Tuesday Top of the Scroll: ‘Pretty dang close to full’: Bay Area groundwater back to pre-drought levels after massive winter storms
Across the Bay Area, communities that rely on groundwater, from Silicon Valley to the East Bay suburbs, have measured big increases in recent months in their subterranean supplies to some of the highest levels on record. The unseen bounty is dramatic, and rebuts a common misperception among many Californians that groundwater always takes years to recover, or is all so hopelessly overdrawn it can never be restored. … Following more than a dozen major atmospheric river storms this winter, [Santa Clara County's] main water table in the county has risen 35 feet since last June — and is up 51 feet since the most extreme part of the drought in September 2021 — returning to pre-drought levels. The county’s main groundwater basin is now about 90% full.
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