Relief May Be Coming To California Drought Area


It is no secret that California is going through one of, if not, the worst drought in its history. The drought in California is so bad that earlier this week the Governor, Jerry Brown, set limits on water usage for the first time in California history.

Governor Brown was quoted as saying, “As Californians, we have to pull together and save water in every way we can.”

The Los Angelas Times is reporting that some relief may be on the way to the drought-stricken region of California. Earlier today, a storm system had moved into Northern California. The storm itself did not drop a lot of rain. The total amount is said to be less than an inch of water. This does not sound like much, but any rain at this point is a good thing for California. The weather system that is bringing the rain should drop anywhere from a quarter of an inch to an inch in the Los Angelas area before the storm moves out of the drought area toward the middle of the week.

Rich Thompson, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service, spoke about the rain.

“This is probably the last good shot at rain we’ll have for a while.”

California is no stranger to droughts. It is pretty obvious that something drastic will need to be done since California can’t just wait for nature to replenish the water that has been lost. NPR.org spoke with Sheila Lodge. Lodge was the mayor of Santa Barbara, California, during the devastating drought of the 1980s.

“You don’t know with a drought if you’re in one until a few years have gone by and, ‘Oh! You know, this is really serious!”

During this drought, Santa Barbara, California,decided to build a desalinization plant. What the plant was designed to do was to take the salt water of the Pacific Ocean and remove the salt from it. This would allow the water to be used. The plant was never needed by the time that it was finished. That particular drought was over. With the current drought, Santa Barbara is reopening the plant.

Desalinization plants like the one in Santa Barbara may need to be built across the area of California where the drought is running rampant. The cost of the plant that was built in Santa Barbara cost $35 million. Building this type of plant today will no doubt cost more than that. California cities may have to decide if the cost of building plants like this out weigh the cost of trying to ride the drought out.

Do you think California should start building these plants to help?

[IMG From Bloomberg.com]

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