The Drought Threat:Finally Someone Wakes Up

Todays front page of the Austin American-Statesman's lead story was about the drought, and they got it right.  Kudos to the Editor for having the courage to bring out of Governor Perry's taboo subject list, a subject that threatens the survival of this great city.  It coincides with Perry's loosing his iron fisted control of the entire gevernment of the State of Texas, when he was forced by GOP powerbrokers to announce he would not run for Governor again.  As the article imlies it may be too late to save the city from running dry, but at least now the public has been made aware of the seriousness of the situation, and people can make appropriate plans.  Yes, it put the brakes on Austin's growth, but that needed to happen anyway.  A couple of years into this 8 year drought we had already surpassed the capacity of nature to support the population, yet Perry continued to encourage growth, and all but prohibit conservation.  Repeatedly he announced that the "drought represented no threat to the city of Austin". Even in 2011 he remained adament about this.

His ethically and morally unsupportable position of growth trumping nature and safety has added at least 5 years of unabate growth to Travis County.  This has dramatically reduced the time for an El Nino to bring rains that would have give the city 2-3 more years to prepare for the likely running dry.

As it is we have only about 18 mos to prepare for the catastrophic "running dry".  That is far too little time for 1.7 million people to replan their lives, and government services like police, fire, and medical facilities to prepare.  For example all nursing homes with need to install generators capable of running 24/7, and most will not be able to afford it.

There are many other major problems that must be taken into account, and these can be found in my many earlier posts on the drought.

But the A A-S has given the city a humaitarian warning of the catastrople that loom.

We should all thank them for that.