All that snow and water, and what to do with it

The mountains are beautiful. The most snow in several years. So, the question is, what’s going to happen to all that water when the snow melts? Is it going to run into our dams, like Lake Isabella, Lake Success, Millerton, Bass, Hume, Huntington, Shaver. etc. to save that water for our future use? Or is it going to flood a lot of homes and property and then run into the ocean? Water reservoirs and dams haven’t been built in Central California, especially in the southern part, in many years. It’s being reported that at this point we’re not in a drought, but if this snowmelt isn’t saved, we’ll probably be right back there very soon.

The Central Valley project was devised in 1933 to save water in the north and then send it south to Central California in the summer. They do get a lot more rain than we do. So dams and reservoirs were built such as Oroville, Shasta and Folsom and the Friant Canal. However, along the way, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 was passed by environmentalists to “save the fish,” which resulted in turning off most of the water supply coming to the westside of the San Joaquin Valley. That needs to change but that’s a subject that the water districts have been fighting for for several years. The immediate needs are how to save that snowpack when it starts melting.

As we all know, this valley feeds the world. We need this water this summer so food can be grown here as it has for many, many years. Are water officials going to do nothing to prevent this snowpack from running out into the ocean. I hope not. Water districts know how to run this water into ground water storage areas like on Allen Road. Also, can’t this snowpack run into our aquifers to restore the water levels and support the canal system we already have.

As citizens of Central California, we know how important water is to agriculture. The people in Sacramento have already shown us they don’t care about agriculture.

They continue to hamper our farmers, restrict them from making a living much less feed us. I, for one, don’t want to buy food grown in South America, Mexico and elsewhere where health standards may not be as good as ours are in this country. Therefore, we need to save this water when the snow melts.

Our state representatives and all the water district managers should put pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom to use whatever means to move that water, which will be coming in the next couple of months, into every lake, river, canal and reservoir possible to save this most precious commodity we have.

We may not see this amount of snowpack again for many more years. We need to do whatever is necessary to save that water NOW !!!!

I may not have all my facts straight as to how this can happen. I just know it needs to happen and soon.