How Does the Drought Affect Us?

Story by Taylor Jacobs

Due to the lack amount of rain, we are in a drought.  Not many people know how a drought can affect us.  A drought is a long period of time without rain and a lack of water whether underground or surface water.  Droughts can last for months on end, but they can also be declared in as little as 15 days without rain.  Northern California just had lots of rain the past few days.  We need it, right?  Folsom Lake for example, is more like a pond.

 

I spoke to a Placer High School student Tyler Burk about the drought and this is what he had to say, “We are extremely behind for this year’s water.  If we get enough rain like we got the last couple of weeks we may be able to come back from the drought.”  The farmer’s almanac said that it was going to be one of the driest years to date.  Not a lot of people read it and it could have been valuable information to them.  Last winter we let about 50 feet of water out of the Folsom dam which could have come in handy now since we are almost out of water.

 

Some cities are regulating water restrictions on water usage.  San Juan Water District has begun regulating watering yards to once a week, no washing your cars, and to take shorter showers.  Other local areas are beginning to follow this as well.  Some people think there are advantages to having a drought.  One reason is that we can realize we don’t need to use a lot of water and we can live whenever we cut back on using water.  Other people don’t think there are.

 

I spoke to another Placer High School student, Ryan Cerny about this topic and he said, “No there isn’t an advantage to being in a drought.  It doesn’t allow us to grow a lot of crops which we need to eat and survive.”  Many people may agree or disagree that it is a good thing for a drought to happen.  In my opinion I think we should have a drought about every four to five years just to remind people to cut back and conserve water and we can live without using lots of it.

 

There is little rain in our forecast for the next couple of weeks which isn’t good.  Nobody knows when the next amount of decent rain is coming so no one really knows when the drought will be over.  It’s a question everyone will have to wait to get the answer to.