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Are policy makers exacerbating drought scares? That’s what it looks like in California

Posted by: Maven on May 8, 2009 at 8:07 am

From AlterNet:

Take shorter showers, wash only full loads of laundry, sweep instead of hose your driveway. These are the messages that Californians are getting as part of the state’s new “Save Our Water” campaign. Just weeks ago, 19 million Southern Californians were told they would be seeing mandatory restrictions, and at the same time, thousands of farmworkers marched to protest water cuts in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley in the central part of the state.

All this seems to fit with a February proclamation from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that California is facing a drought emergency that director of the Department of Water Resources Lester Snow compared at one point this winter to the worst drought in modern history of the state.

But not everyone is convinced about how dire the situation is and why. In a controversial story in the Stockton Record, columnist Michael Fitzgerald wrote, “California’s ‘drought’ is overblown. The alarmists calling it a historic disaster are trying to pull a fast one.”

Responding in kind, an op-ed from fisherman Dan Bacher began, “Lester Snow, the director of the state Department of Water Resources, tried to ‘snow’ the public by making false claims of a ‘drought’ scenario in California in an announcement on April 2.”

So what gives? Are these guys fringe extremists, or is there any truth to their words?

Read more from AlterNet by clicking here.

May 8, 2009 · Filed Under Drought, Weather & Snowpack

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