Opinion: California water crisis: Better supply solutions ignored
Chronic water scarcity in California is indeed the new normal, but it’s not because of climate change. Even if the state is destined to experience lengthier droughts and reduced snowpack, most scenarios also forecast an abundance of years when the state is inundated with a series of so-called atmospheric rivers. That diluvian scenario was experienced by Californians this past winter, and even more so in the winter of 2022–23. Yet water remains scarce. Water is scarce because Californians have been living off a previous generation’s investment in the State Water Project, a remarkable system of reservoirs and aqueducts built in the 1950s and ’60s that were designed for a state with 20 million people but that is now inhabited by a population nearly twice the size.
—Written by Edward Ring, co-founder of the California Policy Center and author of The Abundance Choice: Our Fight for More Water in California