Editorial: Newsom must not play politics with his response to California’s water shortage
When it comes to water supplies in California and the U.S. Southwest, the news has been remarkably grim in recent weeks. One story detailed how inn owners in Mendocino County — which has no municipal water system — were begging guests not to use showers because their wells had dried up. Another noted that for the first time ever, the federal government had declared a Colorado River water shortage. The river’s large adjacent reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, provide water to 40 million residents of California and six other Western states.