Water Whiplash

Climate One

Science, Earth Sciences, News, News Commentary, Social Sciences

4.7 • 583 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2017

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Californians are accustomed to living through wet times and dry times, but lately things are getting more extreme and much more difficult to predict. After five years of severe drought, Californians are now talking about what it means to have too much water at once. The end of the drought is a blessing, but the state may need to find $50 billion to repair dams, roads and other infrastructure threatened by floods. The damaged spillway at Oroville dam highlighted what happens when the state doesn’t keep its water system in good working order. How is California preparing for the whiplash of going from really dry to really wet years? What will it take to fix the system that delivers the water that keeps us alive and lubricates our economy? How will the state and federal governments work together to modernize the water system that grows food that lands on dinner tables across the country? This program is made possible by support from the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. Guests: Don Cameron, General Manager, Terranova Ranch Inc. Felicia Marcus, Chair, State Water Resources Control Board Buzz Thompson, Director, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University This program was recorded live at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on May 24, 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Climate One, changing the conversation about energy, economy, and the environment.
0:08.0	Over the past few years, many parts of the country have experienced record drought, followed by
0:12.9	epic floods. You could call it water whiplash.
0:16.3	So this has always been normal, but with climate change, what's going to happen is those juxtapositions
0:22.7	of floods and droughts are going to get even worse. We're going to see them even more, and the
0:27.3	conditions at both extremes are going to be worse. California has seen five years of drought,
0:32.6	followed by a deluge of rain this past winter. With all that uncertainty, how do we stabilize our water supply?
0:39.1	Whether it's the drought or now these rains, we get reminded all the time of the need to
0:43.4	prepare, prepare, prepare, and the need to deal with our infrastructure, not just new infrastructure,
0:49.1	but our old infrastructure may not be that sexy, but it's incredibly important.
0:53.9	The perils of water whiplash. Up next on Climate One.
1:01.3	Extreme droughts and floods are happening more and more frequently, wreaking havoc on our water supply.
1:06.9	How do we deal with this water whiplash?
1:09.7	Welcome to Climate One, changing the conversation about America's energy, economy, and environment.
1:15.6	Climate One conversations with oil companies and environmentalists, Republicans and Democrats, are recorded before a live audience and hosted by Greg Dalton.
1:26.2	Today on the program, we discuss the challenges of having too little water and of having too much.
1:33.2	Greg is joined by Buzz Thompson, former director of the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford
1:38.0	and a professor of natural resources at Stanford Law School.
1:41.9	Felicia Marcus is chair of the California Water Resources Board.
1:45.5	She served at the EPA under President Clinton.
1:48.3	Don Cameron is manager of Taranova Ranch in California Central Valley,
1:52.4	where he farms a variety of fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
	...

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