Postcards from the Drought: How a local dairy farmer’s struggle reflects our new normal

For months, Petaluma dairy farmer Don DeBernardi has been forced to truck in 30,000 gallons of water a day for his cows after his livestock ponds dried up for lack of rain.

Is this our new normal?

Lakes that are barely even lakes any more. Rivers that are barely a trickle. Weeks and months without life-giving rain.

For more than two years now, drought has been the pall that has hung over the North Bay like a funeral shroud, and almost no one has been spared the grief.

Whether you are now trucking in emergency water in Mendocino, letting your lawn die in Santa Rosa or worried about how you’re going to water your grapes in Napa and Sonoma, living with drought has become, well, a new way of life for us.

And with it, there is the ever-present fear that the next wildfire might be the one that threatens the home you love, the memories you cherish and the family you hold dear.

Yes, this is our new normal.

Recent long-range forecasts from the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggest that the current La Nina pattern of Pacific Ocean currents portends yet another dry winter.

This unwelcome news comes as the state has already endured an early and brutally destructive fire season. It comes as Lake Mendocino, a chief source of water for the North Bay, dropped below a critical threshold a month earlier than predicted. It comes as state officials have curtailed diversions from the Russian River, another key source of water. And it comes as climatologists have pronounced this summer as the hottest ever in California’s recorded history.

Since before the drought began, Press Democrat journalists have been documenting its impact on our daily lives.

And perhaps the most striking representations of the drought are the visual images as seen through the lenses of our photojournalists.

Today we begin an occasional photographic series aimed at reflecting the impact living with the drought continues to have on all of us each day. We welcome your suggestions. To contribute, email us at drought@pressdemocrat.com.