Some California water news and then more Mushrooms
I did a little sleuthing today regarding our local water situation since winter has started and we've been getting some rain. So far we've been having a nice off-and-on rain and sun cycle for the past few weeks. If this trend were to continue from now through April, it would likely give us our normal amount of 51 inches of rain in Paradise. So far at my home we've received 3.2 inches of rain and we're expected to get another 3-4 days of rain starting Wednesday. The average rainfall for November is 6.37 inches so we are on target.
Looking at this past year, which was the third year of drought in California, some interesting things are known. The first thing is that even though the situation is considered dire, California actually used more water this past year than the previous year. Most of that has to do with farmers pumping water from underground aquifers which are not regulated in California. Some of them simply did that to water their orchards and ranches but others did so to make huge profits selling that water from between 10-40 times what they sold it for before.
Greed pure and simple is really the reason why California used more water this past year compared to the year before. If you can become really wealthy taking advantage of selling unregulated water to those desperate for it, why conserve? Strike while the iron's hot. Here are some interesting facts I dug up:
1) in normal years water was sold for an average price of $60 per acre foot. Last year it went for as much as $3000 per acre foot. This is just astounding!
2) Silicon Valley (San Jose and Santa Clara) bought water from rice farmers here in Butte, Glenn and Colusa counties. This area is known as "North of the Delta" and has both surface water and water from the Tuscan aquifer underground. Santa Clara Valley Water District paid $582 to $862 per acre-foot for this water depending upon individual contracts they made with rice farmers.
3) The East Bay Municipal Utility District (EMUD) paid $75 per acre-foot for Placer County Water Authority water which comes from the American River. These cities are all part of EMUD and have huge power by jointly buying water: Richmond, El Cerrito, Hercules, San Pablo, Pinole, Lafayette, Danville, Oakland, Piedmont, Emeryville, Berkeley, Albany, Alameda and San Leandro. But the Placer County Water authority sold water to the San Joaquin Valley's Westlands Water District for $325 per acre-foot. The Westlands Water District is an area full of orchards and ranches in one of the driest areas in California.
I could go on and on with more examples of the wildly different prices places paid for water this past year...but won't. I just found it to be interesting what supply and demand does. This has created a crisis both in the aquifers being pumped dry like never before and financial burdens on farmers, towns and people.
On the one hand you have Jerry Brown and the state government wanting to regulate water now like we've not done before believing water is something we should all have access to as "a human right." On the other hand, you have those who want the state government not only to butt out of it all but to end what regulation they already have in place. They say "let capitalism and the free market place sort it out" and believe water is not a human right but rather a commodity and should be sold like any commodity. They also want to privatize water in cities and towns.
This second way will quite quickly create winners and losers. Since agriculture uses 80% of all the water and has by far the greatest control over it, who do you think will win? Is there any wonder why Big AG and the Nestle corporation favor this approach?
Another problem we currently have is there are significant areas of dense population that don't have water meters. In Sacramento 58% of all homes have no water meters to date. This situation is changing slowly. In 2004 a law was passed that will require all homes have water meters installed by 2025. There is no financial incentive for these people to save water as they pay a monthly price no matter how much they use and it shows statistically.
Sacramento uses the most water per person of any major city in California at 279 gallons per day. LA uses 152 gallons per person per day. San Jose uses 144 gallons per person per day while San Francisco uses 98 gallons per person per day. A big factor for water use is climate. San Francisco has lots of fog and is cool while Sacramento is sunny and gets quite hot.
Then there are smaller towns that use more than these big towns. Palm Springs uses the most of all at 736 gallons per person per day due to large lawns, swimming pools and golf courses in a stinking desert. Hillsborough (a rich suburb of San Francisco) uses 334 gallons per person per day while Fresno uses 313 gallons per person per day.
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Well, with our off-and-on rain mixed with cool sunny days and days with fog, the weather has been perfect for mushrooms. The first picture below was taken two days ago and shows you what I'm talking about. All these mushroom pictures are different from the ones I put up a couple weeks ago with the exception of the blue-grey lacy one. And yes, those mushrooms in the bottom picture are "magic" containing psilocybin, psilocin and baeocystin.
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