

Central Valley farmers were agitating for more water even before this winter's drought.

Folsom Lake near Sacramento rose six feet with the latest storms in Northern California, but that was only enough to improve the reservoir to 19 percent of capacity from 17 percent. “It has gone up a bit, but it’s certainly not anything to dance in the rain about,” said Doug Carlson, spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources. “We still have a long ways to go before we’re anywhere close to normal.”

The atmospheric river of rain was very welcome up north, but not a drought ender by any means.

Also this: The Bay Area News Group has a nice graphic showing the differences in per-capita water use across California. Los Angeles is not so bad after decades of water conservation steps — more than San Francisco, much less than Sacramento or Palm Springs (of course.) Bigger





Plus: Two Cal State Fresno professors write about the drought and the return of the Dust Bowl: "Life in the Central Valley revolves around two intricately related concerns: the quality of the air and the quantity of the water. Although Fresno is the state’s fifth-largest city, it is really just a sprawling farm town in the middle of the nation’s most productive agricultural region, often called “America’s fruit basket. Surrounded by mountains, which trap the pollution created by a surging population, interstate transportation and tens of thousands of farms, the valley has noxious air, even on good days....Our behavior here in the valley feels untenable and self-destructive, and for much of it we are to blame." NYT Opinion