Due to his district being out of California, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has stepped up to call out Democratic Governor of California Gavin Newsom this past Sunday due to how he is dealing with the ongoing drought that is plaguing the state of his constituents.
“I think Gavin Newsom has failed when it comes to water,” stated McCarthy in an interview with Fox News. “California has a long history from droughts to very rainy and snow pack years. The problem is a drought is always going to come in the future, it’s what do you do in the other years?”
“They haven’t built any new water storage. No new dams. They don’t have any desal[ination],” he went on. “They continue to let water go out into the ocean. So in a drought year, you do not have the reservoirs to be able to supply the water that’s needed.”
As of writing, over 97% of the state is labeled as being in severe drought, with almost 60% being labeled as being extreme drought.
Farmers in the state have been forced to deal with this horrid drought over the vast majority of the state, and one California Central Valley farmer, Sam Parnagian, told the outlet that the state’s farms are being severely hampered by the ordeal.
The state is responsible for producing much of the crops for the U.S., along with over one-third of the country’s vegetables, and two-thirds of its overall fruits and nuts coming from the west coast state. Despite this, and due to the drought, this could all end up changing in the future.
“You’ll go see tens of thousands of acres that used to have nuts, almonds, pistachios … and they’re just bare,” explained Parnagian to Fox News. “It’s just all dust.”
Quite a few farmers in the area around the Central Valley of California have decided to leave large sections of their farmland fallow, or unworked, due to the extreme lack of water. The incoming water restrictions, which are more readily known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, will also add to the overall lack of necessary water for the farms over the coming years.
The deputy director for water rights of the California State Water Resources Control Board, Erik Ekdahl, stated to the outlet that he “think[s] the state has actually done some remarkably good planning and preparation and implementation for drought.”
McCarthy highlighted just how Newsom should have been making use of the time before the drought started to get more ready for the dry conditions.
“You should store it in the abundant years to have it for the years coming forward when it comes to drought,” expressed McCarthy. “That would show you good management.”
