We've all known that droughts were in our future, just as we know our population will continue to grow and our climate is changing rapidly. It's dumbfounding that Stanford continues to add more and more lawns, both purely decorative and for various playing fields. This isn't any less worrisome than the swimming pools in every backyard and plethora of golf courses in Arizona. We aren't as smart as we think we are at Stanford and in Palo Alto. We need drought tolerant landscaping.

True, Rose. It turns out, ENSO and other oscillation-affected weather has recently featured drought, to the west, of any jet-stream, during neutral conditions, which Cali broke out of, last night, with lots of needed rain.

Generally, humans will need to dam first and ask questions, later: see Oregon's PAC 12 schools, for a CLUE, as to whattup, with survival, of any predictions, by modern or other scientists, such as Nostradamus, da Vinci, or Mayan priests.

FYI: The Dresden Codex, by Mayan priests flat-out predicts the Earth will blacken and perish, by flood. Read into that, what does not burn and wash out will simply wash out.

Anthropogenic climate change means humans are causing the changes, and from my knowledge, of humans, alive, during my time, these are a habitual nuisance, with a pollution footprint, tied to persistent CORRUPTION, so don't expect any changes, which would make the Mayans looks less aware, than are people, who read PA Online.

We will suffer deprivation or downpour, during desertification, acidification, and finally, vulcanization, to yield alternating volcanic winters, floods, and more warming, with fire, and REPEAT, until humans perish, and reglaciation then occurs, to end the Anthrocene Epoch.

Barton 'Buzz' Thompson's statement that Stanford should conserve water and refrain from using groundwater sounds like something from an absurd existential play, novel or movie. If you don't irrigate lawns and landscaping and instead install drought tolerant plants, the aquifer will gradually deplete. Most communities that have water police or designate certain days to water lawns have the same problem -- their water basins won't get recharged and will eventually deplete without watering lawns.

Environmentalism is an ideology that often doesn't have much to do with the empirical environment. The state of California's policy to continue with water conservation as it priority over building new water storage reflects the same absurdity.

Oddly, where most of the water is wasted in California is on the environment. Some 65% of all wholesale system water in California's reservoirs and canals is dedicated to the environment where it is flushed to the sea through rivers. Where California could get its greatest water savings is through quantification and greater efficiency of environmental water, not agricultural or municipal and industrial water.

In my community when I brought a hydrologist and water engineer in to explain how not watering lawns would deplete the precious water basin that the community relies on for 30% of its supplies, the reaction was what might be called "cognitive confusion." Many said: "But isn't always conservation good?" No, not all conservation is good. Water needs to be returned to the water cycle.

It's interesting how so-called experts tout recycled water programs (reused effluent water) but don't tout natural recycling of water.

Environmentalists have propagated the myth that agriculture uses 80% of all water that it has become a pseudo-fact. Agriculture uses 80% of all water dedicated to human use but only about 40% of all water in California's water system and only 8% of all rainfall in a wet year.

There is enough rainfall in California in an average year to support a population of a billion people with full allocations to agriculture and the environment at the same time. The problem is management and storage not conservation.

If someone wrote an absurd existential play or movie script about water conservation it wouldn't sell; but a feel-good book like Rachel Carson's Silent Spring sells in the millions and is probably a textbook at Stanford.

We have other on-line topics of water in which the diversion of water at the top of San Francisquito Creek for watering the SU golf course is negatively affecting the attempts to correct the flood control issues which occur at the bottom of the creek as it flows into the bay.
There are now law suits related to that issue - specifically the ability of fish to travel upward in an active stream.
Little - or no water is going into the bay which is causing the inflow of salt water, build up of sludge at the bottom. The buildup of sludge flattens the bay so that when we have storms with high tides water can easily flood upward affecting homes at that end of the city.
This creek is a flood control effort from top to bottom and needs to function as such. Diversion of water in the creek needs to be in conformance with FEMA standards which is looking at cleaning up Searsville Dam so it is functional with spaces for holding pools at the top to collect overflow, as well as a clear passage of water to the bay.