Mother Jones magazine: Here’s What I Saw in a California Town Without Running Water

[marmar]

Here’s What I Saw in a California Town Without Running Water
Thanks to the drought, many people in East Porterville can't cook, shower, or flush the toilet at home.

—By Julia Lurie | Mon Sep. 7, 2015 6:00 AM EDT


Glance at a lawn in East Porterville, California, and you'll instantly know something about the people who live in the house adjacent to it.

If a lawn is green, the home has running water. If it's brown, or if the yard contains plastic tanks or crates of bottled water, then the well has gone dry.

Residents of these homes rely on deliveries of bottled water, or perhaps a hose connected to a working well of a friendly neighbor. They take "showers" from a bucket, use paper plates to avoid washing dishes, eat sandwiches instead of spaghetti so there's no need to boil water, and collect water used for cooking and showers to pour in the toilet or on the trees outside.

East Porterville is in Tulare County, a region in the middle of California's agriculture-heavy Central Valley that's been especially hard hit by the state's historic drought. More than 7,000 people in the the county lack running water; three quarters of them live in East Porterville. The community doesn't have a public water system; instead, residents rely on private wells. But after years of drought, the nearby Tule River has diminished to a trickle and the underground water table has sunk as more and more farmers rely on groundwater. Last week, I spent a few days interviewing residents in the town, also known as "ground zero" of the drought. .....................(more)

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/08/drought-no-running-water-east-porterville

[mnhtnbb]

1. Water has always been precious in this part of California. My mom (1908-2000)

grew up around there in a tiny little town called Terra Bella and her youngest sibling,
my uncle, went to high school in Porterville.

I can remember visiting my mother's sister and husband--who were orange ranchers--
in Delano in the early 1960's. My aunt yelled at me for taking a bath and using
more than an inch of water in the bathtub! I guess I was about 10 and forgot
to wash out the bathtub ring when I was done and that's how she knew!

[Le Taz Hot]

2. Big Agra has the money and hardware

to dig down as far as they can go and pump out virtually unlimited amounts of water from the aquifer. And our so-called "liberal" legislature does absolutely nothing about it because Big Ag is Big Money. This is the same Big Ag that fights GMO labeling. The same Big Ag that is actually expanding their acreage. Why not? As long as they can continue to dig they have a free water source.

These practices have very real consequences to the people who have lived in the San Joaquin Valley for generations. It has a direct effect on your food sources. The small organic farms of 60 acres or less are doing well around here for the moment. Interestingly, it's the smaller farms that are leading the way in water-conserving growing methods, organic farming, non-GMO and farming in a way that replenishes the soil. But the threat from Big Ag is always looming. If they decide they want your land, they get your land with the help and blessing of the local officials in whose pockets they reside.

The story of East Porterville is indicative of what happens when resources get scarce. The Big Boys get what they want while the rest of us scratch out what is left.

[mountain grammy]

4. The very reality of trickle down economics..

[MisterP]

5. they're an outright hacendado class, with so much water rights they're dumping it into alfalfa

but statistics can be dangerously bland: it doesn't say where the water's from (springs, aquifer portage, or local rivers)--so Palm Springs uses 6x more water than any municipality (but it's from the, er, springs, that just bubbled up oases in the desert); likewise almonds and pistachios are grown precisely because they need so little water, so their high net usage is because of the acreage, and because they're profitable--not so much to Americans but to the high-paying European market (like with Indian rice under the Raj going to Britain and sitting on docks while the factors wait for better prices); and let's not get started on beef (especially if it's from irrigated water)

look at these two graphs--the "dry" nut crops use the most water while the "thirsty" orchard crops are low down



for a century now this pampered class has been squealing that we'll all starve! TO DEATH! if we alter their generous 1890s water rights or refuse to turn off beach showers or try to loosen the garrotte they've put on the statehouse or otherwise upset them in any way

[roguevalley]

3. reminds me of hilt which is a ghost town now