California group says U.S. immigration policies contributed to drought

California group says immigration policies contributed to drought

http://www.trbimg.com/img-556110cf/t...23/550/550x309A Santa Barbara-based advocacy group says immigration is to blame for California's historic drought by contributing to population growth. Above, the receded shoreline of Lake Oroville. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)


By KATE LINTHICUM contact the reporter

Are U.S. immigration policies to blame for the drought? One advocacy group says yes.


In a television commercial that has aired across the state, a young boy asks: "If Californians are having fewer children, why isn't there enough water?"

The ad is part of a wider media campaign blaming California's historic drought on the state's large number of immigrants.

The group that paid for it, Californians for Population Stabilization, has long called for stricter enforcement of immigration laws, arguing that the state's natural resources cannot sustain high levels of population growth.

The group has used the recent spotlight on California's dwindling water reserves to try to gain support for its many favored causes, which include ending the right to citizenship for every child born on U.S. soil and opposing state efforts to give immigrants in the country illegally access to Medicaid.

Essentially all of California's rapid population growth has been due to people from other countries and the children of immigrants.- Ben Zuckerman, an astrophysics professor at UCLA

This month, CAPS asked its 128,000 Facebook followers to "'Like' if you agree California's drought could have been prevented with responsible immigration policies and limited population growth."

Last month New Jersey Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine said analysts were overlooking the root causes of the drought — that while immigrants to California "may be nice people … they're competing for water resources."

In an article in the National Review, Stanford academic Victor Davis Hanson argued that while California's current dry spell is not novel, "What is new is that the state has never had 40 million residents during a drought — well over 10 million more than during the last dry spell in the early 1990s."

Hanson and others point to the recent pattern of population growth in California, where census data show that 1 in 4 residents was born outside the country.

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As domestic immigration into California has slowed in recent decades, with more American-born citizens leaving the state than moving in, foreign immigration has continued, albeit at slower rates than in previous decades.

The state continues to add about 3 million to 4 million people each decade, census data show. A large percentage of them are immigrants or their children.

"Essentially all of California's rapid population growth has been due to people from other countries and the children of immigrants," said Ben Zuckerman, an astrophysics professor at UCLA who sits on the board of CAPS. "The larger the population of California, the more difficult it will be to deal with the effects of the drought."

Some drought experts have taken issue with such claims, pointing out that the majority of the state's water supports agriculture.

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Chronicling California's drought

Blaming the drought on immigrants "doesn't fit the facts," said William Patzert, a climatologist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The drought is caused by meager snowpack and poor planning, he said, "not because the immigrants are drinking too much water or taking too many showers."

Others point out that many immigrants probably use less water than the average California resident because they tend to live in multi-family dwellings, not higher-consuming single-family homes.

"It's unlikely that the 'burden' of immigrants is very significant," said Stephanie Pincetl, professor in residence at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA.

She said Californians would be better served by tearing up their lawns than expelling immigrants who contribute to the economy. "Do we want to have economic decline?" Pincetl said.

"Do we not want to have agriculture? Do we want to not have housekeepers?"

Groups such as CAPS say recent conservation efforts, including Gov. Jerry Brown's mandate of a 25% reduction in urban water usage, are shortsighted and hypocritical, especially given recent immigrant-friendly measures backed by Brown and the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

cComments

• @Brainwashed_in_Church We will never know who will do the work as long as the wage levels are set by what desperate illegal immigrants will accept.
  KURFCO
  AT 8:37 AM MAY 24, 2015

"You can't have that proclamation at the same time you're inviting everybody from everywhere to come here," said Jo Wideman, executive director of CAPS.

Her group fought efforts to create special California driver's licenses for immigrants in the country illegally as well as state legislation that limits when local law enforcement can collaborate with federal immigration authorities.

It also opposes increases in the levels of legal immigration, waging media campaigns against federal attempts to raise the number of available work visas.

At a time when California's anti-illegal immigration movement has lost much of the momentum it had two decades ago, when voters passed Proposition 187, a ballot measure intended to deny taxpayer-funded services to those in the country illegally, CAPS is often one of the few voices of opposition when pro-immigrant measures are being considered in the state.

The walls of its Santa Barbara headquarters are hung with framed copies of print advertisements it has published in newspapers across the country, including in The Times.

One targets Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who coauthored a bipartisan bill that would have paved a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.

Another shows a dripping spigot and text that reads: "Every newcomer to California adds 140 gallons of water demand per day."

The group, whose motto is "save some California for tomorrow," was founded in 1986 by conservationists who felt that mainstream environmental groups weren't advocating enough for population controls.

One of its major funders is the Colcom Foundation, started by Cordelia Scaife May, an environmentalist who backed birth control efforts and wanted to curb legal and illegal immigration.

The group has periodically found itself at the center of controversy, including in 2013, when a member of its board of directors, Marilyn Brant Chandler DeYoung, warned about the children of immigrants.

"A baby can join a gang and then commit a crime. A baby can drop out of school and become a criminal. A baby grows up," she said in a videotaped interview with Cuentame, a Latino advocacy group.

Immigrant advocates say population control arguments are racist and neglect California's immigrant past. "It's too soaked with irony for the colonizers to be making this argument," said Chris Newman, an attorney with the National Day Laborers Organizing Network.

Wideman insists her group is not bigoted. "We're innocent on that charge," Wideman said. "It's not about who, it's about how many."

She said she hopes the drought is a wake-up call about how many people the state can support.

"As the drought gets worse, we think people will begin to think more about overpopulation," she said.

http://www.latimes.com/local/califor...524-story.html

As has been said, by several news sources, the illegal alien population in California is 2-3 million. That assumption is also based on a national illegal alien number of 11.3-5 million. Okay, I think we all know the country has more than 11 million illegals. Personally, I think the number is more like 20-25 million. If my assumption is correct, California probably has at least 6 million or more. There is no denying the fact that 6 million people can have an effect on an individual states natural resources, especially water. To put this in the proper context, Alabama has a total population of under 5 million according the the 2014 census numbers. That means the illegal population in California is using as much water as the whole state population of Alabama. Folks, that's a lot of water.

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Others point out that many immigrants probably use less water than the average California resident because they tend to live in multi-family dwellings, not higher-consuming single-family homes.

"It's unlikely that the 'burden' of immigrants is very significant," said Stephanie Pincetl, professor in residence at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA.

She said Californians would be better served by tearing up their lawns than expelling immigrants who contribute to the economy. "Do we want to have economic decline?" Pincetl said.

"Do we not want to have agriculture? Do we want to not have housekeepers?"

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Really? Is this how far UCLA standards of education have sunk? To have a Professor of Environment and Sustainability who thinks an illegal alien living in an apartment uses less water than a citizen living in a house? Seriously??!! We drink water, do they drink less? We use water to flush toilets. do they flush less? We use water to bathe, do they bathe less? We use water to cook, do they cook less? We use water to clean, do they clean less? We use water to irrigate agricultural products to produce food to eat, do they eat less? If illegal aliens and excess immigrants weren't here, they wouldn't be using any water because wouldn't be drinking, flushing, bathing, cooking, cleaning, or eating here.

As for tearing up the lawns, is this professor just a liar? Is she just a fool? Is she both??!! Without lawns and vegetation, California would be one big mudslide into the Pacific Ocean when it rains and a big dust bowl during droughts, and the temperature would rise from the increased paving to replace it, all of which which contributes to global warming.

And then we have this ridiculous statement from NASA:

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Blaming the drought on immigrants "doesn't fit the facts," said William Patzert, a climatologist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The drought is caused by meager snowpack and poor planning, he said, "not because the immigrants are drinking too much water or taking too many showers."

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Meager snowpack is the result of global warming, which is caused in part by too much development caused primarily by too many people which in the United States is the result of too much immigration. EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD knows this, so why does the "climatologist from NASA" pretend that he doesn't? And while he seems to admit that "poor planning" is a cause of the drought, why does he claim that overpopulation is not part of that "poor planning"? When cities and states prepare for hardship from natural occurrences such as water shortages from droughts, the more people impacted by the shortage which means greater hardship and risk for all. Water is a limited resource and when populations exceed the available water supply, it is one hell of a disaster that threatens everything from quality of life to life itself.

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Another shows a dripping spigot and text that reads: "Every newcomer to California adds 140 gallons of water demand per day."

The group, whose motto is "save some California for tomorrow," was founded in 1986 by conservationists who felt that mainstream environmental groups weren't advocating enough for population controls.

One of its major funders is the Colcom Foundation, started by Cordelia Scaife May, an environmentalist who backed birth control efforts and wanted to curb legal and illegal immigration.

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140 gallons a day would be a bare minimum of an increase for each newcomer to California, now triple and quadruple it for immigrants and illegal aliens as they breed and have children and then triple and quadruple it again as all their relatives come into the country to join them and do the same thing through "chain migration". So it is not only accurate but right to point the finger at immigrants and illegal aliens, because Americans have almost reached our goal of Zero-Population Growth, an major effort Americans started in the 60's and 70's to preserve our environment, to ensure we could continue to sustain ourselves and be a free and independent population, a goal that is being totally usurped by tens of millions of immigrants and illegal aliens who have entered this country for no valid reason or purpose at all, other than to suck up our jobs, benefits, programs, food, gas and yes water.

People who want to speak on this issue from colleges, universities, NASA and other "institutions" need to join CAPS and NumbersUSA or at least sign up for their information, so they can be informed about the "facts" before they speak and make themselves out to be liars, fools or both.

Keep up the good work, CAPS! You're right, so be strong and never quit, and thank you, thank you, thank you, for all you do to help US solve these problems.

And to Americans, please start pushing for at least a 10 Year Moratorium on Immigration to give US time to stop illegal immigration, remove illegal aliens from the country and reset the legal immigration system so what's happened to our country with respect to immigration both legal and illegal, never happens again.

Protein is also necessary to life. We use meats to provide most of our protein. Now, hear this, an article I saw today calculated that it takes 920 gallons of water to produce one- half pound of steak. I have no intention of giving up my hamburger so that they (aliens) can have steak!

Heavy rains in Texas, Oklahoma fuel hope for California drought relief

http://www.trbimg.com/img-55629d35/t...g6/550/550x309
A Wal-Mart parking lot is submerged after the San Marcos River flooded in San Marcos, Texas.
(Rodolfo Gonzalez / Austin American-Statesman)


By MATT PEARCE AND MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE contact the reporters

• 
  

A month of downpours brings extreme drought to a dramatic end in Texas and Oklahoma

California looks east with envy as monthlong rain soaks drought-stricken Texas and Oklahoma

El Nino won't be California's drought buster, an expert warns as heavy rains drench Texas and Oklahoma


Look east, California.

Five years of extreme drought have come to a dramatic end in Texas and Oklahoma as a month of heavy rains has replenished reservoirs, dampened parched soil across both states and unleashed floodwaters on vulnerable residents.

A downpour this weekend pushed rivers far over their banks in central Texas, where flooding devoured hundreds of rural homes between Austin and San Antonio. At least 2,000 people fled to emergency shelter as helicopters rescued residents from rooftops and bridges snapped apart like Graham crackers. At least one person was dead and three others were missing as of Sunday afternoon.

The nonstop Texas-Oklahoma rains are probably being influenced by a building El Niño in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, whose warm waters tend to bring rain to the southern U.S., said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-5563077f/t...01/950/950x534CAPTIONTexasJerry Lara / EPA
Keith Varela checks out the damage done to his wife's truck in the San Marcos Mobile Home Park in San Marcos, Texas.


If a full-blown El Niño develops, that could mean rain for Southern California next winter, and it could mean trouble too, he said.

"The headlines that you're writing today about Texas and Oklahoma, you could be writing about California in January," Patzert said. "There's something to remember about El Niño — he's a good boy and he's a bad boy because he can deliver drought relief that's much-needed. But all that water coming so fast is like trying to catch water out of a fire hose with a champagne glass."

He also cautioned Californians against putting too much hope in El Niño to end the state's drought.

"Everybody is thinking of El Niño as the great wet hope, as the great drought buster," he said. "The building El Niño is having some impact on the heavy weather we're seeing in Oklahoma and Texas, but we're a long way from seeing the equivalent rains in California next winter."

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The Texas flooding comes after months of wetter-than-normal weather and less than a week after officials logged an absence of extreme drought in any part of Texas or Oklahoma for the first time in five years.

The category "extreme drought" means that officials expect major crop and pasture losses along with widespread water shortages or restrictions.

At the peak of Texas' brutal drought in 2011 — which drew comparisons to the Dust Bowl days of the Great Depression — 97% of the state was under extreme drought or worse. A year ago, it was 40%. Now, it's 0%. The figures in Oklahoma are similar.

That's compared with 67% of California under extreme drought or worse right now.

In Texas, some ranchers sold or slaughtered their cattle as pastures withered and hay got more expensive. John Welch, 64, shipped cattle to greener pastures in Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming.

Now the rain is back, and so are Welch's cattle.

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"We've brought them all back and still have excess grass. It's been the fastest turnaround you can imagine," Welch said while tending his cattle Sunday.

Welch added: "The wheat pasture is just phenomenal, the best it's been in years because of all the rain we've had, from the Panhandle all the way down into central Texas. We've gone from too many cattle and not enough grass to lots of grass."

The drought is not totally over. Texas A&M professor and state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon noted that "a good portion of the state is still under mandatory drought restrictions," but many areas have also seen "well above normal" rain levels, refilling reservoirs in the Dallas area while those in west Texas, the Hill Country and Austin "have started inching up."

"We've seen drought disappearing week by week," he said.

In west Texas, which saw some of the worst drought, a reservoir serving Abilene, Austin and San Angelo was still at a historic low, he said. For the entire state to emerge from the drought, it will take not only more rain, but rain in the dry spots, he said.

In Oklahoma, weeks of heavy rains have put an exclamation point on years of drought that forced some cities to institute mandatory water restrictions.

With a week left in May, Oklahoma City has already notched its wettest month ever, and more than 70% of rivers in the area were forecast to hit flood levels sometime next week, according to Vivek Mahale, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Norman.

In one bizarre incident early this month, an Oklahoma City woman, taking cover from a storm, drowned after her tornado shelter flooded. Another tornado shelter in Norman emerged from the ground like a submarine after the owner's yard flooded.

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This weekend, Claremore, Okla., firefighter Jason Farley died, reportedly after getting swept away while trying to rescue flood-trapped residents, and flash flooding is expected to continue Monday as more rain falls on the already saturated state.

"They may see a continuation of some flooding problems as we go into June and July," said Carl Erickson, a senior meteorologist for AccuWeather.com, adding that El Niño is probably "the longer-term factor into the overall pattern" of increased rain across the nation.

Sunday's flooding in Texas was especially dramatic in the town of Wimberley, population 2,582, where Hays County officials estimated more than 350 homes have been destroyed.

The Blanco River rose from about 5 feet at 10 p.m. Saturday to more than 40 feet at 1 a.m., well past its record high of 33 feet, according to National Weather Service river data.

"We have whole streets that have maybe one or two houses left on them, and the rest are just slabs," Hays County emergency management coordinator Kharley Smith said in a televised news conference Sunday.

In California, the 1997-98 El Niño brought floods, mudslides and disaster declarations in at least 40 counties as the state was pounded with month after month of rain.

Patzert, the NASA climatologist, said El Niño rains for California this year were "no sure bet."

But after the drenchings of Oklahoma and Texas, Patzert added, "This might be a preview, if this El Niño continues to develop, of what we might see in Southern and Central California next winter."

Still, he noted that California's water situation, which is so dependent on a deep snowpack, is different from Texas or Oklahoma.

"El Niño is not a drought buster — it provides a lot of excitement and a lot of mudslides in Southern and Central California, but it doesn't do much for Northern California, and that's where we need it," Patzert said, emphasizing the state's meager snowpack.

California water officials had planned to make the trek to the Sierra Nevada to conduct their monthly snowpack measurement on May 1, but called it off because, for the second consecutive month, there wasn't any snow to measure.

This is why Patzert emphasizes the complexity of California's drought.

"El Niño essentially drenches the southern tier of the United States, so you often have below normal rainfall in Northern California, which is where we get most of our water," Patzert said.

Welch, the Texas rancher, wasn't sure what Californians could learn from his experience.

"It is all at the mercy of the Good Lord," Welch said. "You just don't know until it's over with what the drought will be. I don't know what the lesson is — persevere, I guess."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...ry.html#page=2

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Originally Posted by Judy

Really? Is this how far UCLA standards of education have sunk? We drink water, do they drink less? We use water to flush toilets. do they flush less? We use water to bathe, do they bathe less? We use water to cook, do they cook less? We use water to clean, do they clean less? We use water to irrigate agricultural products to produce food to eat, do they eat less? If illegal aliens and excess immigrants weren't here, they wouldn't be using any water because wouldn't be drinking, flushing, bathing, cooking, cleaning, or eating here.

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They also would not be undercutting the poorest Americans for entry level jobs. Our own people are being consigned to another generation of confusion and anger, because their government is not working for them.
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