Is it morally correct to deprive people of the commonly taken for granted privilege, running water? In California, there has been a drought for the past three years. The drought has caused a shortage of water and both the farmers and the citizens are drilling holes into their land to obtain their water from the houses near them. Some citizens do not have enough water to do the necessary everyday tasks, thus they have to travel long distances in order to somewhat receive water. The situation; should California make laws to manage aquifers, has been a controversial dilemma for a while now. California government should make laws to manage aquifers. California government should be allowed to make laws to manage aquifers so that families can once again enjoy the simple freedom of having running water . “For Angelica Gallegos, the worst part has been going without a shower for five months” (Source 2). Most families don’t have the liberty to shower due to the lack of water California receives. “...At least 1,300 people have lost their water in and around East Porterville, nearly three hours’ drive north of Los Angeles, making the town’s residents some of the hardest hit victims of the three-year-old drought” (Source 2). A majority …show more content…
The lack of water has caused an increased demand in the drilling of wells, which create even more problems with water shortage. “‘ If you own your own property, you can dig a well and you can pump as much groundwater as as you a want…” (Source 3). This shows the problem of over usage of what little water there is. The wells dug at the edge of properties drain and steal water from the surrounding estates. By doing this, you do not know the amount being drained from the aquifer. “‘Groundwater is like a bank account. You can’t take out more than you put in on an ongoing basis,’” (Source 3). The unwatched drainage of water by farmers can empty out an entire aquifer if it is not filled back
The California water drought has been declared a crisis by the governor of California. 2013 was the driest year on record, and California could be running out of water. Californians should be water wise, and their use, or no use, of water will have an enormous impact on this drought. They can use the techniques published in a recent Time article called, 5 Ways to Bust California’s Drought, to reduce their water use. Landscape techniques, alternate water sources, and the personal conservation of water can reduce the use of water, and can have a positive change on this water crisis.
Farmers and ranchers who own water rights should have their water amount filled earlier in order to facilitate themselves with the proper amount of water. They should not be restricted to a smaller prearranged amount of water each year. Water us...
The Ogallala Aquifer was found in 1889. Since then, 170,000 wells have been made, just in SW Kansas. If we stop pumping right now it will take hundreds of years to refill. If we use it until it is completely dry, it will take 6,000 years to naturally refill. One of the main reasons the aquifer is drying up so fast is center pivot irrigation, which is used by a lot of farmers in SW Kansas. 50% of the water brought up through the wells to water crops is wasted. Water is being pumped out much faster than the Ogallala Aquifer can replenish, therefore dropping the water levels in the aquifer severely.
California is going through a water crisis. Some of the main problems that led to the water crisis
Water shortage in arid and semi-arid regions and declining its availability to a crisis ...
For about five years California has experienced above average temperatures and a lack of rain. This lack of rain and snowfall has caused California to become increasingly dry, starting arguments over whose right to water is more important and who needs to be more mindful with their use of water. Farming in California truly began during the gold rush when water was redirected to land where food was grown for those looking for gold (Siegler, 2015). The farmers that have stayed on that land now have senior water rights (“Water wars”, 2015). Farmers that settled their land before 1914 are those with senior water rights (Terrell, 2015). Governor Jerry Brown has called for a cut in water use by one-quarter percent to people living
Water laws in the United States comply with one of three bylaws: Riparian Doctrine, Appropriation Doctrine, and Tribal Water Rights; these charters have varying consequences depending on region, historical residence and socioeconomic status. The Riparian Doctrine permits anyone whose land has frontage on a body of surface water to use that water (Ken Lecture Hydro 2/20). When water is scarce, all users are “curtailed proportionally” (Ken Lecture Hydro 2/20)--proportionally refers to the prior average consumption by a user. This doctrine was carried over from England and is primarily used on the east coast of the United States. It favors people who live along bodies of water but is biased against people who live further distances.
This would handicap low income residents and independent farmers when trying to pay their water bills. Larger farming monopolies such as Monsanto would be able to afford the higher price, and buy out other farming competition. In addition, larger monopolies do not have the incentive to switch over to water conserving irrigation techniques, leading them to rely on independent less regulated wells in addition to the water the state designates for them. Excessive groundwater pumping could further decrease the water table level, cause more ground level subsidence, saltwater intrusion, increase drought in neighboring areas, increases risk for sinkholes, and cause a deficiency of groundwater available to surrounding farms and communities. If it reached an extreme enough level, they could be investigated for an environmental justice infringement for damages to the environment as well as abusing the shared natural
When surface water levels are low, farmers have long turned to groundwater as an important, and seemingly limitless, resource to sustain their crops. However, the growing human population and the improvements in technology, which make groundwater pumping easier and more widespread, are raising major concerns for groundwater depletion. The ongoing drought has exacerbated the current situation to a critical level. Groundwater levels have dropped hundreds of feet over the past few years, and it may take hundreds of years for an aquifer to replenish. The groundwater crisis is a prime example of what Garrett Hardin talks about in his essay, The Tragedy of the Commons, which explains how overuse of a shared resource can have detrimental effects for
The state’s common pool resource was and still continues to be water. This delicate resource in the American west is in danger of disappearing, and for the millions of people living in large cities are desperate to continue to use it. But the issue of common pool resources is not one that is recent but is one that has been plaguing California since its founding. When California’s population started to grow around the turn of the twentieth century, the town official within the state started to run into some common pool resource issues, water. Cities, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, used whatever power they had to own and control what little water the California environment produced. The cities are large and successful municipalities today because of what they had to do to control the water all those years ago. The city used tactics, such as buying out the land, petitioning the government, and, sometimes, illegal actions, to win the waters of California and their success back then highly shows in their success
Climate change is one of the most discussed topics of the twenty-first century. Although this subject is very often on the daily basis of lots of people, most of them do not know much about it. So let us define climate change. People think that climate change is the same thing as global warming. However, global warming only represents one aspect of climate that is temperature. Climate change is any significant change in temperature, precipitation, or a wind pattern that occur over several decades or longer.
Water is pure and a transparent liquid that is vital for all humans, plants and animals on the planet. In the United States, people have access to clean drinking water and clean sanitation systems, not like in other parts of the world where clean safe drinking water is getting scarce. A lot of people don’t have access to it, and many regions are suffering severe drought. Yet, humans take it for granted, they don’t appreciate that a reliable clean supply of water is essential to human health, economy and agricultural prosperity. Having clean and safe potable water is a right and not a privilege. Some individuals don’t appreciate the advantage of having clean water available at
One main causes of water scarcity is water mismanagement worldwide. Water mismanagement has become a crisis of governance that will impact heavily ...
According to CQ Researcher’s Cooper “More than a billion people around the world lack access to safe drinking water and their numbers are growing”(Water Shortage). Is it fair that so many people must go without water while thousands of gallons are wasted here in the United States? Cooper in addition commented that “unlike the vast majority of natural resources water often is seen as a free commodity like the air we breathe” (Water Shortage). Without seeing water as something worth conserving, we literally pour away our most valuable resource. We can not afford this; water shortages already ravage the majority of the world: “If per-capita water consumption continues to rise at current rates, humans will take more than 90 percent of all available fresh water by 2025, leaving only 10 percent of the earth’s fresh water for all animals and plants on the planet” (Cooper, Water Shortage). Even the water that is available to humans is often not clean enough to safely drink: “Outbreaks of cholera and other waterborne diseases kill 10 million people each year” (Cooper, Water Quality). Cooper acknowledged that“1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water...
Aquifers feed our rivers and supply much of our drinking water. Groundwater pollution is much less obvious than surface-water pollution, but is no less of a problem. As the long Mediterranean summer drags on and the promise of rain evaporates as quickly as the few fat drops that have fallen here and there, residents of the capital and its surrounding areas find themselves resorting to ad hoc private water networks as the public pipes run dry. "We had originally dug at 30 meters, but we are now digging at 70 meters," one private water supplier and well owner told The Daily Star(Unknown, 2013,page