Water is one of the most under appreciated resource. Except in California where a water drought emergency has been declared.  The state is considering mandatory water rationing and a 10 billion bond pack for water infrastructure improvements.

Reuters covers details.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 27 (Reuters) - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday declared a state emergency due to drought and said he would consider mandatory water rationing in the face of nearly $3 billion in economic losses from below-normal rainfall this year.

As many as 95,000 agricultural jobs will be lost, communities will be devastated and some growers in the most economically productive farm state simply are not able to plant, state officials said, calling the current drought the most expensive ever.

California is known as the sunshine state.  Now it may be known as drought state.

"We're going to have droughts. That's a fact of life. They may be worse in the future," state water chief Lester Snow told reporters on a conference call.

It’s hard to be green when there is no water.

It is year 3 of California’s drought and to help you learn more the state gov’t has this site.

 

Droughts differ from typical emergency events such as floods or forest fires, in that they occur slowly over a multiyear period. Drought impacts increase with the length of a drought, as carry-over supplies in reservoirs are depleted and water levels in groundwater basins decline. Find out more about the worsening hydrologic conditions across the State.

Pictures are available here.

And Videos here.

Full-Res Drought Footage for Media
Video footage of northern California reservoirs is currently available for public use on DWR's ftp site. To obtain high definition and standard definition footage, log on to ftp.water.ca.gov and select the PAO Video Download folder. There will be two Drought Footage folders: one containing HD footage and the other containing SD footage. Below are Windows Media Video samples of the variety of shots available for download.

"Oroville 2008" - Footage of Lake Oroville at 33% capacity.
Video

You’ve heard of Carbon Cap and Trade. California has a Drought Water Bank to buy water from sources upstream transferring the water to other projects.

DWR has established a 2009 Drought Water Bank. DWR will purchase water from willing sellers primarily from water suppliers upstream of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. This water will be transferred using State Water Project (SWP) or Central Valley Project (CVP) facilities to water suppliers that are at risk of experiencing water shortages in 2009 due to drought conditions and that require supplemental water supplies to meet anticipated demands.

Water is a scarce resource, and besides being critical for data center operations is an essential for farming.  MSNBC.com has a post on the California Drought.

Drought spurs Calif. farmers to slash planting

'It's ugly,' one grower says as tomato, melon and almond crops face hit

Shawn Coburn, left, and Juan Guadian inspect an almond orchard in Mendota, Calif., on Dec. 10, 2008.

updated 2 hours, 20 minutes ago

SAN FRANCISCO - Some of the nation's largest farms plan to cut back on planting this spring over concerns that federal water supplies will dry up as officials deal with the drought plaguing California.

Farmers in the Central Valley said Thursday they would forego planting thousands of acres of water-thirsty canning tomatoes and already have started slashing acreage for lettuce and melons.

As growers in Fresno and Kings counties prepared to sow their dry fields with tomato seeds this week, the giant water district that supplies the irrigation for their sprinklers warned them to think again.

Computer models of the state's parched reservoirs and this year's patchy snowfall showed shortages so extreme that federal officials could slash supplies down to zero, managers at the Westlands Water District told their members in an emergency conference call.

"We thought it was important to talk to our growers so they can make important planting decisions," said Sarah Woolf, a spokeswoman for Westlands, the coalition of giant agribusinesses in the state's fertile interior.

Watch for effects on Hydroelectric power.

San Antonio Business Journal reports on Microsoft's latest data center opening.

Microsoft Corp. fired up its data "nerve center" in Westover Hills on Monday.

"With what's going on in the economy, it's great to be able to make a half a billion investment in San Antonio," said Debra Chrapaty, Microsoft's corporate vice president for Global Foundation Services. "I hope you all out there are Live users. None of that Google stuff – not in San Antonio."

The 470,000 square foot building alone costs $550 million, Chrapty said. In addition, Microsoft will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on computer servers, network equipment and more to run the "brain" behind serving up data online, she said.

A few hundred people gathered under a tent outside Microsoft's new data center at 5150 Rogers Road to celebrate its opening. Earlier in the morning, Microsoft gave a select group of government, state and city leaders a tour of the highly secure facility. They were the only ones allowed inside.

Ironically, I actually went to San Antonio this weekend and was able to visit my cousin, Derek Howorth in San Antonio who is a big Texas Longhorn sports fan, and was an all-american swimmer for Texas.  Chatting he asked how much water does the Microsoft San Antonio Data Center use, I guessed a couple of 100,000 gallons a day which is close to actual of 267,000 gallons (267,000 x 30 days = 8,000,000).

The San Antonio data center is the second build to suit Microsoft building and the most technologically advanced, Chrapty said. Its also Microsoft's "greenest" project to date, she said. It will use more than eight million gallons of recycled water per month for its data center cooling needs. It is also planning on putting solar panels on its roof to harness the sun’s energy, Chrapty said.

It was a smart move made for Microsoft to use recycled water now that they are letting everyone know their water use.

I met a bunch of Derek's swimmer friends going to Rice vs. Texas football game. And being a football game we drank beers before the game for about 4 hours, went to game, left before the half then went to the alumni tent and drank more beers.  Derek's fiends apologized for the random walk as their super organized tail gate party organizer was out of town with his girl friend, Kristy Coventry on a promotional tour for the London 2012 Olympics.

Hanging around all these swimmers, and talking about some ideas for a blog on swimming my cousin could run, got me thinking.

All great swimmers know their personal best times, and when they broke them throughout their career.  They know the personal best times of their competitors as well.

Wouldn't it be great if the Data Center team knew the energy efficiency metrics for their data center?  And, each individual had numbers they felt they owned, and are competing against their peers.  This is how competitive swimming works. I've heard the Microsoft guys base bonuses on energy efficiency improvements.

Know of anyone else?