Rain. Something we haven't seen much of this year, or over the past two. If you were to plot the annual averages for the Sacramento Valley or the Sierra since they started recording such things (about 1870 by Central Pacific railroad employees) it's on a downward slide. Particularly the April snow pack at lower elevations, it's (on average) less each year, and it's not compensated by more snow at higher elevations. It doesn't matter, doesn't matter, what's to blame for this. In another 40 or 50 years we will have run out of scapegoats and we will have to address our profligate water waste.
Lack of water will contribute to SMUD's looming rate increase. Water is free fuel, and the free lunch has been suspended for a few years. Perfect timing with our cratering economy, eh?
But hey! Great news! Squaw Valley is now offering a Furlough Friday Program! State workers, laid off on all the 1st and 3rd Fridays of the month are offered $30 dollar lift tickets. Come enjoy the
Gas up the Yukon -- you know, the one you bought in 2006 that you're still paying on until 2012, specifically to handle the "conditions" of the high Sierra. Buy another set of binders and boots with those Furlough Friday savings you'll enjoy, complements of the Squaw.
Gas is cheap, and thank god for that, because all the Sierra resorts are much, much more dependent on gas and fossil fuels than they are snow. After all, they can make snow. They just plug into the Sierra Pacific Grid, utilize all that fossil fuel generated electricity and bam, man-made snow. The resorts then hope that the few hundred thousand gallons of gasoline their customers burn to get them to their slopes is cheap. Cheap gas means more snowboarders. Imagine what would happen to the snow economy if gas costs $4 bucks! Oh, the debauchery! The humanity!
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