Why parched California land is collapsing at rapid rate

this morning California is facing a different kind of emergency the state's water crisis is impacting one of the world's most important farming regions the San Joaquin Valley the ground is literally sinking by up to one foot a year when Tracy shows us how the land is becoming as unstable as the water supply every six weeks Michelle Sneed visits this white shed she checks the pulley system and records a measurement the numbers show that the ground beneath her feet is sinking we're measuring the highest rates we've ever measured here among the highest rates ever measured in the entire world Sneed is a government hydrologist and says parts of California's Central Valley are dropping by one foot each year some areas are ten feet lower than they used to be we would have had many many feet of dirt above our heads right now that's right that's right we'd be standing 10 feet higher than we're standing right now this is why the ground is collapsing California's farmers are pumping groundwater as fast as they can in order to keep their crops alive during a drought that has left them high and very dry but when this much water is pumped out of the aquifer below ground the clay between the pockets of water collapses and the ground starts to deflate like a leaky air mattress the sinking is buckling the walls of irrigation canals damaging pipes creating giant sinkholes and cracking homes this bridge has dropped so much the water will soon flow over it instead of under it fixing the damage could cost more than 100 million tax dollars you just have to keep going deeper and deeper Steve Arthur is a well driller some wells are now 2,500 feet deep that's two Empire State building's underground water that deep is thousands of years old but it's desperately needed because more than half of the country's fruits vegetables and nuts are grown here you tell this farmer he can't drill any more wells he can't farm as many acres you're going to go into the store buy a gallon of milk for ten dollars a loaf of bread for five then the public is going to say hey what happened so we see this progression from green to yellow to red as the state is literally drying up NASA's senior water scientist Jay family Eddie uses satellite data to show the depletion of California's water resources the state has lost 16 trillion gallons in the past four years that's enough to fill Lake Mead the largest reservoir in the country twice so what happens when the water is simply gone that's a question that all of us first of all have a difficult time really fathoming if we still want to have agriculture we have to come up with the water from some other place but for now the drilling continues even with the ground all around it caving in for CBS this morning Ben Tracy California's Central Valley 16 trillion gallons no Steve Arthur the guy from the drilling company makes a good point ten dollars for milk and five dollars for bread that will get your attention any of all this is this so much water you know the world is mostly water right that's right I must figure that out

Channel: CBS Mornings

Views: 513,141

Keywords: land, sinking, water, california, drought, agriculture, drilling, video, cbs, news

Id: TxqWUFyq-ZA

Length: 3min 25sec (205 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 18 2015