Andrea Costillo in the weekend Fresno Bee:
East Porterville’s poverty and education shortcomings stand out in a state analysis of communities with the highest health risks. The analysis from the California Environmental Protection Agency shows the town’s poverty level is among the highest 10% in the state. In education, the community ranks worse than 91% of the state.
Poverty and education are among more than 20 factors, including air pollution and groundwater problems, that the state analyzed to arrive at rankings reflecting heightened health risks. East Porterville has more health stress than three-quarters of California.
Yes, as we keep hearing, East Porterville is the California community without water. But it is East Porterville’s poverty that leaves it vulnerable, lacking resilience, powerless to respond.
Towns running out of water have been in the news for the last 4 years at least in Tx. At least two reservoirs have run completely dry (before may) O C Fisher and E. V Spence both in the San Angelo area. There exists stories telling at various time when cities would run dry. Interestingly I was looking at the page the compares drought maps over time, and what appears to be happening is the drought is gradually shifting west. If Ca works like it did in Tx next winter we could have an 1861 style flood event in ca that turned the western central valley into a lake and put water into dry lake beds in the Mohave desert.