AlterNet: Is California on the Brink of Environmental Collapse?

Is California on the Brink of Environmental Collapse?

By Rachel Olivieri, AlterNet. Posted September 4, 2008.

California has spared no expense to taxpayers or natural ecosystems to become the most hydrologically altered landmass on the planet.



There is no landmass on Earth quite like California. Here one finds the world's most ancient trees, bristlecone pines, more than 4,700 years old, in the White Mountains; the tallest and largest trees, the coast redwood and giant sequoia, respectively; the highest point in the lower 48 states, Mount Whitney; the lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere, Death Valley; the largest western hemisphere estuary, the Bay Delta; an 800-mile coastline; the most irrigated acres; the most endangered species in the U.S.; the most diverse geology and biodiversity in the U.S.; and the greatest, most ecologically destructive water projects on Earth.

California has spared no expense to either taxpayers or natural ecosystems to attain its status as the most hydrologically altered landmass on the planet. It would surprise few that California was built on gold, greed, extraction, depletion, extinction, dubiously acquired large-landed semi-desert agricultural empires, well-gifted railroad land grants fueling speculative growth, and highly subsidized stolen water -- all comprising a tunnel vision for overextended populations and infinite growth in a world utterly finite.

The incomprehensible vulnerability of California's over-reaching population centers (Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose), the projected urban expansion of the Central Valley, and the weight of climate-warming models leaves one haunted by civilization's lack of respect for a river's entitlement to its water and the food systems that it naturally perpetuates.

There's only so much natural wealth covering the 158,302 square miles of California's ten hydrologic regions. When a region overextends its local resources, it must take from another. More than water is diverted; it drains the very wealth of the food chains these waters support in aquatic, terrestrial, and ocean basins.

With 200 million acre-feet (MAF) of average precipitation spreading over 100 million acres containing 450 known groundwater basins and draining on average 71 MAF of runoff through 20,000 miles of rivers and streams, California has only 1,900 river miles legally protected from dams and diversions. All but one major river remains dam-free, the Smith River on the upper north coast. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/water/97610/is_california_on_the_brink_of_environmental_collapse/

:kick:

but....

I always assumed the Sacramento refuges were lowlands... they're actually uplands that got too salty to farm.

Even our wetland "preserves" are a perversion of nature.