Satellite images released by NASA show the shocking extent of water shortage in California as it’s revealed that some communities have been left without water for five months during the record-breaking drought.
The colors in the ‘California Drying’ images, released by the GRACE program, progress from green to orange then red, showing how much the water storage has dried up in the region since 2002.
According to the space agency, California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins, including the Central Valley, have suffered the greatest losses.
Part of this is due to increased groundwater from reservoirs and rivers being pumped to support agricultural production.
Satellite images of southern California highlight how much water storage has dried up in the region since 2002
Between 2011 and 2014, the combined river basins have lost four trillion gallons (15 cubic kilometers, or 12 million acre-feet) of water each year.
The amount far exceeds the amount California’s 38 million residents use in cities and homes annually.
Across the whole of the state, 63 trillion gallons have been lost since 2013 – the equivalent of having the US west of the Rocky Mountains flooded in four inches of water.
The drought is now in its third year and has caused rivers to dry up, agricultural land to become untenable and water bills to soar.
Around 500 residents in Tulare County have been left without running water for five months.
It means they are unable to shower, flush a toilet or fill a glass without getting a bottle or a bucket.
Angelica Gallegos, who lives in Porterville, told The New York Times: ‘When you wake up in the middle of the night sick to your stomach, you have to think about where the water bottle is before you can use the toilet.’
The Gallegos family’s drinking water comes only from bottles, mostly received through donations but sometimes bought at the gas station.
To wash her children’s hair, Mrs Gallegos has to use water from buckets which Mr Gallegos has to refill from the county’s fire station every day.
Angelica Gallegos from Porterville, California, uses a container of non-potable water to wash her dishes. She has not had running water for five months and relies on taps or donated water bottles
She has been forced to wash the hair of her daughter, Abagail Beltran, with non-potable water
For showering, washing dishes and flushing toilets, the family relies on buckets filled with water from a tank set in the front lawn, which Mr. Gallegos replenishes every other day at the county fire station. Often, the water runs out before he returns home from his job as a mechanic, forcing Ms. Gallegos to wait for hours before she can clean.
The local high school has begun allowing students to arrive early and shower there.
The State Water Resources Control Board had already allotted $500,000 to buy bottled water for East Porterville residents, said Bruce Burton of the board’s Drinking Water Program.
Low water levels are visible from a boat ramp at the San Luis Reservoir in Gustine, California. As California suffers through a third straight year of drought, the state’s reservoirs are at record lows
But many East Porterville residents, like Yolanda Serrato, say all they want is to get a glass of water from the kitchen sink. Her well dried up nearly two months ago, she said, making life challenging for her husband and three children.
To bathe, they each have to fill a bucket from a 300-gallon tank in the front yard, carry it inside and pour water over their heads with a cup. They’ve lived in their home for 21 years, she said. ‘It’s not that easy to say, “Let’s go someplace else.” ‘
East Porterville sits along the Tule River, which starts high in the mountains and runs through the unincorporated town.
Typically, river water permeates the sandy soil under the community, filling up wells as shallow as 30 feet deep. Not this year. Drought has caused the river to run dry, along with the wells.
Drew McClellan (left) and his wife Deb of A Lucky Lawn spray-paint green dye onto the dried-up garden at a home in Sante Fe Springs, California
Babylonian the whore, the harlot, want to keep California for themselves’ US MEXICO CANADA are precious beautiful countries’ these loser tribe want these three countries for themselves’ specially because BRICS alliance 184 plus nations are getting away from the Babel fiat dollar, money out of thin air’ this is what is driving them so insane’ losers they have made alliances with the darkest beings from hollow earth and are so frightened where they are going to go to have their Satan worship paradise’
LOVE & PEACE ON EARTH!!