Program - Doug Haaland

As we know, Don Haaland is running for the State Assembly, District 8 but in consideration of Rotary's non-political status, he decided not to talk politics but about an issue of great importance to Californians and that is water. About the important of water, Don quoted Mark Twain who said that "Whiskey is for drinking but water is for fighting". Since the original Gov. Brown, canals have been constructed and water has flowed from north to south. Recently the California Department of Water Resources projected that because of global warming there could be a loss of 40% of our snow pack in the mountains by 2040. Over the years we have not improved our water delivery system and things will be not good if we don't plan ahead.

If you want to go back to a similar drought as we have now, you have to go back to 1906, but now we seem to put man in second place. Over the years, the only fix that is implemented is conservation, yet our population keeps growing 20 million now 30 million. So our families are mandated to get by with less and less water on a per capita basis. Water rates are climbing higher and higher and when the wet years come again, you can bet that the rates won't be coming down

We will be one of the first generations of Californians to pass down a worse world to our kids if we continue as we have been lately.

The answer is to build more infrastructure to house our water so we have more water and if you want to put water meters on usage, put them on the canals flowing Southern California. And add Capacity and infrastructure in the North.

Assistant President Vince thanked Don for his very informative presentation and mentioned that in honor of his visit to our Club we will be donating a book to the Carmichael Library.

Doug's website is: www.doughaaland.com

(left to right), Robert Siegel, Don Haarland, and Vince Iosso