The Drought

With the most comments and interesting twists of the entries to date, I've decided the Drought warrants its own Q&A.

Questions: I was not aware fresh water was not abundant. Is it a problem of overuse or insufficient replinishment?

How will the drought affect wineries and prices?

Answers: As I mentioned in the first response, I had a hard time buying into the drought itself, given the rainfall I've seen since I've been here. Apparently, though, it's been an issue for several years. It's measured less by actual rainfall, and aquifers, and more by levels at collection sites. I understand that recently, they were at about 30% of normal, down from 50% a few years ago.

As far as whether it's overuse or a replenishment issue, it seems that based on water restrictions, it is hard to blame overuse. No one is allowed to even wash their cars at this point, and they haven't been able to for a while. I heard that last winter (the rainy season), they were lucky to have had three days of rain for the whole season. People have definitely been considering global warming a possible factor.

More interestingly, there is also another theory about the location of the collection sites themselves. Since there has been some rainfall lately, but not into the reservoirs, there has been some argument that they aren't located in the right places. Not something they can do much about in the short term, but it's an interesting theory.

The good news is that with the recent snow a little beyond the city, they are hopeful that the melt will flow into the rivers and down to the collection sites. At least winter has been more rainy than usual, I suppose.

As for wine prices, there is some question about whether they will go up. Since most people have been bearing the burden with the water restrictions, businesses have been able to survive so far, from what I understand, but as the levels dropped below 30%, it is only a matter of time before prices begin to respond. If, however, the recent rain and snow starts to fill things back up, you may not even know it was going on here.