This podcast is supported by Humana. Today's top candidates You benefits in healthcare. In years past employers might have overlooked benefits like dental envision insurance. Now those benefits can help tipp the scales in a competitive labour market. That's why you man is committed to doing more for your employees. Well being, while lowering your costs, we call that humankind to learn more about humanity, plans for companies of all sizes and benefits budgets, visit, humaner, dot, com, slash employer or greetings. Everybody unsettle, whether to It was a rather gloomy friday here in southern california, we saw where, between some drizzle to light showers, no heavy rainfall, but that everywhere Four is coming our way as we make our way through tomorrow night. So it's gonna be a pretty stormy new year's eve and stormy entrance to the year twenty twenty three coming southern from the new york times I'm sorry it ever uneasy- and this is the daily

you tell us the snow while there's going to be a lot of snow early on and maybe a little bit of rain. There's gonna be a lot of rain. It's weird. This is once again the atmospheric river bringing rain to northern California got the rain has been nonstop all day, first responders saying: don't have to leave your home stay home, stay dry and stay warm for the past couple of weeks. a string of major storms, is hit california and caused extreme flooding up and down the state. In sacramento, it was. The weather is new year's eve on record. At least two levies have been over wiles highway wanna one itself. San Francisco look more like a river. Today we saw mudslides down trees flooded streets. We ve seen at all today in San francisco, and seventy counties. Forecasters call this whether system for brutal, like the ride me and while the It should be a silver lining, thirsty, stock in historic drought. The reality is far more complicated,

breaking news out of California tonight, with more than thirty, four million people are under a flood watch, you're, not going to believe the water. Look at this guy. Almost pretty sure we're looking at the roofs of vehicles. They are lists that home right there in santa Barbara county, the entire community of montecito evacuated. The death toll from this relentless string of storms has now climbed to fourteen. Today, after two people were killed by falling trees, serious problems in chatsworth, where a fifteen foot thing called suddenly appeared and swallowed two cars trapping a mother and daughter inside today. My colleague christopher, fulfil says that the weak holofernes chose to deal with its water in the past has made two days: flooding worse and amounts to a missed opportunity for the future of california. Water crisis.

It serves to really kind of illustrate. How much of that valley really is a floodplain yeah, it's thursday January twelve, so chris catching glimpses in headlines about the terrible weather in California? You know catastrophic flooding, storms, evacuations at an even deaths, so tell me what's happening in California right now, there's no single stir. The tatters watson thanks, I hears heres a list of stats. As of now, you ve got almost five on people under flood watches you ve got sixty thousand households without power, isolation, oars and seven counties. Twenty eight and burnt shelters

Two nursing homes had be evacuated. Did you three roads, close the santa Barbara airport is closed, realize closed and is more rain. Coming according to fema this morning, total rainfall. In the past few weeks, California has been for honey, percent to six percent above average- am I so this is an epoch of it, so it's hard to find a way to convey just how bad this is. The examples are heartbreaking. Story, but a five year old swept away, from his mother arms. A toddler crushed by tree, is the allay times noted compellingly that the death toll so far is higher from these floods, then the past to wild forest

since combined wow? That's incredible so as to human tall, is extra sharing a striking that it's just like all over the state right. It's not just in the south, just in the north, it's really everywhere. Yeah, it's rainfall event after rainfall, then each a bit different heading in different places, but rob impacting the same sort of sis of dams and rivers and levies, Joe together into one mega catastrophe in Chris, explain this because it seems like this is just as you say, females pointing out far more than normal. What's going on so that the free is that everyone has become painfully used to now is atmospheric river. Hold on remind me, though, what what's not monsieur river sure- the river refers to

concentration? Some called a plume of moisture high in the atmosphere. and what that means is, as the wind and a storm system blows that overland you get in hence volumes of rainfall and in california. There's a pattern. My colleague raymond Joel pointed this out in a masterful peace last year because of weather patterns in the pacific. and because of where california is you, ve got a pattern of more intense and more severe rainfall moving in from the pacific, and bring this kind of stuff stained severe rainfall. The just overwhelms california, and I assume all of this is made worse by climate change. rainfall and storms, of course, are the only manifestation of climate change for california. These, storms and floods are happening at this

in time that California is grappling with a sudden here and ongoing, droughts so bad that challenges the notion of drought right along from declined in moisture levels and wildfires right. So you ve got a land, cape. That's really been pry the flight, because the drought kills vegetation, You get less vegetation on the ground to soak. In the rain, four runs off and wildfires leave burn scars across landscape, which means, even more serve of acceleration velocity as that rain hit the ground and runs off. So it's the combination of these different kinds of crises that together put California where it is but those are just the natural factors. That's just the national climate, and weather patterns to california wrestling with there's? One thing you

can't leave this discussion, which is this physical environment. That's been built by people in california for decades and even centuries, which is actually can tribute to this, not just in the sense of greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, but in the sand of how California has built it system for holding managing and flowing water through the state because system has we're? Not learning has actually made California more vulnerable to the kind of flooding that we're seeing now and made the problem even worse than it would otherwise. So chris explain that what kind of stuff Are we talking about here? So the story begins in the second half of the aging hundreds were, a formula has been realised that it scott in the central valley.

A fantastic source of agricultural wealth, but there's one big problem, which is water, soil is fertile. There's plenty of sunshine. What they don't is water at the right time, which is in there honest season in the summer, so the first turning point in the early nineties hundreds where farmers get access to better technology to pull water out of the ground through wells and better pumps, and they use that to irrigate a whole new array of high value crops and the result is explosion in farming and in wealth innocent about, but if any Billing do it too hard because by the nineteen thirty they can tell the groundwater was being drained far fashion than be replenished, and so it became clear by the thirties. Something had to change so California began embarking on what's been called the largest public, worse pro

that ever at the time, which was the central body project, building a series of enormous dams that would capture run off from the sierra nevada. hold it behind dams and rooted as negation water through this empire of farms that have sprung up and is it about at the same time that our government built hoover dam, which allowed it to harness the water of the colorado river which was another source of energy and drinking water for california and the states around it. So you get these two mega projects. The together just transform the landscape and the potential of california. So a major feed engineering, an unbelievable feat of engineering and it works it. and the central valley into argument most important patch of farm land in the eu,

and maybe in the world it produces about a quarter of the food. U s consumes and almost half of some fruit, It's really are core pillar of california economy, which is the fifth largest economy in the world, I'll keep it. So how are those decisions from decades ago? Which California success, making the situation now in california. Worse was too proud, that arise from the way the system has been built. The first one is when you get severe intense rain events, they just not enough room for that water. you yet more flooding, because the channels have been created for those waters by building levies. Just become too narrow for the volume of water, that sugar, you can imagine a world four levies, or with no is where, when you get intense rainfall

The largest goes everywhere and fills the land. People was announced. Refer to? the central valley as the inland sea, because it had a propensity to flood journal harshly. Here I need to have standing water that no longer makes sense as we ve had almost thirty years of farming, and large scale developments. You can't just let water go everywhere at this point in the valley, without causing massive destruction to fields and orchards and tat ones and cities, and so the the challenge is finding a way to control the water without being too aggressive. So it's got nowhere to go fright. You know if there were no farms or towns there, a flood wouldn't be a big deal right, but because there are levies that allowed for but development, it is massively big deal as were seen right now. That's

at some level you can't reset the clock right. You can't just erase the developments and the agriculture that now defines the central body. Ass you can do is try and find a way to really tinker with the system, because those farms and people are going away right, but there's another fundamental problem with California's approach to water as rainstorms get worse and that is That's the system that the estate uses now doesn't try to take advantage of all this access, water to recharge the states, all important aquifers, for he so help me understand what an aquifers wherever you are in the world, the ground beneath you isn't solid in many cases there poor structures there, space between the rocks is even caverns that space, often holes

Water and that water is accumulated over centuries and millennia, from rainfall and from glaciers, it's a gigantic reserve of water that can be pulled up out of the ground through wells and used to irrigate crops or provide drinking water for and that aquifer that groundwater is really arguably if one most important resource and it's been heavily drained down. Depleted by more than a century of farming and population growth and flooding could be could be a way to help recharge that groundwater, so there's more, but for the future So then, what do you mean when you say that the system the state has now doesn't take advantage of this floodwater to replenish the groundwater? The aquifer right now the system is you guys

these giant reservoirs behind dams and their meant to capture this excess floodwater, which is great you can, use it later, but a window so much and you ve got as we ve seen water going words not meant to go right. So every time a community or a home gets floods. in addition to the tragedy. That is what people live there. It's a waste, because that is you just get like horrible disgusting run off that makes its way ocean right laid. No one can use yeah, I'm not some You think the world must always be how it's always been, but there is something to the idea that, like this? Is the system nature built right? These rivers take the course they do and that's what made this farmland so fertile in the first place right they flood regularly. The sediment spreads across fields and the aquifer is where you need it right. The aquifer that you want in

valley is innocent, the great so the water like leaves the valley and has the coast you ve lost it. Even if it groups into you know mars lack furs. already santa Barbara that doesn't help almond grower in bakersfield right. The way advocates put it to me was that if you deliberately unintentionally widen the rivers you get our groundwater recharge, we're supposed to happen, reaching the apples that you want to use for farming right not water. Rushing into tat. Cities and sure reaching soil, but a lot of runs off, causes floods and landslides, destroy homes and causes all kinds of havoc. In the meantime, how can you know what you're saying is that, because of the way the system was set up, those and waters aren't going back into the ground in the most efficient way. That's right and the cost of not

grabbing that water to recharge aquifers in the most efficient way the cost of that decision keys on going up right, because the surface water drawing up, is going away both reduced snow back off the mountains and reduced flow from the collar river. So if anything, this is an especially difficult time just to let that huge surplus of rainwater flow Why? Because that groundwater is becoming more and more important, as of surface water dry up, got it surface water dries up. Farmers are already turning more heavily toward groundwater. In fact, of dry wells report that the state jumped in twenty one so this isn't some future problem. Farmers are already trying to cope with, reduced groundwater, even groundwater becomes more important as surface water is slow, we're going away too. I mean if the surface

what goes away and the groundwater goes away. You got it right at it. You ve got nothing and I've met vineyard growers, for your shoe will truck in water because they lose for water and groundwater, but does us as is so high cost. You can't keep going along so yeah you, you start talking about the end. As farming areas. When groundwater and surface water aren't available. It's it's really terrible, hmm! So what are they going to? Do I mean? Is it fixable? It is fixable and not only that everyone seems to agree what the faces the catch is: obstacles to actually doing that are almost insurmountable

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It's a california having this severe flooding problem and is being made a lot worse by systems designed over decades to essentially tame nature. So what would it take to day to solve this problem. You know the short answer is pretty straightforward: you can make more room for the river by pulling back the levies and setting aside more land, on either side of these rivers, so that when there is really intense rainfall, is more room for the water and the chance for that water sink down and recharge the aquifers, The problem is doing that is really really really hard. Why is it so hard Chris star with the economics right? If you want to pull a significant chunk of land out of agricultural use our reason for use and you to state you gotta by that to you to find the money to buy that land

many homeowners and farmers won't want to sell that land. So at some point you don't just buy it. You've got to seize it through eminent domain, so that gets into the politics politically, there's nothing, quite as painful as when state or local officials. Try to most people off their land, but maybe even more overwhelming, then the economic challenge of buying the land or the political challenge of taken land and just a cultural barrier to this, because culturally california, like the rest, the west was built on the philosophy that, as you said, we contain nature, we can bend nature and make it work for our goals and the Underpinnings of this idea of more room for the rivers is that, at some point you can't keep taming sure you ve got to bend the nature and accept that

human plans have limitations and those annotations are getting more pronounced with climate change. I I don't know how you get a community or a state or a country to that point where people are willing to accept that we can't always teenager ok, so very hard politically, but wouldn't another downside California s bread basket, I'm you! Wouldn't we lose a significant amount of agricultural land doing this. Making more room for the rivers would definitely involve taking some farmland out of production but from the conversations I had four important story: it it seemed like an total share of central valley farmland. This would mean taking a huge amounts out of production and it could arguably make the whole system more sustainable, because the farm under remains would have groundwater drawn in the future and in general,

couldn't find anybody who said that this would have serious have consequences. Everyone seems to agree. This is gonna, be better essential in the long run. If we could do it, okay, so it sounds like the hardest thing here. Is that it's a political loser right like it would cost a ton of money, which would probably mean more taxes? Would people hate and it would make some people have to give up their way of life all in service of some long term benefit, which you know Chris, especially as a climate reporter people really don't want. They don't want to do that absolutely and to California's credit they're starting to do so. Projects along these lines and pilot projects, but to make it work at scale, as you said, will just be so hard politically economically and culturally that it's a great example of the kind of big. That you need as his weather patterns and where a streams get worse and

action is always will lie. Makers and officials wanna take the chance to be clear. This is a panacea, even if California can pull this off and gave its rivers more room, that wouldn't solve the problem of flood damage, and it wouldn't the problem of access to water. For irrigation for drinking, For us, it is those things in challenges, Having said all that, there is some good news here, which is that, despite all the practical impediments. obstacles actually making these changes. If California could do it, it would be rare case in climate adaptation, where you ve got a single change, they can check a bunch of different boxes all at the same time right you can reduce the severity of flooding you can increase groundwater recharge. You him new habitat for wildlife in these claimed river areas for my reporting on adapting

change, it's rare to find solution or a policy change where you get all those different wins at once you ve heard about rare. I mean it's also, presumably pretty rare- to solve and effective climate change. You know the drought in california by harnessing another effect of climate change, the reins those right there's, almost a beautiful symmetry to it, taking two challenges with climate change and almost direct them against each other to help with both the so California, in a sense is lucky right. If you compare it to other states in south west, like nevada in arizona, they dont have the good luck of having to fight, through which rain and too much flooding the outlook in those places is a lot less sonny, the california, at least the chance to turn this around

and bear in mind the storm the california is suffering through right now is not the worst. It's gonna see right colleagues, Raymond John, has written California has to worry about much worse mega storms that storms at last for thirty days without a pause, those storms are what could make. This decision about more room for the river look like it's not just a luxury, but something that California has to fix. Is as he's gotta get worse, the damage will grow and just becomes catastrophic, Chris. Thank you. Thank you, Another series of atmospheric rivers is expected to arrive this weekend ringing, another round of

the rain across northern and coastal california will be re back. Indigenous keep us must be in this presence for all the work. We are only five percent of the world's population, but you re at protecting eighty percent of the world. biodiversity. So we are not only victims. We are also a solution that was hindu, merou Ibrahim, a rolex awards laureate and environmental advocate who works to raise the voice of indigenous people to help tackle climate change to discuss,

other inspiring leaders, visit n y times dot com, slash modern dash leaders, here's what else you should know today, your chances his campaign last year was a campaign of the sea lies fabrication, on Wednesday republican officials on long island called for. U s representative george santos to resign as he faced multiple inquiries into his finances campaign spending and fabrications on the campaign trail. The calls for centres to step down marked the sharpest denunciation yet from members of his own party, Joseph Cairo, the republican party chairman in nassau, county were part of santos. His district dislocated said, santos had quote disgrace

so representatives- and we do not consider him one of our congress, people santos refused to resign writing on twitter that he was elected to serve constituents. Not quote the party and politicians and the times reports that aids to president Joe Biden are said to have found other classified documents dating back to the obama administration at a second location. It is not clear where and the documents were recovered but provides aids have been scouring various places since November went violence. Lawyers discovered a handful of classified documents in his former office at the pen biting centre in washington. The revelation is likely to intensify republic and attacks on widen, who has called former president donald trump irresponsible for hoarding sensitive documents at his private club and residents in florida,

today's episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson and looks underplay with help from sidney harper. It was edited by page cow it with help from legacy yeah contains original music by marian lozano and was engineered by Chris. Would our theme, music is by Jim from burke and Ben lands work of wonderingly? the The, that's it for the daily. I'm sabrina, tavern easy, we'll see you tomorrow, this package to support by accused all new tuesday on fox from you winning executive producers of homeland in twenty four. Don't miss foxes, crime. Anthology series accused every week, a new case, a different defendant and an unpredictable story that will keep you guessing. Who is the victim? What is the crime

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