Drying up: Sonoma County’s quiet disaster you need to know about
Sonoma County’s groundwater is quietly vanishing beneath our feet, and the numbers are alarming. In parts of Sonoma Valley, deep aquifers have plummeted nearly 100 feet in the last decade, according to recent reports from the Sonoma Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA). With some wells dropping as much as eight feet per year, residents and businesses alike have good reason to be worried. … Drilling a new well can cost $50,000 or more, a financial blow that smaller family-run vineyards find especially daunting. Sonoma Valley has responded by expanding a recycled water pipeline on the east side, delivering treated wastewater for irrigation and reducing pressure on depleted aquifers. … The county is experimenting with Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR), injecting excess treated Russian River water underground during rainy months, banking it for future dry spells.
Other water scarcity and drought news:
- Sonoma County Gazette: How Sonoma’s oldest vines are beating climate odds
- Audubon: Blog: How a hotter, drier climate is threatening birds in one of the nation’s most biologically diverse states
- Daily Journal (Los Angeles): Opinion: Milking California dry of its water supply
- Mongabay: Blog: In a warming world, can California save its Joshua trees?
- Inside Climate News: Southwestern drought likely to continue through 2100, research finds