This Wednesday, April 1st, SoCal Connected is going to air a piece on how our water use is impacting the resident killer whales that live in Puget Sound. These are a resident orcas, rather than transient orcas and rely upon salmon for their food source rather than the transient orca that you see in many nature shows that kill seals and sea lions. These orca have been living in the Seattle area for decade and many generations.
KCET’s Emmy® and Peabody® Award-winning series reveals how water needs in Southern California are negatively affecting a particular group of orcas in the Bay Area called the “Southern Residents”. The killer whales rely on salmon as a major food source; the salmon depend on ample water from the Bay Delta to maintain their population and keep it healthy. But demand on Bay Delta water for Southern California’s cities and farms is straining the food system.
How do we impact them? It’s the water we bring down from the north. You see, we actually use far more water than what we have available around us and must import the extra water we need. Let that sink in.
The Southern Resident population of orcas is a single large family group of about 75 individuals, which mainly spend time split up into three “pods,” denoted J, K, and L. The K and L pods are the ones that visit the coast of California, regularly traveling as far south as Monterey Bay. Hard-hit by the captive whale trade in the 20th century, the Southern Residents are listed as Endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
Unlike their cousins in the transient and offshore groups, Resident orcas eat mainly salmon. Chinook salmon, in fact. Of the 500 or so pounds of food an adult Resident orca can eat a day, about 70 percent — 350 pounds or so — is generally made up of Chinook salmon.
That means there’s a problem for Southern Resident orcas off the coast of California. The state’s formerly massive salmon runs in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers have been decimated by more than a century of diversions and dams. The fall and late-fall Chinook salmon runs in the Sacramento have been sustained by hatchery releases, but two other Chinook runs — the Sacramento winter run and the Central Valley spring run — have been so hurt by our reengineering of California’s natural waterworks that they’re listed as Endangered and Threatened, respectively, under the Endangered Species Act.
We don’t have enough water as it is. Right now. We import water. And we are in a drought right now. It’s been a century in the making and we continue to operate as business as usual. Orange County is a huge part of the problem. No really! We use more water per gallon than most other cities in the state, by far.
As of last year, the county was averaging 144 gallons per person, per day as compared to 125 gallons in Los Angeles and 95 gallons in Santa Cruz County. That’s appalling. We are out using other counties and we don’t even have enough water in our own area, we have to IMPORT IT.
And what we do doesn’t just affect us. It is affecting other eco-systems outside of our own area.
I urge you to watch this and to rethink your water use. And, no, a desalinization plant in Huntington Beach is not the answer. At least one that uses more energy than necessary and does far more damage to the environment than is needed. There are far better answers.
More than watching our own individual water use (for the most part, it doesn’t affect things so greatly), we should be watching:
While the steps that have been taken regarding plant watering and such make sense (at least to people who have hand shut-off valves for their hose sprayers), it’s the above sorts of drinking the milkshake of the commonweal that can lead to truly significant savings. Maybe we should not subsidize growing some of the most water-intensive crops on this side of the Sierras in a major drought.
And, right on cue, John Earl passed along this story into my Facebook feed:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/30/how-growers-gamed-california-s-drought.html
Do you really think the drought is temporary? I think we have to look at a number of measures to encourage conservation and smart water usage.
I don’t see where Greg says the drought is temporary. I think we all agree we’re now beginning to pay the price for neglecting the climate change issue for far too long.
Personally, I think everyone must be part of the solution. This means businesses, individuals, and governments. This means everyone must conserve.
A few years ago, the Irvine Ranch Water District was leading the way in conservation programs. I hope they haven’t gone the way of the Irvine City Council in embracing #Crazytown?
Over 20 years ago, the Southern Nevada Water Authority realized Las Vegas was about to become very thirsty & very parched if action wasn’t taken. We’ve been able to survive because of very aggressive conservation programs, including mandatory water restrictions & watering schedules. SNWA stupidly tried to roll these back a couple years ago. But now that the drought is worse than ever before, they’re tightening up again.
Get used to this in OC… Or get used to feeling thirsty all the time.
I don’t think the drought is temporary. I also think we need to ban fracking but explore desal plants as a means to replenish water tables and agricultural use
There are reasonable proposals for (largely small-scale) desal — think of them as “Prius Desal” — and then there is what is currently being foisted on OC, which you might call “Gov. Schwarzenegger’s Hummers” Desal. It’s difficult (and foolish) to generalize.
I’m certainly interested in hearing the analytic work you have done that has led you to become a proponent of desal at this moment. Do go on.
“It’s difficult (and foolish) to generalize”
You don’t read your own work, do you?
Maybe Greg is onto something re small scale desal. We’ll see.
But first, more conservation and better infrastructure are needed IMHO. Stop the leaks & the waste, then we can more honestly assess what else must be done.
And of course, further action to lower CO2 emissions and take on climate change will help.
I don’t disagree with Greg Diamond (although his “look at me corporations are evil” attack on Nestle/Arrowhead is note accurate).
80% of the states water is AG. With two cropss Rice and Cotton (followed by his partisan fueled example) using the most.
But, I ask Greg who ran for Senate and portends to be a democrat “insider” why haven’t you done something? He recently supported vocally John Moorlach, who was the sole NO vote on the so called “drought” bill (I respect JM’s reasoning). This leads to bigger question to the know it all, anti everything Diamond:
What politician/candidates position do you support? Where is SQS on this, she supported Posiedon!!
Quit blustering and get a job.
Why haven’t I “done something”?
You mean, something like running for the Municipal Water Board seat in North Orange County and paying for a ballot statement — the single most widely distributed and read by voters at the right moment document in a campaign — making these sorts of points to over 100,000 voters to educate them about these issues?
I honestly thought that you were a better anonymous stalker than that!
I certainly didn’t prefer Moorlach to Wagner (note that I “supported” neither of them in the primary) on the basis of his views on the drought, which will mean nothing in Sacramento on any vote where Wagner would disagree and the difference would be decisive.)
As for Sharon, while her name was dragooned into debate by both sides as a supporter of their position on Poseidon, my recollection is that she avoided being firmly on either side, wanting to see more info come out. And, again, the alternative to her was no better and she was much better on other issues.
I do have a job: I’m a fire-fighter and a gold prospector. (Those are both metaphors, though, for mostly public interest lawyering, so don’t get too excited.)
An aside to Heather: sorry that the comments on your post so quickly devolved off-topic to personal attacks; that tends to be what happens when I come here. (Also when I don’t.)
I think you owe Heather a bigger apology than that for what you said to her when you found out she was blogging here again. I believe there was an insult left on her Facebook page……
Your ballot statement did little to educate voters. It had the same impact of a classified ad on Craigslist. You were a candidate, but be honest. You didn’t run any sort of meaningful campaign. You raised almost no money. All you were was a candidate with a D next to your name. And yes, you got some votes. Most were against your opponent and not for you. You also neglected to mention that because of this expense, you were late paying your rent which isn’t a luxury expense but a basic living expense. If you cannot manage your own money effectively, how could you ever be trusted with taxpayers money?
Hadn’t seen this before. You show your customary contempt for the facts and reliance in the hope that people will simply listen to your assertions rather than investigating fir themselves.
Tell you what: my ballot statement, and the number of voters that would have received a Voter’s Guide last November, are both readily available online. Why don’t you print both of them here? Then you can let your reader’s decide for themselves whether it was the equivalent of posting an ad in craigslist. That was such an easy assertion for you to make; I’ll bet you never expected it to be tested.
Actually Greg, if I owe anyone an apology, it’s the people who run Craigslist because their classified ads generally result in a positive outcome for seller and buyer. If you want your ballot statements printed here, buy an ad.
Brea’s Biggest Blowhard Blogger gets roasted here:
http://www.breamatters.org/tag/greg-diamond/
Sounds like he’s up t his same old tricks. I wonder if there are any Democrats on the Brea council he can attack?
Wondered what was driving the added traffic to my site. Thank’s for the mention David.
Rick, Thank the LOC. I just typed “Crazy Greg Diamond” into google and yours and a half dozen other articles popped up from t OC Weekly, the OC Register and others.
One link, had him pronouncing Debra Bowen, the disgraced former Secretary of State of California who lied about her SEVERE mental illness as in Diamonds words: “…..has a serious chance of becoming U.S. President one day. She’s as good and – as genuine – as anyone I know in politics….”. This is a woman who cowered in a trailer park with cardboard boxes over the windows while her State owned vehicle sat nearby stuffed with her belongings. According to the Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pol-debra-bowen-20140906-story.html
Greg likes to put my name in “quotes” for some reason, his name should have an * next to it with the moniker “crazy”.
I do look forward to the day when this blog follows “David Vasquez” in aligning itself with Rick Clark and Glenn Vodhanel. That would be perfect.
And everyone awaits he day you admit you worship at the alter ofTom Tait and his conservative disciples Vanderbilt and Pettibone.