Mamaril, Francis

Mr. Rivas
AP English and Comp
28 March 2017
Synthesis Essay

As one of the largest and most populous states in the United States, California is both a

significant economic powerhouse as well as the home of many valuable natural resources.

Many of these resources and their cultivation generate a significant portion of revenue for both

the state and its residents, while also providing the necessities of life to the state’s population of

almost 40 million. Perhaps the most important natural resource of all, water, is one that has

attracted a great deal of attention towards California in recent years. California has been facing

a significant crisis in terms of the availability of fresh and clean water that has garnered a

significant amount of media attention throughout the state and the entire nation as California’s

politicians have been scrambling to find a viable solution to this crisis. At its worst, the crisis

resulted in the state being forced to take action to forcefully limit the amount of water residents

throughout the state were allowed to use for purposes of bathing, lawn care, and various other

usages. Although the worst of the crisis has since passed, the prospect of a worsening drought

in the state remains an ongoing problem influenced by many different factors. While it can

surely be stated that there are many other natural resources within California that are also

depleting at an alarming rate, the depletion of the state’s water supply is certainly the most

worrisome considering its importance to many of those other resources and to all of the state’s

inhabitants.

Back in 2014, one would find it difficult if not impossible to avoid the media attention being given

to the drought that had been plaguing California. It was during this time that the drought was

arguably at its very worst, as it was known to be the “worst drought since record-keeping began

in the mid 19th century” (Kostigen). While this drought had negatively impacted everyone
throughout the state to some extent, it is fair to say that no one had suffered more so than those

who worked in the agricultural industry. This is particularly because of the fact that California is

one of the largest agricultural regions in the entire world, and that 80% of the state’s supply of

fresh water is used for agricultural purposes (Kostigen). As the water had dried up, farmers and

others within the industry were forced to see many of their crops wither and die, and this had in

turn led towards the prospect of rising food prices as a result of shortages caused by this

drought (Kostigen). While the prospect of food shortages and rising food prices is surely a

significant one on its own, especially as it would impact other states and countries rather than

remain a problem contained within California, it is only one of the many symptoms associated

with this drought. Furthermore, academics are warning that these consequences could indeed

become long-term as the prospect of a consistent and worsening drought remains a possibility

despite the fact that the worst of the recent drought has reached its end.

University of California paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram warns that this drought may only

symbolize the beginning of what could become a “megadrought” that could last for upwards of

200 years (Kostigen). Ingram’s assumption relies greatly upon history, noting that California

alongside much of the Southwest had faced over a century of drought during the medieval era,

and stating that it is quite likely that history will repeat itself in bringing the region back into a

very long drought (Kostigen). This would be devastatingly consequential, considering the

significance of which our population has grown over the past century and the fact that many

parts of the world are already facing issues such as food shortages, which such a drought could

only worsen should Ingram’s warning come true. Although Ingram’s warning of a potentially

ongoing “megadrought” is based mostly on history, something which is not guaranteed to

reoccur in the same way as it had in the past, Ingram’s potential accuracy in this assumption is

also particularly worrying as a result of the impact of worsening climate change. Climate change

has certainly had an effect on the worst of this current drought, especially during the period

between 2012 and 2014 wherein it was at its worst. The combination of exceptional dryness and
record warmth that has provided demonstrable evidence of climate change has created what

has been called the “most severe drought conditions experienced in California in … very

probably over a century” (Swain). As temperature anomalies are expected to continue in

California as well as throughout the rest of the world, this paints a very grim picture for the

prospect of a prolonged drought within the state.

Should California’s drought truly prove to extend into the future, there are very justifiable

concerns over how this would come to significantly affect California residents as well as

surrounding states. Through the worst of the drought that had just recently passed, an

understanding of how serious those impacts could become is evident. Aside from the

aforementioned food shortages and damage to California’s agricultural industry, which was

among the most noteworthy of consequences brought forth by the drought, residents of

California and surrounding areas that are reliant on the state’s water supply would face

limitations to their own personal use of and need for water. Some of these limitations have

already come into fruition, such as in Los Angeles wherein the city’s recently passed water

conservation plan allowed for the Department of Water and Power to fine residents between

$1000 and $40000 per month for what that department considers to be “unreasonable” use of

water during a significant period of drought (Stevens). While a seemingly reasonable move

meant to save water on its surface, the fact that the Department of Water and Power is given

the sole authority to dictate what is to be considered “unreasonable” use of water is certainly

problematic. Furthermore, the fines for defying this department’s definition of “unreasonable” are

quite excessive, especially towards the maximum end of the penalty’s spectrum.

These new fines come in combination with the previously implemented fines for violating the

city’s water ordinance, although such fines were certainly much more reasonable, ranging from

only $100 to $300 (Stevens). The amendments to the city’s water conservation plan have come

to raise these more reasonable fines to as much as $1200, which while a drastic increase is still

far from as significant as the potential maximum of $40000 for “unreasonable” use of water
during an elevated drought period (Stevens). While these fines are specifically limited to

residents of Los Angeles, many similar practices of regulating and restricting water usage has

spread throughout California and could very likely spread beyond the state if drought conditions

continue to impact the water supply of California and surrounding areas. Such measures will

also come to affect residents disproportionately considering that water usage and needs varies

greatly. For example, residents of northern San Diego County have been found to use 580

gallons of water per day on average in September of 2014, whereas residents of East Los

Angeles had only used an average of 48 gallons per day (Stevens). As drought conditions will

likely spur further actions in fining residents using quantities of water mimicking what would be

considered excessive, such as among those of northern San Diego County, those that require

such excessive use in their careers or daily lives will undoubtedly suffer.

While the consequences of California’s recently serious drought and the prospect of an ongoing

drought into the future are certainly very clear, it is important to recognize what constitutes a

drought as well as the various causes behind the onset of a drought. Unfortunately, a drought is

somewhat difficult to define, because unlike other natural disasters like hurricanes and

tornadoes, droughts are much more subjective in terms of their definition as droughts (Perlman).

For instance, the definition of a drought to a farmer is a period of moisture deficiency that comes

to affect crops being cultivated, whereas the definition to a meteorologist is an extended period

of time under which the degree of precipitation is less than what would be considered “normal”

(Perlman). Among all of these subjective definitions based on the occupations of those defining

it, it is clear that a lack of sufficient water supply from natural sources—primarily precipitation—

is key to that definition.

Whether through a lack of rainfall or a drying up of stored water reserves, any event or

circumstance that results in depleted access to water among a populace over a period of time

without a sufficient renewal of the resource would be accurately considered a drought. The

primary cause behind droughts like that which has recently plagued California is a lack of
adequate precipitation due to drier weather conditions, which is itself influenced by many factors

such as ongoing climate change (Perlman). However, a simple dry period due to a lack of

precipitation does not automatically constitute a drought unless that dry period occurs over a

significant period of time and negatively impacts the availability of a region’s water supply

(Perlman). The transition from a dry period, which can be quite common particularly in desert

areas—which are of course highly prevalent in California and throughout much of the

Southwest—to an actual drought is when there becomes a cause for alarm, considering the

modern-day need for a consistently reliable water supply.

Whereas it has been established that the primary source of our water comes from precipitation,

it is furthermore important to note how we store and appropriately deliver that water to those

that need it. California has a vast water infrastructure that both allows for irrigating the state’s

farmland and delivers that water to individual residents through the faucets in their homes

(Austin). As California’s water needs are perhaps the most significant of anywhere else in the

country due to the vast agricultural industry in the state, it comes as little surprise that California

has developed what is likely the most extensive water delivery infrastructure on the planet

(Austin). The fact that California has such an ideal climate and availability of farmland is

undoubtedly the primary reason for this extensive infrastructure, and it is the design of this

infrastructure that is a crucial component of the state’s ability to manage water supply during

periods of drought (Austin). One of the most important purposes of the water delivery

infrastructure, aside from delivering water to individual households to serve the needs of

individual California residents, is therefore to store water for use in irrigation. Many of

California’s water infrastructure systems, such as the Central Valley Project and the State Water

Project are primarily designed for this purpose (Austin). Others, such as the Los Angeles

Aqueduct and Mokelumne Aqueduct, are more prominently used to serve individual households

and non-agricultural businesses throughout the state (Austin).

Regardless of their primary purposes, each of these components of the collective water delivery

infrastructure have been designed to hold and deliver water throughout the state as needed. As

they become depleted through periods of significant drought, the regions throughout the state

for which each of these infrastructure components are meant to deliver water to are left in

jeopardy and in turn forced to diminish their water use or face the prospect of running out of

water altogether. Although such a drastic consequence has yet to actually occur, if the

aforementioned prediction of a long-lasting drought in California were to come true, such a

consequence could truly become a reality and California would be forced to import water from

other parts of the world in order to meet the basic water needs of its residents. This would of

course be disastrous for agriculture and the cost of irrigation that would in turn translate to

significantly higher food prices, as it would be for residents who would likely have to bear much

of the costs of such a move. Even beyond California, in neighboring states that may also rely on

California’s water supply—or even the products of it, such as foods grown in the state—the

impact of a severe drought will be felt if the state fails to address the problems associated with

the prospect of another drought in the near future.

So far, the only significant measure to have been tested as a means of combatting the effects of

a severe drought in the state has been efforts of conservation by force or threat of punishment.

This was, of course, through the implementation of restrictions on water usage and

accompanying fines for those that had failed to adhere to these restrictions. The main issue with

how California has handled the issue of conserving its water supply is both in how it has applied

these restrictions and in the fact that state politicians have been reluctant to go much further in

attempting to find long-term and more effective solutions. Even in the solution that the state’s

politicians have devised, in restricting water use through the imposition of fines on “excessive”

or otherwise irresponsible consumers, has been poorly and disparately applied and

implemented. For example, rather than sticking with these restrictions even after the worst of

the drought had passed, state officials decided to rescind its only solution to the state’s water
depletion crisis by dropping the enforcement of these restrictions on California’s water districts

(Reese). This move is certainly surprising, considering that it occurred in 2016 when the

National Drought Mitigation Center found that 60 per cent of the state remained in a state of

severe, extreme or exceptional drought (Reese).

Rescinding measures to conserve water at a time when a drought is ongoing, even if the

absolute worst of it may have passed for now, is seemingly a move in the wrong direction. This

is only worsened by the fact that other solutions are not being explored, or at least openly and

with public knowledge of the fact. As the state water board Chair Felicia Marcus said of the

aforementioned move to stop enforcing water usage restrictions despite the ongoing state of

drought facing much of the state, “A bit of relaxation is OK. Abandoning water conservation is

not” (Reese). She is indeed accurate in her sentiment that conservation is neither an “OK” or a

wise move, considering the fact that the drought has not even entirely dissipated and that

academics are warning of the potential for a severe and long-lasting drought into the near

future. Unfortunately, as state officials have abandoned the uniform enforcement of

conservation throughout the state, certain California localities will opt to drop conservation

altogether while others like Los Angeles will continue to enforce conservation restrictions upon

its residents. This creates an environment of disproportionate enforcement that encourages

relocation to areas without restrictions. It also inspires the idea that conservation at this less

serious point of the ongoing drought is simply a means of revenue gathering for the counties

and localities that continue to enforce water use restrictions, rather than a meaningful attempt at

conservation into the uncertainty of the future.

The culture of inconsistency in this matter within aspects of California’s state and local

governments has demonstrably come to translate poorly upon residents, who have come back

into the mindset of rejecting ongoing efforts to conserve water. One of the many restrictions that

had been imposed on residents throughout the state during the worst of the drought in 2014

was to avoid watering gardens and lawns, and this is one manner of conservation that some
Californians have once again begun neglecting (Stokes). The ignorance in such a mindset is

certainly not helped by some politicians such as Auburn’s mayor Bill Kirby stating that his town

has “plenty of water right now” in an attempt to discredit the need for ongoing conservation

efforts (Stokes). Others like Einar Maisch have gone even farther to state on behalf of the

Placer County Water Agency that, “The state has a water supply problem, but it’s not because

of the drought” and even more ridiculously that, “Our position is that we don’t have a drought,

and we should not be required to continue to conserve” (Stokes). Although certainly rooted in

ignorance of the actual reality, such statements are also dangerous and may indeed worsen the

impact that a future worsening of the ongoing drought may have on California. This is amplified

by the fact that these same politicians continue to neglect the root causes in the factors that

have influenced this drought and will likely continue influencing it going forward, alongside their

neglect for finding better solutions.

There is no question that California is a heavily Democratic state politically, a reality which truly

calls into question why the state is not doing more to push state and national efforts to combat

the environmental contributors to the state’s drought—most specifically, climate change.

Scientists have found that greenhouse gas emissions have intensified the ongoing drought by

as much as an astonishing 20 per cent, making climate change a significant contributor to the

drought if these findings are indeed accurate (Gillis). While those same findings also suggest

that natural climate variability also played a major role in the drought, human’s contributions to

climate change and the impact it has had on worsening the drought cannot be ignored in finding

a real solution to the consequences of the drought on the state’s water supply (Gillis). Even if

climate change has not played the most significant role in the crisis, it having even contributed

to worsening it by 15-20 per cent is reason enough to call attention to the issue and attempts to

address it, which has been unacceptably absent from much of the discussion over the drought.

That is not to say that California is not doing much to combat climate change overall, as it is

certainly one of the most progressive in the nation on that issue.

However, the majority of the action on climate change remains within the state’s borders, while

much of the rest of the country seems to be moving in the opposite direction. The recent

election of Donald Trump and by extension the Republican Party into the Presidency and the

federal government is more than enough evidence of this, as the President and his party are

known for their outright denial of humans’ contribution to climate change. Still, this does not

eliminate California’s obligation to push the issue of climate change and the need to address it

beyond the state’s borders in order to serve its own interests of preventing another serious

drought-related crisis in regards to its water supply and the health of its agricultural industry.

Doing so should ultimately accompany efforts to find other solutions to the inevitable resurgence

of severe drought conditions at some point in the future, whether in the next few years or further

on down the line. As addressing climate change is only one of many solutions to the return of a

potential crisis in the state of California like that which took place between 2012 and 2014, our

state’s leaders must continue to explore those other options. However, they must also

simultaneously push the urgency of what climate change may soon do to our planet beyond

affecting California’s instances of drought.

In terms of other potential solutions that apply specifically to California and mitigating the

potential for future water crises, the most noteworthy involve education and technology. Clearly,

education on the need to conserve water and use water responsibly is a necessity, which is

evident in the fact that some Californians have deemed it appropriate to resume watering their

lawns and gardens despite the fact that the state’s drought is still ongoing. It is clear that

California needs to double down on its public education, particularly among adults, on how to

effectively conserve water even when the state is not experiencing a drought, and why doing so

is important to saving them money and preventing a statewide crisis that may become even

worse than that which had just recently passed. While such an endeavor would likely be costly,

at least initially, it would be taxpayer-funded in the same way that the penalties for “excessive”

use of water had been under the restrictions implemented by the state and localities throughout
California during the worst of the recent drought crisis. More importantly, that education would

very likely have an impact on Californians’ conservation efforts and would then in turn diminish

the likelihood that the prospect of a water shortage and other related consequences would arise

again in the case of another worsening of California’s drought. However, education alone will

not be enough to entirely curb the problem, which is why the utilization of technology should be

a secondary objective in addressing the problem.

Technology is wherein California’s politicians should perhaps be looking most towards in

implementing an effective solution to potential water shortages, as there are certainly numerous

potentials for technology’s application. The only obstacle in terms of this aspect to a solution is

cost, which would undoubtedly be substantially more than any other potential solution, such as

the previously proposed push for education and likely even more so than efforts to further

address climate change. Yet, while groundbreaking new technologies are not exactly cost-

efficient, they may play the most prominent role in saving California from the disaster that very

well could arise from another severe drought. There are many ways in which technology can be

implemented into a solution, with one of the most obvious being in conservation efforts.

Technology able to limit water usage or otherwise disperse it more efficiently in its uses among

Californian residents is certainly something that should be looked into, as well as the

development of more desalination plants and technologies that would allow us to recycle

wastewater more effectively.

The development of more desalination plants, as well as improving the technology employed at

these plants to make the desalination process more efficient and cost-effective, throughout the

state would allow for Californians to make more use out of ocean and sea water. This is of

course a preferable option in contrast to leaving the state so heavily reliant upon freshwater,

which is of course the supply most threatened by drought conditions. Recycling wastewater

more efficiently by employing better cleaning technologies that also further reduces costs would

be another impactful way in which technology could contribute to a solution. Regardless of the
which technologies come to be seen my California’s politicians as the right path forward towards

addressing the problem, it is clear that technology should in some way play a role just as

education must as well. The state simply cannot continue to rely upon fining Californians for

using too much water as a solution, because that is simply not a solution at all. Continued focus

on this alone will ensure that the next serious drought will be even worse than the last and may

actually result in the devastating consequences that we are being warned about now.

Water is by far the most precious natural resource on this planet, and one that we must protect

because of its vulnerability to drought in the state of California. To continue to ignore the very

real and ongoing threat that this state faces is nothing short of negligence, and will come to

have devastating consequences at some point in the future unless this course of inaction is

reversed. There exist many opportunities for our state’s officials and lawmakers to go beyond

simply fining residents for using what they believe to be too much water, and actually work to

conserve and protect our water supply so that we California will be able to make it through

future droughts without disaster arising from them. It has come time for Californians to demand

real and meaningful action to protect the future of the state for all that inhabit and border it.

Works Cited

Austin, Chris. “California’s Water Systems.” Maven's Notebook, 9 Apr. 2016,

mavensnotebook.com/the-notebook-file-cabinet/californias-water-systems/. Accessed 29 Mar.

2017.

Kostigen, Thomas M. “Could California's Drought Last 200 Years?” National Geographic, 25

Mar. 2017, news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/02/140213-california-drought-record-

agriculture-pdo-climate/. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.

Perlman, Howard. “Questions and Answers about Droughts.” The USGS Water Science School,

The United States Geological Survey, water.usgs.gov/edu/qadroughts.html. Accessed 29 Mar.

2017.
Reese, Phillip. “California Water Districts: We Can Handle Three More Years of Drought.” The

Sacramento Bee, 16 Aug. 2016, www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-

drought/article95973047.html. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.

Reese, Phillip. “California Water Districts: We Can Handle Three More Years of Drought.” The

Sacramento Bee, 16 Aug. 2016, www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-

drought/article95973047.html. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.

Stevens, Matt. “In California, Water Use Is All over the Map.” Los Angeles Times, 4 Nov. 2014,

www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-1105-california-water-20141106-story.html. Accessed

29 Mar. 2017.

Stevens, Matt. “L.A.'s Water Wasters Will Soon Face Heavier Fines and Audits.” Los Angeles

Times, 27 Apr. 2016, www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-water-waste-20160427-story.html.

Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.

Stokes, Elaisha. “California Is Still in a Drought, But These Residents Say It's Time to Water the

Gardens Again.” VICE News, VICE, 22 Mar. 2016, news.vice.com/article/california-is-still-in-a-

drought-but-these-residents-say-its-time-to-water-the-gardens-again. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.

Swain, Daniel. “An Overview of California's Ongoing and Extraordinary Drought: a Tale of

Exceptional Dryness and Record Warmth.” The California Weather Blog, Weather West, 20 July

2014, weatherwest.com/archives/1658. Accessed 29 Mar. 2017.