California Water Crisis

California is the third largest state in the United States and the nation’s leading agricultural producer and has been for the last 60 years. Located on the west coast, its agriculture provides millions of jobs and generates close to $27.6 billion dollars in sales annually. With California being the leader in agricultural production, a lot of water is a necessity and the biggest user of water in California is, you got it, the agriculture industry. Before 1922, 6 of the 7 states, including California, which are visited by the Colorado River, signed the Colorado River Compact. This was an agreement among the states governing the allocation of the water rights to the river’s water. California’s rapid growth in population and agriculture began to cause concern for other Colorado River Basin states who feared that California would established priority rights to the river water. The Imperial Valley, located in Southern California, was already relying heavily on the Colorado River for significantly agricultural development (www.usbr.com 2012). For years, California has had their fair share of problems regarding the amount of water that had supposed to been allocated to them or surplus water that the other states never used. In the 1930’s, Southern California’s rights to the river water were thought to be settled and solidified when several agencies signed water delivery contracts with the Secretary of the Interior. The contracts stated the priorities, to use and store California’s portion of the California River water. Over the past 25 years or so, more than 20 cases of Indian land and water rights have been settled and there is still work to be done. Many Indian tribes now occupy the Colorado River with rightful claims to water. Most of the many Indian tribes reside in the state of Arizona. The Navajo Nation is one of the occupants whose 25,000 square-mile reservation is located entirely within the Colorado River Basin, and at the same time, could affect the apportionment of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and the state of Utah as well. All of this Colorado River allocation hoopla, has had effects on other things including wildlife in the Southwest, the inability to conserve the water and the deterioration of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, whom supplies nearly two-thirds of Californians with at least a portion of their drinking water. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is also home to a diverse array of fish and wildlife, and is the largest estuary on the West Coast. It is said that a crashing ecosystem and concerns for the weak and fragile levees cast serious doubt on the Delta’s future (www.aquafornia.com 2012). There are so many problems that are associated with this Colorado River allocation scenario. I recently read that in the near future that California’s government plans to have water in resident’s toilets lowered in order to conserve water. There are several solutions that could and should be applied in order to control California’s water usage. One solution is increase fines for illegal water use. I believe that anytime money has to be paid for any sort of penalty, people will be a lot more cautious of what and how they do things.