Santa Clara Valley Water District and global warming

At the latest meeting of the Water District's Environmental Advisory Commission, the District's staff guided us through eleven long-term strategic challenges they anticipate. Number three was global warming. Three concerns in particular threaten their work: first, rising sea levels threaten the aging levee system in South San Francisco Bay. Much of San Jose is actually below sea level due to overpumping of ground water in past decades, so the threat is further enhanced.

Second, rising sea levels mean saltwater intrusion into water tables in the Bay-Delta region, reducing the amount of local groundwater available. And third, rising temperatures mean more precipitation in the Sierras will fall as rain instead of snow, depriving us of some of our snow-pack water reservoirs. These are only some of the impacts they could have mentioned.

All the more reason to fight climate-destroying sprawl.