Excerpt
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): New statewide curbs on water use are taking effect in California this week as it grapples with a major drought. The entire state is suffering from a severe dry spell, and the latest data show nearly 60 percent is experiencing exceptional drought.
As the debate about conservation moves to underground water, scientists and politicians are trying to remedy the situation with research and new rules.
NewsHour special correspondent Spencer Michels reports.
SPENCER MICHELS (NewsHour): In normal years, this outcropping is an island surrounded by water that flows downhill from Yosemite National Park. But this year, the island is gone, and Don Pedro Lake, in California’s Central Valley, is an ugly bathtub with an expanding ring around it. Most major California’s reservoirs are less than half-full.
Rainfall has been sparse, and economists say the state, which produces nearly half the nation’s fruits and vegetables, faces a drop of $2.2 billion in agricultural revenue, and the loss of 17,000 farm-related jobs because of the drought.
Some crops, 5 percent of the total, have not been planted or removed because there isn’t enough water.
Felicia Marcus heads the state agency responsible for dealing with the shortage.
FELICIA MARCUS, Chair, California State Water Resources Control Board: This is the most serious drought that we have had, not just in our own generation, but in our grandparents’ generation. It’s going to have a much greater impact because we have millions more people, much more farmland, agricultural production dependent on it, and more endangered fish and wildlife that don’t have the resilience they once did.
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