Permanent Solution to California Water Drought: Fewer People

By Joe Guzzardi
January 24, 2014

For decades, federal, state and municipal governments have ignored population growth’s consequences. Despite California’s ongoing battle against too little water, the Chamber of Commerce, the Club for Growth and Wall Street want more, more, more. The 2012 birth rate drop triggered a series of near-panic mainstream media stories that a demographic zero hour might be looming. Reporters speculated that too few children would eventually mean fewer workers, less productivity and too many retirees. 

That gloomy prediction is baseless speculation. What we know for sure is that, according to the Census Bureau, last year California’s population added 332,000 residents which brought the state total to an unsustainable 38.2 million.  Higher population created a demand for more natural resources including, most important, water.

California’s record-breaking drought highlights the extent to which a water crisis could paralyze the state. Of note is that 2013 was about 20 percent drier than any previous year in California’s history. Governor Jerry Brown has officially confirmed that California is in drought emergency mode. 

Brown’s declaration sanctions water supply agencies to ban lawn watering and washing cars. During the last sustained drought in 1976-1977, Californians prudently saved shower water to plant gardens and wash down their sidewalks. But the larger problem remains. The vitally important agriculture industry uses about 80 percent of California’s water. The drought could lead to fallowing of farmland, lower yields, higher consumer prices and more unemployment.

Meteorologists predict that the drought will continue because of an unprecedented, 13-month long high offshore pressure ridge along the West Coast which is blocking the typical winter storms. Brian Fuchs, an analyst from the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska says existing conditions “create a perfect environment” for more dry weather. 

Even as the state gropes for solutions, Brown may be playing water politics. Columnist Dan Walters noted that since Brown declared an emergency, he now “owns” the drought politically. While his re-election is certain, the drought may complicate Brown’s agenda to construct twin tunnels to carry Sacramento River Water to California Aqueduct’s head, a project Pat Brown began as when he was governor five decades ago. But although legislators have been drafting a water bond issue that would finance some portion of the tunnels, Brown appears reluctant to have it on his re-election ballot. Brown prefers to campaign as a debt reduction champion instead of a sponsor of more debt.

Nothing can be done about high pressure systems. Sacramento politics is beyond anyone’s comprehension or control. But there’s much that Californians can do to stabilize its population. The Guttmacher Institute, winner of the Population Center grant from the National Institutes of Health, reported that of the 8.4 million California women of reproductive age (aged 13-44), 5.0 million needed contraceptive services and supplies. From those 5 million, 600,000 require publicly supported services because they are sexually active teenagers and 2 million because they have incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty level. 

Sensible immigration reduction (nearly all of California’s growth comes from immigration) and birth control would help create the only lasting solution to California’s natural resources shortages: fewer people consuming them. Then, those fewer people must treasure how scarce and irreplaceable natural resources are and use them sparingly.

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Joe Guzzardi is a Californians for Population Stabilization Senior Writing Fellow whose columns have been syndicated since 1987. Contact him at [email protected]