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Health & Fitness

DID YOU KNOW We Don't Really Have Enough Water for Our Existing Community Much Less Additional Residents?

For human populations to exist and grow they must be able to provide food, clothing and shelter for their inhabitants.  Clean and plentiful water  is today fast becoming the bottleneck facing communities that want to continue to grow and prosper. We rely on clean water to survive, yet right now we are in the midst of a water crisis that instead of responding to we are threatening to aggravate. Changing climate patterns are threatening lakes and rivers, and key sources that we tap for drinking water are being overdrawn or tainted with pollution.

From more severe and frequent droughts to unprecedented flooding, many of the most profound and immediate impacts of climate change actually relate to water.  As was confirmed in the news this past week climate change is not something that will impact our children instead it is already with us.   The San Joaquin valley faces the challenge of dealing with potentially the first year of a zero water allocation from when the current state water distribution system was developed.  So severe is the crisis an aqueduct system that was designed to carry water south towards the Los Angeles area is being checked for the potential to actually pump water from reservoirs in the south back up north against the force of gravity. (http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_25709331/california-drought-plan-would-reverse-aqueduct-flow-send ) In Redwood City we have voluntary water reduction goals which if not met could lead to a formal rationing plan.

According to the City of Redwood City website it is one of 29 wholesale customers who rely on the Hetch Hetchy regional water system for their drinking water supply.  In the case of Redwood City, the city relies one hundred percent on Hetch Hetchy for water.  Although the Redwood City Water Use Forecast for 2010 to 2030, projects that The City will stay well below its contractual supply until at least 2030 that projection clearly doesn’t properly account for climate change and its impacts on the availability of water.  Given these new realities it is hard to understand how additional residential units are constantly being approved.  If we are having to exhort the existing population to reduce their consumption of water by threatening to make a rationing program required how can we think that we will be able to absorb a substantial increase in the population and still have this be the case?  Isn't it time to update the Water Use Forecast so that it properly reflects the times we live in?

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