Another dry year

It's looking like another dry year is coming.

The California Department of Water Resources recently released a report showing the Sierra snowpack's water content at 61 percent of normal.

Meanwhile, the snow water content in the Siskiyou mountain range - the range that separates Oregon from California -- was only 46 percent of normal in the four snow survey sites measured last Thursday by snow ranger Steve Johnson in the Siskiyou Mountains Ranger District of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last Thursday announced that "California is entering a third straight year of drought" and said the snow survey is just one more piece of evidence that California needs comprehensive water reform to protect the economy, jobs, communities and quality of life.

Hardest hit this summer will likely be the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Statewide precipitation to date is at only 70 percent of normal statewide, threatening another dry year, while unseasonably warm and dry conditions are rapidly eroding the snowpack.  Some argue the dry weather will give the governor the leverage needed to push the infamous peripheral canal - that giant water project that would move water north of the delta to users down south - that was voted down by California voters in 1982. A coalition of environmentalists, commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, Delta farmers and California Indian Tribes is strongly opposing the canal because it would create the infrastructure to export even more water out of the California Delta. Last July, the Governor and Senator Dianne Feinstein proposed a "compromise" plan to the Legislature to build a peripheral canal and more dams.