Originally published August 21 2015
Statist-leaning California headed toward third-world region amid continuing megadrought
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) Is California turning back into a desert? Perhaps, but that's just one of many reasons why it is becoming less and less desirable to live there.
As most Americans know, the Golden State is in the throes of one of the worst droughts in California history. As reported by Bloomberg News, some farmers are resorting to desperate - and expensive - measures just to keep their fields from evaporating into dust:
Near California's Success Lake, more than 1,000 water wells have failed. Farmers are spending $750,000 to drill 1,800 feet down to keep fields from going fallow. Makeshift showers have sprouted near the church parking lot.
"The conditions are like a third-world country," said Andrew Lockman, a manager at the Office of Emergency Services in Tulare County, which is located in the middle of the state's agricultural Central Valley about 175 miles north of Los Angeles.
The state is entering its fourth year of what has become a record drought. California's 38 million-plus residents and the $43 billion agriculture industry have consumed so much groundwater that it is now below the reach of existing wells. As such, thousands of Californians have been left with dry taps as farmers have been forced to dig even deeper for water. The situation has become so dire that Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has ordered the first mandatory water rationing in California history.
Wells are drying up faster than new water sources can be found
"The demand we're placing on the aquifer and the deep bedrock drilling, which is going on at an alarmingly fast pace, is really scary," Tricia Blattler, executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau, told Bloomberg News. "Folks are really concerned we're not going to be able find water in the groundwater system much longer. We are tapping it way too quickly."
Tulare County has been especially hard hit. The county is located in a valley sprinkled with dairy farms and walnut orchards at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is home to some 458,000 residents and more than 1,000 dry wells, more than half of which have failed since January of 2014.
In small unincorporated villages and communities, many residents have been forced to use bottled water to cook and drink. Showers have been set up, community-style, in trailers. The residents, many of them Hispanic citrus farm workers, haul non-potable water home to use in toilets.
Digging for new wells is also not an option for many Californians who are most affected by the drought. Depending upon the region and depth, wells can cost an average of $15,000 to $45,000 to drill, and there is no guarantee of success.
"We may have to migrate people out"
Meanwhile, as noted by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge, all of this is occurring in a state that has grown increasingly statist, tax-heavy, crime-plagued, overly politically correct, and in many cases, repressive - all reasons for leaving.
"So if you weren't scared away by the wildfires, mudslides, high taxes, crime, gang violence, traffic, insane political correctness, the nightmarish business environment or the constant threat of 'the big one' reducing your home to a pile of rubble, perhaps the fact that much of the state could soon be facing Dust Bowl conditions may finally convince you to pack up and leave," he writes.
In fact, many people are leaving. Millions have left over the past couple of decades, and according to one United Nations official, if the drought persists, it could lead to the greatest migration of people out of a region in modern history.
Lynn Wilson, an academic chair at Kaplan University who serves on the climate change delegation in the United Nations, told CNBC: "Civilizations in the past have had to migrate out of areas of drought. We may have to migrate people out of California."
That might be necessary just to save the state's agriculture industry, which grows enough food to make it the breadbasket of America. The food inflation alone would devastate millions of American families.
California continues to decline in terms of sustainability and viability.
Sources:
http://www.bloomberg.com
http://www.zerohedge.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101884085
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