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["Don Bowen" <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

> I hope your farmer friend is not affected by the California water
> shortages I just read about. California agriculture uses about eighty 
> percent of the state's water but the urban areas are using their  political 
> muscle to get more than their twenty percent. In what looks  like maybe the 
> third year of inadequate snowpack, the politics will be  reheating.

He is working off well water from an aquifer replenished by rainfall off the 
hills so there is no problem there.

As for the snowpack, This mornings paper reported that it is about 67% of 
normal.  In January and February things looked good with above average rain 
and snow fall but in March and April it stopped.  May 1 is the last sampling 
so we are in another year of drought.

It is a continuous battle between farmers and cities over who gets the 
water.  San Diego paid Imperial Valley farmers to line ditches with concrete 
with the idea the city would then get the water "saved."  But the 
Metropolitan water district stepped in and wanted a huge amount to transfer 
the water.  In the end it was settled by giving some of the water to LA.

Several years ago the state legislature tried to pass a bill that would have 
required any new developments to show where the water was coming from.  It 
was rejected under heavy pressure from the developers.  California 
population has grown significantly over the last several years while at the 
same time we are going deeper into a drought.

Speaking of population growth, the paper a few days ago mentioned a couple 
of interesting trends for the state.  One is the not surprising growth in 
Hispanic population.  The other is an out migration of retiring baby boomers 
moving out of the state to escape high prices.  The article showed the most 
popular states.  As expected the western states were popular but the middle 
state of Arkansas was also a destination.  The article also mentioned a 
sudden slowing of the trend because house sales have stalled.

I am the very leading edge of the baby boomers, having been born in March of 
1946.   I tell my mother I know what they were doing to celebrate the end of 
the war, my father was badly wounded in 1945 in Guam and sent home so was on 
hand.

Don Bowen      KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html