The Reemergence of California’s Drought Spurs Need to Support Disadvantaged Communities

Mount Diablo State Park in the summer of 2021 / Photo by Satchi Thockchom

It has been two years since California overcame its over seven year-long drought, only to digress to an even worse state of drought in 2021. The past 12 months were the driest in regards to precipitation California has seen in a century, and experts are predicting the next 12 months may be even drier. In response to the current state of the drought, officials have called for a 15 percent reduction in water use in California. On top of this, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a drought emergency for California and asked Californains to strengthen efforts to conserve water. 

While the state frequently receives low rainfall, this is a cause for concern because of rising temperatures stemming from climate change. Snowpack is crucial for replenishing California’s reservoirs, making up one-third of the water used by California cities and farms every year. However, warmer winters lead to snow falling as rain instead, and once it hits late summer, California must depend on water that fell on the snowpack during the prior winter. Additionally, warmer air can hold more moisture, further depleting water supplies. 

The proclamation allows the State Water Resources Control Board to prohibit unnecessary water uses, such as using drinkable water on sidewalks and driveways. Additionally, it adds eight counties that were not initially a part of the drought state of emergency, including Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco and Ventura. The Governor’s California Comeback Plan sets aside $5.2 billion over three years to support drought response projects, including $815 million intended for securing and increasing water supplies, drought contingency planning and support for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure for particularly small and disadvantaged communities. 

Those particularly at risk are small communities, which are typically communities of color, due to financial barriers. The shallow wells that are often used leaves communities ill-prepared for dry conditions and regional groundwater over-pumping. While the 2012 to 2016 drought was still occuring, at least 2,600 households that relied on wells faced water shortages and around 150 small water systems required emergency aid. 

Rural, low-income Latino communities in California were the most impacted by the previous drought. These communities are expected to suffer through water shortages again due to similar drought conditions affecting the state. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, it is crucial state officials begin preparing for this rapidly approaching reality through monitoring wells and stocking up emergency drinking water supplies to aid those communities. 

Many of the towns that struggled to locate an alternative water source to use once wells dried up were primarily farmworker communities that are composed of mainly lower-income and Latino populations. This group was also impacted by costs of the drought on agriculture at the same time. Now, while still recovering from the drought’s impact, as well as the pandemic the towns are at risk for more water shortages. 

According to the Center for Disease Control, droughts can cause many negative health consequences. The concentration of pollutants can increase as a result of decreased stream and river flows. Higher water temperatures and particles from drought-related wildfires, such as ash and charcoal, lead to lower oxygen levels which affect aquatic ecosystems and water quality. Droughts also have the potential to affect the health of livestock and lower crop yields due to limiting the growing season, potentially causing malnutrition. Fires and dry soil and vegetation increase the amount of particles in the air such as pollen, smoke and fluorocarbons. This increases the risk of acute respiratory infections and makes chronic respiratory illnesses worse. Residents in vulnerable areas that take part in water-related activities are at increased risk of waterborne disease due to contaminants such as bacteria and chemicals. With reduced rainfall, Viruses, protozoa, and bacteria can contaminate groundwater and surface water. Additionally, drought reduces the size of bodies of water and leads to stagnation, providing breeding grounds for mosquitoes that can transmit diseases.

Droughts can lead to losses equating to $9 billion per year, such as through its impact on the agriculture industry, which uses approximately 80 percent of all the water used in California. The issue of water shortages is not the only barrier to having statewide access to safe and affordable drinking water, as it was found that around 343 water systems do not meet this criteria. It may take $10.25 billion over the next five years to manage the contamination and shortages that affect water systems. 

To cope with the ongoing drought, farmers are extracting groundwater at higher rates to grow and sustain food at their usual quantities. During years that are less severely drought-stricken, dams, aqueducts and irrigation canals collect water from rivers and melting snow and supply it to the Central Valley, America’s most profitable agricultural belt. However, since the rivers are becoming drier, the state’s biggest reservoirs contain less than half the average amount of water and farmers are forced to depend on their wells. Since it was only recently that groundwater use was being regulated, wells 100 years ago only needed to be 50 or 80 feet deep, but now, due to years of over-pumping aquifers, wells need to be over a thousand feet to reach water and are therefore causing the earth to collapse and sink drastically. 

Due to the damaging health and economic consequences of droughts, it is crucial to focus funding and assistance to the communities most at risk to drought conditions. Better drought planning and protocol is required for California’s most vulnerable communities in order to avoid the hardships of the last drought. Additionally, it is vital that laws to restrict groundwater pumping should be strictly enforced to help prevent droughts. It is also important for residents to participate in water-saving practices such as getting rid of lawns and lowering residential water use. Through proactive drought planning and protocol, as well as water conservation efforts taken on by major industries and civilians, California can provide a more effective response to the struggles placed on disadvantaged communities.