It is looking like drought time is coming over us here in Northern California. After a year of floods we’ve now seen two years of blue sky and now we’re midway through the third winter of little to no rain.
Towns like Bolinus which depends on its own private reservoir, has now placed a limit of 150 gallons of water per service connection per day. Which is, according to the Marin Independent Journal, about a single 15 minute shower or three loads of laundry. I’m trying to imagine my household of two teen-age boys and two adults getting by on 150 gallons of water.
I live in an area where most of my water comes from local wells and the rest comes out of the Russian River – which contains water taken out of the Eel River. The Eel River is much further to the North. A tunnel was built between the two rivers a few decades ago which at the time probably seemed like a good idea as there are more people (and thirsty agriculture) in the Russian River Watershed then there is in the Eel River Watershed. The tunnel would probably would be running at full flow today except that the salmon seemed to miss their water a few years back and a court order got invoked and the Eel River got to keep more of its water then it used to. Which still isn’t very much this year.