State laws hamper flood flow storage but one San Joaquin Valley water district cut through the red tape. Can others follow?
It seems like such a no brainer: Grab the floodwater inundating California right now and shove it into our dried up aquifers for later use. But water plus California never equals simple. Yes, farmers and water districts can, legally, grab water from the state’s overflowing rivers, park it on their land and it will recharge the groundwater. But if those farmers and districts want to claim any kind of ownership over that water later, they can’t. Not without a permit. And permits are costly, time consuming and overly complicated, according to critics. Farmers and districts in some areas are taking flood water independently in order to relieve problems for people downstream. But there just isn’t a large-scale, systematic way for water agencies and farmers to absorb the current deluge and store it for future use, mostly because of regulatory hurdles, critics say.
Related articles:
- State Water Resources Control Board: News release: Board issues first five-year temporary groundwater recharge permit
- California Department of Water Resources: State Agencies Fast-track Groundwater Recharge Pilot Project to Capture Flood Waters for Underground Storage