sight, his most critical tasks will be rallying Californians to conserve water, navigating the state's fractious water politics and preparing for what could be a much drier future in America's most productive agricultural region.

"It's going to require every ounce and every moment of his political attention and his political skill," said Sonoma State political science professor David McCuan.

The governor also is dealing with stark regional differences, and the drought threatens to inflame an urban-rural divide in California. Conservationists have already raised concerns that Brown isn't doing enough to curb agricultural water use, which accounts for 80% of the state's total.

"This is not going to be the kind of coalition that's going to be easily built," said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A.
lRelated State officials launch new advertising campaign for water conservation


    State officials launch new advertising campaign for water conservation


Brown has faced drought before: There was a two-year dry spell in 1976 and 1977 when he was governor the first time. But that lasted only half as long as the current drought, and it didn't lead to the same mandatory restrictions on water use.

In addition to those limits, Brown's executive order includes stricter enforcement and the removal of 50 million square feet of lawns.

"We're in a historic drought, and that demands unprecedented action," he told reporters Wednesday. "People should realize we're in a new era. The idea of your nice little green grass getting water every day — that's going to be a thing of the past."

Brown is determined to manage the drought while pursuing other goals such as building the bullet train and expanding renewable energy generation — "government is not just one thing," he said.

But there's no doubt that he faces a heavy burden in the months and years ahead.

Mark Cowin, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said administration officials were working out details with the governor late into the night before the announcement.

Brown had asked residents last year to cut water use by 20%, but they consistently fell short even as the drought persisted. When February conservation statistics continued to lag, officials said, it drove home the need for a more restrictive approach.

In addition, snow in the Sierra Nevada, which usually provides a third of California's water when it melts in the spring, has been nearly nonexistent.

"Considering the potential for a fifth or sixth year of drought, we want to start pulling up the stick of the plane so we don't have a crash landing," Cowin said.

Brown will need Californians' cooperation to save water, and it appears that residents are increasingly aware of the drought's toll. A March survey by the Public Policy Institute of California showed that water issues have become as important in voters' minds as jobs and the economy. Two-thirds of respondents said water supply is a big problem in their area and more should be done to respond to the drought.

"It's been frustrating that it's taken this long to get on the public's radar," said Annie Notthoff, director of California advocacy for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "But now people are starting to see this is not business as usual."

The governor said Wednesday that he's trying to do his part by "turning off that faucet a little quicker, getting out of the shower a little faster, not flushing the toilet every time."

Pushing for water conservation is nothing new for Brown, who has railed against environmental dangers throughout his political career. He battled Los Angeles smog in the 1970s, ran for president in 1980 by promising to "protect the Earth" and has since traveled the world to urge action on climate change.

"He has always said, right from the start, we have to pay attention to environmental impacts, that natural resources are not unlimited," said Bruce Cain, professor of political science at Stanford University. "These are Jerry Brown's themes."

Given Brown's record, Cain said, the drought is "in his wheelhouse."

But Cain and other analysts warned that the problem could quickly grow time-consuming and politically treacherous. Implementing Brown's executive order will require new and extensive regulations and careful monitoring of thousands of local water agencies to ensure restrictions are being enforced.

Even while Brown faces the short-term consequences of the drought — including the potential for budget-draining wildfires and decreased agricultural production — he is pursuing long-term projects that he says will strengthen California's highly engineered water systems.

The most controversial is his proposal to dig two massive tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to send water from Northern California to farms and cities farther south.

Richard Frank, director of the California Environmental Law and Policy Center at UC Davis, said the issue remains "the single toughest political nut to crack."

"The status quo in the Delta is completely unsustainable," with aging canals and ecological damage, he said. "But the consensus really ends there."



chris.megerian@latimes.com
Twitter: @chrismegerian
Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

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Officials: Pot Growers Worsening California's Drought


California is in the midst of a serious drought, and some people in the state have an idea of what is making it worse: Marijuana growers.

With each marijuana plant requiring an average of six gallons of water a day, according to a McClatchy report, legal and illegal growers are now in the spotlight. Illegal growers using public forests to plant and harvest their crop are also being accused of polluting rivers and streams with harmful pesticides and fertilizers.

"This industry — and it is an industry — is completely unregulated," said Scott Bauer, a fisheries biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, in the McClatchy story. "What I just hope is that the watersheds don't go up in smoke before we get things regulated and protect our fish and wildlife."

Almost 1 million pot plants were seized on public lands across the United States in 2012, and 86 percent of them were in California. The state legalized medical marijuana in 1996, which made growing and possessing the substance legal. The drug is still illegal at the federal level, although there have been calls — including from retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens — to legalize marijuana nationwide.

Growers in the state's national forests often steal water from rivers and streams or create illegal dams to supply their plants with the water they need. They also use chemicals such as rat poison and other deadly substances to keep predators at bay. These practices, according to a video produced by the U.S. Forest Service embedded in the McClatchy story, result in dried up streams and dead animals around grow sites.

Many of the growers are armed with firearms and/or knives to protect their valuable crops.

"Those are lands that you and I own," Rep. Mike Thompson, a Democrat, told McClatchy. "And when people are growing dope there and guarding their operations with guns and the likes, and sometimes with booby traps, we can't use the land that we own. It happens all over."

Legal growers using private lands still require the large amount of water for the plants, which is draining California of the little water it has available at the moment.

Law enforcement officials have been raiding illegal grow sites for years. Now lawmakers are stepping up and introducing legislation.

Thompson is part of a 14-member group in Congress that is trying to secure $3 million for the Drug Enforcement Administration's effort in stopping large growing operations in California's forests.

California Gov. Jerry Brown marked $3.3 million in his budget proposal this year for enforcing growing rules in an effort to protect both the water supply and endangered species affected by growers.

Bauer told McClatchy that 24 tributaries that feed into California's Eel River dried up last summer. All of them, he said, were used by marijuana growers as water sources.

"In Washington state and Colorado, the growing of marijuana becomes legal and regulated. That’s not the case in California," Democrat Rep. John Garamendi told McClatchy.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/US/marijuana-legalization-water-drought/2014/04/29/id/568520/#ixzz3WHYj0NHA

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Chiefm4sterdiezl said:
bout time god finally smited that shitnest

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California is a shit nest?

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P-O said:

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Chiefm4sterdiezl said:
bout time god finally smited that shitnest

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California is a shit nest?

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Chiefm4sterdiezl said:
How is that relevant to the discussion of how shitty California is?

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P-O said:
just answer the question junior 

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Chiefm4sterdiezl said:
CT

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grow some balls, kid.

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Chiefm4sterdiezl said:
welp i guess one day itll dry out crumble off jus get flushed into the toilet bowl that is the pacific ocean.

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