An aquifer is a geologic formation that stores, transmits, and
yields significant quantities of water to wells or springs.
Aquifers come in two types. Some are formed in the space between
porous materials such as sand, gravel, silt or clay and are known
as alluvial aquifers or unconfined aquifers. However, in many
places in California, there are aquifers beneath a rock layer
that does not allow water to permeate in measurable amounts.
These are known as confined aquifers.
Confined aquifers under pressure are known as artesian aquifers.
This pressure can push water to the surface, which when drilled
are called artesian wells.
For years, conversations about the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act – known commonly as SGMA – have largely taken a
tone of speculation and even apprehension. The 2014 law, which
aims to slow California’s unlimited tapping of underground
aquifers, gives locally organized groundwater sustainability
agencies until 2042 to overhaul pumping practices for the
spectrum of groundwater users — from cities and rural
communities to dairies, small farms and agricultural
conglomerates. Ultimately, the consequences could be dire: the
non-profit Public Policy Institute of California predicted even
in the best-case scenario, as much as 500,000 acres of farmland
may need to be fallowed in order to adequately reduce
groundwater pumping.
Fresno State President Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval acknowledged the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act’s (SGMA) importance to
the valley in his opening remarks. … As water supplies
decline, said Central Valley Community Foundation CEO Ashley
Swearengin, it is key to bring all the valley’s many players to
the table to hammer out coping strategies. The need for
coordination is paramount, given the magnitude of the
challenge. As PPIC research fellow Andrew Ayres explained,
reducing groundwater pumping ultimately will help the valley
maintain its robust agricultural industry and protect
communities. But even with new water supplies, our research
found that valley agriculture will need to occupy a smaller
footprint than it does now: at least 500,000 acres of farmland
will likely need to come out of intensively irrigated
production.
… a conference held this past week at Fresno State, “Managing
water and farmland transitions in the San Joaquin Valley,” drew
a large crowd of growers and water district managers. The
event was sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of
California [PPIC], a nonpartisan group that provides analysis
on key issues facing the state.The PPIC’s report on the
Valley’s water situation makes clear the stakes: Even if
growers do everything right, a half million acres could go out
of production because of water-supply shortages. … Using
water wisely while re-purposing land properly will be the key
issue facing San Joaquin Valley farmers for years to
come. -Written by Tad Weber, The Bee’s opinion
editor.
Even though California enacted sweeping legislation nearly a
decade ago to curb excessive agricultural pumping of
groundwater, new research predicts that thousands of drinking
water wells could run dry in the Central Valley by the time the
law’s restrictions take full effect in 2040. The study,
published this month in the journal Scientific Reports, casts
critical light on how the state is implementing the 2014
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The research reveals
that plans prepared by local agencies would allow for heavy
pumping to continue largely unabated, potentially drawing down
aquifers to low levels that would leave many residents with dry
wells.
When California lawmakers enacted the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act in 2014, it was an effort to tame the wild, wild
west of water. Nearly a decade later, there’s been some
progress creating local sustainability plans, but Big Ag
corporations are still hogging water and bullying smaller
groundwater users. Look no further than the fight heating up in
the Cuyama Valley, where small farmers and rural residents are
calling for a boycott of carrots produced by a pair of big
corporate growers who use a lot of water in an increasingly dry
place. … The problem is that more water is being pumped
from the ground than
is being replenished. Cuyama Valley is one
of California’s 21 over-pumped, or
“critically overdrafted” basins.
Successful implementation of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) is vital to the long-term health of the
San Joaquin Valley’s communities, agriculture, environment, and
economy. But the transition will be challenging. Even with
robust efforts to augment water supplies through activities
like groundwater recharge, significant land fallowing will be
necessary. How the valley manages that fallowing will be
paramount to protecting the region’s residents—including the
growers and rural, low-income communities who will be most
directly impacted by the changes. With coordinated planning and
robust incentives, the valley can navigate the difficult water
and land transitions coming its way and put itself on a path to
a productive and sustainable future.
There’s a new hotspot in the world of geothermal energy: a
seemingly sleepy valley in Beaver County. Its secret? The
valley sits on top of bedrock that reaches temperatures up to
465 degrees Fahrenheit. Joseph Moore, who manages the Utah
FORGE research project, pointed across a dirt parking lot to a
well being drilled at the University of Utah’s subterranean
lab. … The mission of the FORGE project — which stands
for Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy —
isn’t to produce its own electricity. It’s to test tools and
techniques through trial and error and, in the process, answer
a big question: Can you pipe cool water through cracks in hot
underground rock and create a geothermal plant almost anywhere?
Standing on top of the largest groundwater well in eastern
Alameda County, and flanked by twenty-foot cream-colored water
vessels, five board members of the Zone 7 Water Agency, a water
wholesaler for the tri-valley, cut the ribbon on an advanced
groundwater treatment facility Wednesday in Pleasanton. The new
technology is called Ion Exchange, which uses positive and
negative particles to remove PFAS from ground water. PFAS,
or polyfluoroalkyl substances, are widely used, long-lasting
chemicals, the components of which break down very slowly over
time. Thousands of different PFAS are found in many different
consumer, commercial, and industrial products, like hiking gear
and non-stick cookware.
California will spend about $300 million to prepare a vast
groundwater and farming infrastructure system for the growing
impacts of climate change. California Department of Water
Resources announced Tuesday that it has awarded $187
million to 32 groundwater sub-basins, which store water for
future use that mainly flows from valuable snowmelt, through
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Grant
Program. Governor Gavin Newsom also announced
Tuesday that California’s Department of Food and
Agriculture will award more than $106 million in grants to 23
organizations, which will design and implement new carbon
sequestration and irrigation efficiency projects.
Cattle producers who own and manage land in Butte, Colusa,
Glenn, and Tehama counties are gravely concerned with the
approach adopted by Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA’s)
in our respective basin/counties, reports the California Farm
Bureau. In each of those basins, the farm bureau claims
non-extractors, or de minimis users who only pump stock water,
are reportedly being assessed acreage fees by the respective
GSAs to generate the funding required to comply with the
state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Cattle
producers are predominantly rangeland operations that do not
use groundwater, except for watering livestock, and in fact,
serve as a net recharge zone for the basins.
A new but little-known change in California law designating
aquifers as “natural infrastructure” promises to unleash a
flood of public funding for projects that increase the state’s
supply of groundwater. The change is buried in a sweeping state
budget-related law, enacted in July, that also makes it easier
for property owners and water managers to divert floodwater for
storage underground. The obscure, seemingly
inconsequential classification of aquifers could have a
far-reaching effect in California where restoring depleted
aquifers has become a strategic defense against climate change
— an insurance against more frequent droughts and more variable
precipitation.
A new but little-known change in
California law designating aquifers as “natural infrastructure”
promises to unleash a flood of public funding for projects that
increase the state’s supply of groundwater.
The change is buried in a sweeping state budget-related law,
enacted in July, that also makes it easier for property owners
and water managers to divert floodwater for storage underground.
The San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency (SGPWA), a Southern
California State Water Contractor, is planning a new set of
percolation basins to support growing demand for water storage.
SGPWA is planning the Brookside West Recharge Facility, which
would complement the agency’s existing Brookside East Recharge
Facility. Brookside West’s 62.5 acres would house approximately
25 acres of recharge ponds. The ponds, or basins, would
import water from the State Water Project and filter the water
down through layers of soil and rock to be stored underground.
The facility may also be used for local stormwater capture and
to recharge treated reclaimed water.
Landowners in the Cuyama Valley Groundwater Basin have been
fighting major agriculture producers, Grimmway Farms and
Bolthouse Farms, for their water rights. Everyone in the basin
was on track to cut water usage until the carrot growers filed
an adjudication in court against every landowner in the basin,
including the school district, temporarily halting the cutback,
and essentially leaving the courts with the decision on who
gets water rights in the basin. The Cuyama Valley Groundwater
Basin was designated as one of 21 basins or subbasins in
California that are in a state of critical overdraft. Local
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSA), agencies under the
California Department of Water Resources, are responsible for
creating a Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP) to outline how
basins throughout the state will become sustainable by 2040.
Those plans then get updated every five years.
Earlier this month the Coastside County Water District Board of
Directors workshopped ideas for bringing recycled water to Half
Moon Bay. The district is in the early stages of a feasibility
study that will examine whether water from various sources,
including wastewater, could be used for agriculture or drinking
supplies. Throughout the process, CCWD must weigh the benefits
of diversifying local water sources with the costs of building
expensive infrastructure. Two months ago, the board agreed to
pay Water Works Engineers $299,977 to evaluate the region’s
hydrogeology, implementation options and permitting
feasibility. The district has applied for grants from the
Division of Financial Assistance that could pay for planning
and construction.
As implementation of the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) proceeds, it’s no secret that the San
Joaquin Valley will have to adapt to a future with less water
for irrigation. Our research shows that overall irrigation
supplies may decline by as much as 20% by 2040. Land uses will
have to change, and some have raised concerns that SGMA’s
implementation could put smaller farms at a disadvantage, given
their more limited resources and capacity. To gain insight on
these issues, we conducted a detailed geographical analysis of
cropping patterns and water conditions by farm size on the San
Joaquin Valley floor, using county real estate records on
ownership of agricultural parcels (individual properties of
varying sizes) to identify farms.
Global warming has focused concern on land and sky as soaring
temperatures intensify hurricanes, droughts and wildfires. But
another climate crisis is unfolding, underfoot and out of view.
Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s
water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of
America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are
being severely depleted. These declines are threatening
irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a
whole. The New York Times conducted a months-long examination
… In California, an agricultural giant and, like
Arkansas, a major groundwater user, the aquifers in at least 76
basins last year were being pumped out faster than they could
be replenished by precipitation, a condition known as
“overdraft,” according to state numbers.
A new underground mapping technology
that reveals the best spots for storing surplus water in
California’s Central Valley is providing a big boost to the
state’s most groundwater-dependent communities.
The maps provided by the California Department of Water Resources
for the first time pinpoint paleo valleys and similar prime
underground storage zones traditionally found with some guesswork
by drilling exploratory wells and other more time-consuming
manual methods. The new maps are drawn from data on the
composition of underlying rock and soil gathered by low-flying
helicopters towing giant magnets.
The unique peeks below ground are saving water agencies’
resources and allowing them to accurately devise ways to capture
water from extreme storms and soak or inject the surplus
underground for use during the next drought.
“Understanding where you’re putting and taking water from really
helps, versus trying to make multimillion-dollar decisions based
on a thumb and which way the wind is blowing,” said Aaron Fukuda,
general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, an early
adopter of the airborne electromagnetic or
AEM technology in California.
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Growing up in the shadow of the
Rocky Mountains, Andrew Schwartz never missed an opportunity to
play in – or study – a Colorado snowstorm. During major
blizzards, he would traipse out into the icy wind and heavy
drifts of snow pretending to be a scientist researching in
Antarctica.
Decades later, still armed with an obsession for extreme weather,
Schwartz has landed in one of the snowiest places in the West,
leading a research lab whose mission is to give California water
managers instant information on the depth and quality of snow
draping the slopes of the Sierra Nevada.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
Our event calendar is an excellent
resource for keeping up with water events in California and the
West.
Groundwater is top of mind for many water managers as they
prepare to meet next January’s deadline for submitting
sustainability plans required under California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act. We have several upcoming featured
events listed on our calendar that focus on a variety of relevant
groundwater topics:
Groundwater helped make Kern County
the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion
annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has
come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater
pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left
some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers
have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and
protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern
County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
As California embarks on its unprecedented mission to harness groundwater pumping, the Arizona desert may provide one guide that local managers can look to as they seek to arrest years of overdraft.
Groundwater is stressed by a demand that often outpaces natural and artificial recharge. In California, awareness of groundwater’s importance resulted in the landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 that aims to have the most severely depleted basins in a state of balance in about 20 years.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
Springs are where groundwater becomes surface water, acting as openings
where subsurface water can discharge onto the ground or directly
into other water bodies. They can also be considered the
consequence of an overflowing
aquifer. As a result, springs often serve as headwaters to streams.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at California
groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by
local, regional and state management. For more background
information on groundwater please refer to the Foundation’s
Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater management and the extent to which stakeholders
believe more efforts are needed to preserve and restore the
resource.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
Fashioned after the popular California Water Map, this 24×36 inch
poster was extensively re-designed in 2017 to better illustrate
the value and use of groundwater in California, the main types of
aquifers, and the connection between groundwater and surface
water.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater is an in-depth,
easy-to-understand publication that provides background and
perspective on groundwater. The guide explains what groundwater
is – not an underground network of rivers and lakes! – and the
history of its use in California.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
