Drought Read Free Page B

do with. I mean, that was the whole reason the city was built here in the first place. And what about Arrowhead Springs, up in the mountains? San Bernardino
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water, for Christ’s sake.’
    â€˜Well, sorry, but not right now you don’t. You’ll have seen for yourself on the TV news that reservoirs are nearly empty and rivers and lakes are down to the lowest levels ever recorded. This is happening all across the country, Martin, coast to coast, especially in California and the Midwest. Even here in San Bernardino, I’m afraid to tell you. You used to have one hundred fifteen million gallons of water stored in your reservoirs, and your groundwater wells used to hold more water than Lake Shasta, but now they’ve dropped to less than a fifth of that. Demand is outstripping supply, by a very long way, and continuing to do so, and that’s one of the reasons I’m here.’
    â€˜OK,’ said Martin. ‘But you still haven’t told me what “rotational hiatuses” are.’
    â€˜Martin – this is strictly restricted information which is being given to selected individuals only – local government administrators, emergency services, the police and military. If we made it public we could be risking a national panic. The drought situation is very much more severe than you’ve seen on the news. Crops have been devastated, especially corn and soy, and if it carries on like this we’re going to be facing food rationing as well as water restrictions.’
    â€˜Go on,’ said Martin. He had a long-standing aversion to being lectured, especially by women, but he knew he would have to listen to this.
    Saskia said, ‘We’ve already been forced to start rotational hiatuses in San Bernardino, both city and county. That means we’ve been cutting off the water supply on a strict rota basis, first one neighborhood and then another, and we’ve been doing it without giving those neighborhoods any prior warning.’
    â€˜That’s kind of drastic, isn’t it?’
    â€˜Yes, I agree. But if you give people notice that their water supply is about to be cut off, they immediately fill up buckets and bathtubs and any other container they can lay their hands on, which puts an even greater strain on what limited reserves we have left.’
    â€˜So how long is each of these “rotational hiatuses” going to last?’
    â€˜Hopefully, no longer than forty-eight hours.’
    â€˜Forty-eight hours, in this heat?’
    â€˜Well, we’re hoping it won’t have to be longer.’
    â€˜Yes, but come on! How are people going to wash, and cook, and everything else you need water for?’
    â€˜I’m afraid they’ll just have to get by.’
    â€˜That’s easy enough to say. But what about local businesses? How are restaurants and laundries going to cope? And what about hospitals, and clinics, and retirement homes? In forty-eight hours, believe me, people won’t just be thirsty, they’ll be dying. I saw droughts when I was serving in Afghanistan, and it didn’t take more than a couple of days without water before old people and children were dropping like flies.’
    â€˜Martin,’ said Saskia, ‘you just don’t get it. Take San Bernardino alone. The average rainfall here is usually sixteen-point-four-three inches per year, and that’s pretty low by any standard. Over the past three years you’ve had less than a tenth of that, one-point-five-two, which is disastrous. We can’t supply people with water that we simply don’t have.
    She paused for a moment, and lowered her voice, as if she were making an effort to be reasonable. ‘I came here today to talk to you at CFS because you need to be aware that many families which are already dysfunctional are going to be under even greater stress when they find that they have no water, especially in this heatwave. You need to know