(NaturalNews) Is California turning back into a desert? Perhaps, but that’s just one of many reasons why it is becoming less and less desirable to live there.
As most Americans know, the Golden State is in the throes of one of the worst droughts in California history. As reported by Bloomberg News, some farmers are resorting to desperate – and expensive – measures just to keep their fields from evaporating into dust:
Near California’s Success Lake, more than 1,000 water wells have failed. Farmers are spending $750,000 to drill 1,800 feet down to keep fields from going fallow. Makeshift showers have sprouted near the church parking lot. Continue reading
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California’s rural poor hit hardest as groundwater vanishes in long drought
MECCA, Calif. — Whenever her sons rush indoors after playing under the broiling desert sun, Guadalupe Rosales worries. They rarely heed her constant warning: Don’t drink the water. It’s not safe. The 8- and 10-year-olds stick their mouths under a kitchen faucet and gulp anyway.
There is arsenic in the groundwater feeding their community well at St. Anthony Trailer Park, 40 miles south of Palm Springs. In ordinary times, the concentration of naturally occurring arsenic is low, and the water safe to drink. But during California’s unrelenting drought, as municipalities join farmers in sucking larger quantities of water from the ground, the concentration of arsenic is becoming more potent. Continue reading
California’s Central Valley Sinking Faster Than Ever Before As Farmers Drill For Water During Drought
FRESNO (CBS SF) — California’s Central Valley is sinking at a rate never before seen during the state’s historic drought, and farmers are shouldering some of the blame for the damage that sinking is causing.
Steve Arthur of Arthur & Orum Well Drilling is drilling wells as fast as his rigs will let him.
“It’s unbelievable. We can’t keep up with the demand,” Arthur told KPIX 5. Continue reading
Dry Wells Plague California as Drought Has Water Tables Plunging
Near California’s Success Lake, more than 1,000 water wells have failed. Farmers are spending $750,000 to drill 1,800 feet down to keep fields from going fallow. Makeshift showers have sprouted near the church parking lot.
“The conditions are like a third-world country,” said Andrew Lockman, a manager at the Office of Emergency Services in Tulare County, in the heart of the state’s agricultural Central Valley about 175 miles (282 kilometers) north of Los Angeles.