Romero, Ezra. “Recycled Water May Prove Crucial for Northern California Amid Ongoing Droughts, Climate Change.” KQED, 25 Oct. 2022, www.kqed.org/news/11929864/recycled-water-may-prove-crucial-for-northern-california amid-ongoing-droughts-climate-change. Accessed 29 Jan. 2023.
This KQED article compares the Bay Area’s water recycling to Southern California where they recycled 83% more water. Increased droughts and global warming concerns have caused Governor Gavin Newsom to increase water recycled by 60% by 2024. The Bay Area uses water imported from more than 100 miles away. After an algal bloom that scientists believe is caused by climate and sewage treatment problems killing thousands of fish, the Bay Area needs to focus on proper water recycling and reduce its dependence on imported water.
I think that the algal bloom, although tragic, was a good wakeup call for the Bay Area. This article briefly mentions state regulations and I think that in order to have real progress there needs to be a constant effort from those in power. I believe that this article shows that even with algal blooms people seem to feel no rush to “solve” the cause of the problems but rather like to look for band-aid solutions. I expect to see this behavior of “band-aid” solutions mimicked throughout the rest of the articles.
Agreed. We needed the wake up call. Do you think this is a case where some top down coercion from the state govt requiring certain levels of water recycling is in order. It is expensive, but considering our drought issues that aren’t going away, something must be done. OR, should we be more focused on farmers who use 80% of the water before it makes it to us.
Water is obviously such a huge issue for everyone. I hope you stayed engaged on this and feel like you have a more informed perspective as the result of your work. Thanks for the consistently great contributions to Edublogs.
I think we should be more focused on farmers because once we show that it’s possible to cut back on water use and recycling water in farms awareness will spread in local communities.