Governor Declares Statewide Water Drought

Last Wednesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought and issued an Executive Order directing immediate state action to deal with the dwindling water supplies...

Last month, the final Department of Water Resources (DWR) snow survey of 2008 showed snowpack water content at only 67 percent of normal and the runoff forecast at only 55 percent of normal and conditions continue to worsen across California.

Read the Governor's declaration here...

http://gov.ca.gov/index.php?/press-release/9796/

Yesterday, he gave a radio address on the water shortage, where he said the following...

As a result, local governments are rationing water, developments can't proceed and farmers can't plant certain crops.

Which brings me to my point, housing developments in a time of drought.

Even though there are already several housing developments waiting to be built here in Menifee (Audie Murphy, Christensen Ranch, to name a couple), do we have the water to support more homes?

Here's some of my observations..

• If all the people buying brand new properties in Menifee came from within California, then technically it doesn't add to the state's water shortage. But if those people came from out-of-state, it does. Basically, we need to discourage people from moving into California; we just don't have the water to support them.



• City government collects a lot of money from new home permits. Each new residence that developers build represents thousands of dollars for our city's budget. By not allowing further development, we don't collect any of that money. Currently, the County collected all the money from new home permits. Can we afford to halt new developments?



• I want the new city council to enact an ordinance requiring all new home builders to implement drip systems, rather than conventional above-ground water sprinklers. Drip systems simply has water injected into the ground, using below-ground pipes and hoses. This eliminates water runoff, and water evaporation.



• The Executive Order that the governor signed will allocate more state money to the Department of Water Resources to build projects designed to capture more rainwater, and build infrastructure to move more water to where its needed the most. Could this also translate to less money for public schools?