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Drought in Mendocino County

Sunday, January 25, 2009

This morning I emptied the rain gauge. The latest storm had contributed less than 0.1 inches of rain. In fact, in contributed less than a millimeter of rain. A couple of drops came out of the gauge, what we call a trace of rain.

I live on the ridge between Point Arena and Gualala, in a spot that tends to get a bit more rain than most places in the area. By my measure we have had 1.5 inches of rain so far in January. According to the USDA drought monitor, we are at D2, or severe drought, throughout Mendocino County and most of northern California. We were in D0, abnormally dry, in most of 2008.

As usual, people are being asked to cut their water use.

And as usual, there is no good plan in place in the county to deal with a severe, long drought. The effects of such a drought would be significant, even devastating. Vineyards could wither. Forests could die, as they have been dying in much of the west from the spreading of insect pests due to global (or at least Western United States) warming patterns.

If you look at how much water is really available for humans in Mendocino County, if you want to leave some for fish, agriculture, and a bit of wildlife, we have already pushed past the limits. Yet the population of Mendocino County continues to grow.

There are two reasonable solutions to the problem. The obvious one is to halt the population growth, and maybe certain types of water-intensive agriculture. Many people in Mendocino County favor this solution, but they have not been able to put any such policy in place.

The only other solution is to get more water, since it is not going to fall from the sky. The cost of that would be very high. The water might be had by building more dams, especially north of Mendocino County, but that would mean even more damage to the fishing industry. The only source of voluminous water is Canada, and that is a long way away. Mendocino County might share a pipeline with other thirsty areas of California, and even Oregon, but even so the price would run in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Sadly, the Board of Supervisors won't choose either of these two approaches. Population growth means increased real estate values; the pro-growth lobby has shown itself capable of defeating any meaningful population stabilization measures.

Bringing in water is also unlikely to happen. Environmentalists will oppose it. It would require skills of coordination not to be found on the Mendocino Board of Supervisors. It would be expensive. Local environmentalists may not be able to get what the want in Mendocino County, but they are powerful enough to block such a massive infrastructure project. Worse, other water hungry areas, like Sonoma County, may have the political power to take more of Mendocino's water from it.

So, for the most part, we will deal with water shortages as individuals, with some help from the Mendocino County Water Agency. Maybe we'll be lucky and the Big Drought won't occur for another generation or two. Maybe people will grow frustrated with the lack of water and move away, leaving ghost towns.

We can't say we have not been warned by nature. Maybe February will bring plentiful rains. And maybe the climate has really changed, and we will never again see a year of rain that can support redwood trees, salmon, steelhead, wine grapes and people all at once.

William P. Meyers