LeakBird

(April 12, 2009, The San Francisco Chronicle)

The San Francisco Chronicle invites you to decide by playing our online water game. As you play, you’ll hear from a water manager about how cities can use less water, from a Central Valley farmer close to losing his crops and from a conservationist on why we need adequate water for the environment. (Hint: It’s for us, not just the fish.) While doing research for this game, I discovered that even though we talk a lot about our water usage, there is still plenty that is unknown. Our game is based on numbers used in the 2005 Water Plan, which were collected in 2001, when Californians had a lot more water. In May, the state will release information based on numbers collected in 2005. Yet we do not entirely know how water is used in our state. Agricultural estimates are based on surveying how a few farmers use water for their crops. Urban estimates are incomplete because some cities, such as Sacramento, do not meter their water use. It is impossible to decide how to use water differently if we do not have accurate information to work with.

(Original Article Here)

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