Hotscot

Just nipped up and down to San Francisco, staying at Napa overnight.
I took the 5 and 99 through the Central Valley. (Different form my usual on the 101, or 395)

Bloody hell...the drought has devastated the place, everything dead/golden, dust in the air covering thousands of square miles...it looks terrible...and there's no guarantees of heavy rain at any time.

The self interested politicians here should be getting the finger out...

scrubbedexpat099

All the rain has fallen in Colorado, wettest Summer here for at least 16 years possibly a lot longer. There is a lake bed that has had water in it all summer, apparently that has not happened since the early 70's.

N1cky

Horrible isn't it. Earlier in the year, when you would expect the reservoirs to be at their highest, you could see the levels of past years several feet higher than this years levels.

sir_eccles

Keep and eye on produce prices, could rocket.

GeoffM

Sod that, what about wine?!


Oh never mind, half of mine comes from NZ anyway

Hotscot

You must be a Marlborough Man

You should check out Clos Du Bois Sauv. Blanc 2013 mind you.

GeoffM

For a moment I thought I was on a smoking thread! Yes, spot on. For the $5-$10 price range of most in that area, that suits me just fine.

I'll keep an eye out, though I'm not very good at remembering what I did and did not like. So I have to drink more, which makes me remember less, so I need to try more...

Anyway, on topic, I thought there was a news item last week that the drought had eased slightly - up here in the desert, of all places! Apparently water consumption has gone down this year though, just not enough as they'd hoped.

markonline1

Monterey County isn't too bad, Santa Cruz county on the other hand. We have I think about 12 acres of manicured lawn at work. We have until next summer to reduce that down to 1 acre. Having said that, there isn't the madness here that you get back in the UK when we go a couple of months without a shower.

scrubbedexpat091

We even up further north in BC are dry and warm, not as bad as California is seeing, but for a temperate rain forest we haven't been getting the usual amounts of rain.

We still water restrictions in place, and generally by now they have been lifted.

Hopefully California will see some rain this coming winter.

Hotscot

Mark.

Have you ever driven the 5 or 99?
Whole different world. It's downright scary right now, a dust bowl in many places, like watching an ecological disaster movie.

And no one in power seems to give a damn cause their all too busy squandering our tax money on various "causes" and their pet "demographics".

This State is headed to ruin.

bewildering

The problem is that northern California Nor Cal has had little water conservation practices in place up until till recently. Some places in NoCal don't even have water meters - they just pay a flat fee for access, and not for any quantities.

I think things will change.

Anyway, there is an El Nino coming, and probably a fair bit of rain/snow.

San Diego had rain in July and August. First time in over ten years.

And i think you just described every politician, everywhere. And lets be honest, they are just a mirror of us, the electorate. We suck.

Hotscot

Speak for yersel'

thinbrit

and therein lies the problem, rain is on the way so don't bother to conserve

Sally Redux

The City of Calabasas was still planting huge displays of English garden- type annuals at the point when I left.

It should be all native planting in municipal and private landscaping.

~ spoken as one who tried and failed to keep a lawn going.

Pulaski

Too many pols in both parties are happy to spend spend spend when money is there to spend, but never want to save for a rainy day, ..... or when there is no rain!

That said, spending freely is noticeably more of a habit on one side of the political divide than the other, and California has more of that flavour of politician. Coincidentally, I am sure, California is in a financial mess.