Paradise Parched

Like most Americans, you probably take water for granted. You drink it, wash with it, and swim in it. It seems to be everywhere.  

But in parts of California, the water has dried up. The nation’s most populous state is in its fourth year of a record-breaking drought—a severe and unusual lack of rainfall. Lakes are vanishing, crops are dying, and lawns have gone brown. Some people can’t take a bath, flush a toilet, or even sip a glass of water without reaching for a bottle or a bucket. 

“You don’t think of water as a privilege until you don’t have it anymore,” says Yolanda Serrato, who lives in East Porterville, about 

150 miles north of Los Angeles. She has been without tap water since her well dried up about a year ago.

The drought is affecting several Western states, but California has been hit the worst. (See “U.S. Drought Watch,” p. 17.) A lack of rain and snowfall over the past few years has left the state in crisis.

In April, California Governor Jerry Brown imposed the first-ever mandatory statewide reductions in water use. Residents and businesses must cut usage by 25 percent to try to prevent the state from running out of water altogether. 

“This is the new normal,” Brown said in April, “and we’ll have to learn to cope with it.”

Periodic dry spells are nothing new for California, but three key things have made this drought worse. 

First, climate change has caused higher temperatures, which have made the effects of the drought more severe. Normally, much of California’s water comes from snow in the mountains, which melts gradually in the summer to feed streams, lakes, and reservoirs. But higher temperatures mean most of the precipitation—and there hasn’t been much—has fallen as rain that either evaporates quickly or runs into the ocean.

Second, the demand for water in California has never been greater. California’s sunny weather and booming economy have drawn millions of people to the state over the years. Indeed, California’s population has more than doubled in the past five decades to almost 39 million.

Kevin Starr, a historian at the University of Southern California, says that the state simply has too many people for its natural resources. “Mother Nature didn’t intend for [so many] people to live here,” he says. 

Third, the state’s agriculture industry has been using ever-increasing amounts of water to feed Californians—and the rest of us too. California’s 78,000 farms provide 25 percent of Americans’ food, including about half of our fruits and vegetables.

But growing that much food requires massive amounts of water. (See “Your Role in the California Drought,” below.) Today, the state’s rivers, lakes, and reservoirs are too low to supply the water that farms need. So some farmers have begun drilling deep wells that let them pump billions of gallons of groundwater. Now scientists are worried about the groundwater supply running out.

The longer the drought lasts, the more everyone will feel its effects. From grapes to almonds, some farmers are planting fewer crops. As the supplies of those foods decrease, their price may rise.

Some countries that have faced severe dry spells have found ways to get water flowing again. During a seven-year drought in Israel that began in 2005, the Middle Eastern country began reusing wastewater on a massive scale. (Wastewater is the dirty water that’s flushed down people’s pipes.) It also built plants to turn the salt water of the Mediterranean Sea into drinking water, through a process called desalination.

Could California follow Israel’s example? Several of the state’s cities are considering high-tech plants that would clean wastewater so it can be reused for everything from agriculture to washing and even drinking. However, for many residents, the idea of “toilet to tap” is too gross to even consider.

To some people, desalinating water from the Pacific Ocean is a more appealing option, although it’s costly and energy-inefficient. City officials in Santa Barbara are modernizing a desalination plant that hasn’t been used in about 20 years. The project will cost approximately $40 million. 

“Desalination is our last resort,” says Santa Barbara Mayor Helene Schneider. “Unfortunately, given the way the drought is going, we are now at that last resort.”

Still, there’s a chance Mother Nature might ease California’s water woes on her own. That’s essentially what happened in Texas, where torrential rains in May refilled parched lakes and reservoirs, ending a years-long drought. 

California could also get relief this winter if a strong El Niño weather pattern brings big winter storms. But the longer-term regional trend is still for hotter, drier weather, scientists say. And that will require adaptation.

“We have to become more resilient, more efficient, and more innovative,” says Governor Brown, “and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”