By Alastair Bland : estuarynews – excerpt
In the mountains and foothills of California, an enduring drought has depleted the state’s major reserves of water. There is virtually no snowpack, and most of the state’s large reservoirs are less than 40 percent full. But in the central Sierra Nevada, a trio of artificial lakes remain flush with cold mountain water. The largest of them, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, from which millions of Bay Area residents receive water, is more than 80 percent full.
This remarkable plentitude is the outcome of careful planning by the agency that manages the Yosemite National Park reservoir plus conservation by Bay Area residents, who use less water per capita than most other people in the state—between 35 and 65 gallons per person per day. The statewide average is 82 gallons.
But some environmental advocates are hardly cheering San Francisco’s water conservation success. Instead, they’re accusing the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission of hoarding its water through an excessively conservative management plan they say harms the environment and benefits almost no one—not even the city dwellers who use the water…(more)