Beyond the shadow of a drought

I don't want to blow any minds here, but Marlene Olsen of the Truckee Meadows Water Authority tells me that we need to rethink how we look at water availability in the arid environment of the High Sierra.

“You know what the misconception is, right?” she asked. “We don’t really have drought years. We live in the high desert. We have wet years.”

That’s a debate for the meteorologists, though. Certainly, as I drove around Northern Nevada and California, I didn’t have any trouble finding dry spots.

From Lake Tahoe to Boca Reservoir through Reno to Pyramid Lake, every user can expect to be impacted by the dwindling resource. The fast-fading snowpack will soon be gone, and things may begin to get grim for all of us this summer. Here’s hoping next winter is a wet one.