Because it's been raining almost nonstop for the last 3 days here in California, staying dry has been our top priority.
But, conserving water is always on our minds (e.g, taking shorter showers and washing our dishes with as little as possible) -- so we've been happy with all this precipitation.
However, judging from a pretty shocking article we read in the SF Chronicle last Thursday, this bit of rain won't be enough to solve California's major water problems.
According to the article, farmers in Northern California are actually planning to sell their irrigation water to thirsty cities rather than growing their crops. In a time when cities like Los Angeles are in such desperate need for water, the farmers believe they'll actually make more selling their water.
It's an interesting article worth a read.
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Water transfers are actually a fairly common thing now and many professionals involved in California's water politics think that this is the primary way forward for California's every growing water needs.
The strange thing about the whole system, though, is that farmers buy their water for really insanely low prices, subsidized by taxpayer money to support agriculture. But then they are turning around and selling back to taxpayers for higher rates.
California's water laws are pretty convoluted and crazy but this doesn't make much sense...
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Also, here's CA's writeup on water transfers - thick reading but might be interesting to some.
http://wwwswpao.water.ca.gov/transfers/index.cfm
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