The Drought

The summer of 2015 wasn't the best for my neck of the woods. The California drought, along with an unseasonably warm winter, had caused an infestation of boxelder bugs from Ridgecrest up to Bishop. My buddy Blair said it best to The Mercury News when he stated, "They’re in everything. There’s no way to get rid of them or eradicate them. They’re just here." Clouds of them swarmed the gas station lights outside Pearsonville. It seemed like every other cup of coffee had me spitting out those little black bugs. The infestation, along with nearly 900,000 acres of land burned by wildfire, a record-breaking low Sierra Nevada snow pack of 5% normal that lead to major water restrictions, and record-breaking high temperatures, made 2015 pretty rough.

Drought conditions in 2017 vs. 2016, by surface water
(Photo from Outside Magazine)

Fast forward to this week. The recent weather has added 33.6 billion gallons of water to Lake Tahoe, 10 to 15 feet of snow has fallen on Mammoth Mountain, and the Sierra snowpack overall is at 158% of normal. Aside from some washed-out roads, chain restrictions and road closures due to snow, and floods in some towns, it's been a good thing. More rain and snow means more to fill reservoirs and water tables throughout the state, which means potentially less forest fires, barren farmlands, and infestations of those little beetle bastards. I'm personally glad to listen to the rain pelt on my roof, and I'm ecstatic to see Mt. Whitney to the west and the Inyo range to the east both capped in white.

I see articles and Facebook posts and tweets saying "The drought's over!" over the last couple weeks, and that bugs me a little. Yes, the current maps show that 60% of the state is no longer designated as "in drought" which is fantastic, and the parts of Southern California that still are considered in drought are on the mend, which is great too, but it's not even halfway through winter. It's still too early to see if the good times for snow and rain will keep rolling, and it's still too soon (at least, in my opinion) to lift all the restrictions on water use.

It's like being broke after the holidays; Imagine you had to take some time off work for travel or because you caught a nasty cold, you bought a lot of cool Christmas gifts for the whole family, and you went all-out on New Years Eve with a bar tab to show for it-- but all your regular bills are still due at the beginning of the month despite your increased spending and the lack of hours at your job. For a couple months you're living frugally. You're keeping up with your bills and rent but your bank account is definitely still lean, and you find yourself dipping into savings more than you'd like. Then, one day a few weeks after filing your taxes, you get a tax return! "Hell yeah!" You shout to yourself, proud of your tax-filing prowess "I'm going to survive!"

It might seem obvious on the surface, but the best course of action after that is probably not to blow your entire tax return on a bunch of new clothes, electronics, and goodies. If you do that-- big shock-- you'll probably end up broke again, possibly even more so than you were before. Splurging can be fun in the short term, but if you want to build up your savings again you probably shouldn't blow your tax refund straight away.

The same can be said about water, but unlike tax returns and normal income water in California is a crap shoot, and with climate change playing a factor it's anyone's guess what the weather will do next. Lifting drought restrictions now because we think the drought is over can potentially screw us over later down the line. By maintaining sustainable use of water we give ourselves and future generations a fighting chance when the next major drought eventually comes, and help avoid the whole state becoming like the Owens Dry Lake where I live. By continuing conservative water use we can help forests survive, watersheds refill, and allow farmland to be used longer and more efficiently. Despite what the signs along the 5 in the Central Valley tell you, saving water isn't a bad thing, and the drought wasn't created by politics.

Basically I feel the weather we've been having has been a literal heaven sent blessing to the Golden State, but we should still be smart about water. I may have some strong feelings about water use, but I don't think I'm being too unreasonable for not wanting to jump the gun just yet. The boxelder beetles that landed in my coffee left a bad taste in my mouth, and the thought of prolonging the drought because of misusing our resources does too.