Record rainfall out to sea has water agencies talking about tapping the potential
The Carmel River Watershed has seen record rainfall this winter beating out 1998 for the wettest year to date and the rain is not done yet. But most of that water won’t end up in your tap instead it’s flowing out to the ocean. … That 91,000 acre-feet is equivalent to roughly 29.6 million gallons of water going out to sea or nine years’ worth of drinking water for the Peninsula. … Not every drop of rainwater this winter went out to the Pacific. To date his water year the Peninsula’s water utility California American Water has banked about 500 acre-feet of water off the Carmel River, less than a tenth of what the Peninsula will use in a year, the water’s been piped to the Seaside Basin and stored in injection wells.
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