Desperate times: Thieves are stealing water in California
When my girls were young, they raised pet rats to learn about animal behavior at Merit Academy. They discovered that when they placed just 2 rats in a huge maze, the rats coexisted happily. But when they placed dozens of rats in the same maze, the rats became territorial, anxious, and vicious.
Fast forward to 2021 when our planet is almost 1.5 degrees warmer than it was pre-Industrial Revolution; we are facing severe droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes. A hundred years ago, we never worried about our water supply. Today, massive droughts in California have pushed people to do unthinkable things to get water.
Like rats, when people don’t have enough water, we will do anything necessary to get it. Thieves are stealing billions of gallons of water by tapping into fire hydrants, rivers, and even family homes and farms. Our droughts are causing reservoirs to dry up, which is causing record-levels of thefts.
As many municipalities restrict water usage, we’re seeing an uptick in illegal water thefts. The California Dept of Fish and Wildlife has made more than 900 felony arrests of illegal cannabis growers. These growers have run over 400 miles of pipes diverting water from streams to their manmade dams.
In Southern California, the water system crashed last year after thieves tapped fire hydrants and water mains. To protect our water sources, officials are removing or locking fire hydrants and securing key water sources.
As we begin to face real repercussions of a hotter planet, people will behave in desperate ways to get the resources they need. This is just the beginning of what we can expect to happen when we can’t get enough water, food, or even oxygen to survive. We need to make reducing CO2 in the atmosphere our number one goal.