Unmaking California’s Central Valley
Mark Arax
IN THIS YEAR of heat records and fire tornadoes, California faces another potential crisis: drought. In November 2020, more than 80 percent of the state’s land mass was classified as somewhere between “abnormally dry” and “extreme drought” by the United States Drought Monitor. The chances of the winter offering relief look slim, given what’s called a “La Niña climate pattern,” which is associated with arid conditions in much of California. The months ahead are, in general, far more likely to bring water worries than happy surprises.
To longtime California residents, such fears are familiar. The state’s most recent drought began in 2012 and stretched into the early days of the Trump administration. Minds not entirely fogged by 2020 may recall the choreographed spectacle in April 2015 when then-Governor Jerry Brown stood on a snowless mountaintop to announce the state’s first-ever mandatory urban water conservatio