By Yasha Levine
AlterNet
There’s a disaster waiting to happen in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and a handful of wealthy farmers seem to like it that way.
Imagine the devastating flooding of Hurricane Katrina multiplied by epic sandstorms, drought and economic collapse of the Dust Bowl. Now picture it happening an hour east of Apple’s headquarters in Silicon Valley and spreading all the way down to the Mexican border.
It’s not as far-fetched as you think. A routine 6.7-magnitude earthquake would be enough to set it off, liquefying the decrepit levee system that walls off California’s main source of drinking water from the Pacific Ocean and triggering a deadly flood that would submerge roads, destroy homes, wipe out thousands of acres of farmland, kill countless numbers and possibly cut over 20 million Californians off from their water supply for a year or more.
California’s politicians have known about this looming catastrophe for decades. They also have had the power to neutralize the threat. But no one has done anything to prevent it.
Read the full post at AlterNet
wow. this is an amazing research job! i am only halfway through the article and fascinated. it makes me very happy that our family grows our own vegetables and have our own well. if this disaster strikes, I hope it forces sustainable living on a lot of people, but I’m sure it will also force a lot of non-sustainable policies. ugh! thank you for the info!
agreed, Robin… she did an amazing job; I’m still reading thru it myself.
here’s a related piece, also recent: The Business of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource
good luck on your journey, btw
OMG. They can actually ruin it. This is when you simply take confiscate their property and send them packing. Enough of allowing a tiny tiny minority of intellectually limited people run our world.
makes the free press seem irrelevant, eh?
we got a world of trouble coming down the pike
~ rady
I like this content so much.Thanks.