Woes flow from Western drought

LOS ANGELES - The drought that has swept California and much of the West is confronting authorities with the worst water shortage this region has faced in more than a century, with near-empty reservoirs, parched fields, starving livestock, clouds of smog and outbreaks of wildfires.

With no sign of significant rain, 17 rural communities in the state, which provide water to 40,000 people, are in danger of running out within two to four months.

California authorities announced Friday they had no water left in the State Water Project, the main municipal water-distribution system, to supplement the dwindling supplies of local agencies that serve 25 million people. It is the first time the project has turned off its spigot in its 54-year history.

“We are on track for having the worst drought in 500 years,” said B. Lynn Ingram, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Berkeley.

State officials said that in the worst scenario, they would have drinking water transported into parched communities and drill additional wells to draw from groundwater. The deteriorating situation is likely to mean the imposition of mandatory water-conservation measures for homeowners and businesses, who have already been asked to voluntarily reduce their water use by 20 percent.

The drought, in its third year, is forcing big shifts in behavior. Farmers in rural Nevada said they had given up on planting, while ranchers in Northern California and New Mexico said they were being forced to sell cattle as fields that should be 4 feet high in grass are blankets of brown and stunted stalks.

Authorities have outlawed fishing and camping in much of California to protect endangered salmon and guard against fires. Many people said they had begun to cut back on taking showers, washing their cars and watering their lawns.

Rain and snow showers granted relief to parts of the state at the week’s end, but nowhere near enough fell to make up for record-long stretches without precipitation, officials said.

“I have experienced a really long career in this area, and my worry meter has never been this high,” said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, a statewide coalition. “We are talking historical drought conditions, no supplies of water in many parts of the state. My industry’s job is to try to make sure that these kind of things never happen. And they are happening.”

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack called the drought in California a “deep concern” and a warning sign of trouble ahead for much of the West.

“That’s why it’s important for us to take climate change seriously,” he said. “If we don’t do the research, if we don’t have the financial assistance, if we don’t have the conservation resources, there’s very little we can do to help these farmers.”

Without rain to scrub the air, pollution in the Los Angeles basin, which declined during the past decade, has returned to dangerous levels. Homeowners have been instructed to stop burning wood in their fireplaces.

In the San Joaquin Valley, federal limits for particulate matter were breached for most of December and January. Schools used a warning-flag system to signal when children should play only indoors.

“One of the concerns is that as concentrations get higher, it affects not only the people who are most susceptible but healthy people as well,” said Karen Magliano, assistant chief of the air-quality planning division of the state’s Air Resources Board.

The effect has been particularly severe on farmers and ranchers.

“I have friends with the ground torn out, all ready to go,” said Darrell Pursel, who farms just south of Yerington, Nev. “But what are you going to plant? At this moment, it looks like we’re not going to have any water. Unless we get a lot of rain, I know I won’t be planting anything.”

Larry Reagan, a cattle rancher in eastern New Mexico, said he had begun selling his 250 cows last year and now faces the possibility of selling them all.

“There’s not much I can do, just feed them as much as I can and pray for rain,” Reagan said.

The University of California Cooperative Extension held a drought survival session last week in Browns Valley, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, drawing hundreds of ranchers in person and online.

“We have people coming from six or seven hours away,” said Jeffrey James, who ran the session.

Dan Macon, 46, a rancher in Auburn, Calif., said the situation was “as bad as I have ever experienced. Most of our rangelands are essentially out of feed.”