The odds that the drought-enhancing La Nina will fade by the
end of California’s rainy season are rising, offering some hope
of an easing of parched conditions across the US West. The
Pacific Ocean has a 71% chance of returning to normal
temperatures between February and April, bringing an end the La
Nina weather pattern that has persisted for three years, the
Climate Prediction Center said in a Thursday forecast. La Nina
has dominated global weather, prompting mild winters across the
US South, drought in the West and parched crops in parts of
Argentina and Brazil. More than 99% of California’s land
is gripped in drought, according to the US Drought Monitor. The
state gets almost all its annual rain and snow from November to
April …
Could the limited successes in bringing together disparate
water interests in the San Joaquin Valley be a model for a
collaborative solution to the water woes facing Monterey
County? Local elected officials on Tuesday listened to an
architect of such an effort in the neighboring valley in hopes
that the growing loggerheads over securing additional,
permanent water sources in Monterey County can be
alleviated…. the Board of Supervisors invited Tim Quinn,
a Stanford University Landreth Visiting Fellow and past
president of the Association of California Water Agencies, to
brief them on the work he and colleagues have put in to bring
farmers, environmentalists, social justice advocates,
governments and water agencies together….
An expanded Atmospheric River Reconnaissance program began last
month as a result of the unexpected “bomb cyclone” in October
2021 that hit North America’s West Coast, followed by another
atmospheric river less than a month later that caused severe
flooding in Washington. … Atmospheric rivers are streams
of water vapor that carry 25 times the water equivalent of the
Mississippi River. Flowing at an altitude of about 10,000 feet,
atmospheric rivers average between 100 and 500 miles wide and
2,000 miles long. Where they hit the West Coast determines
where heavy rain, snow, and flooding occurs. They are also
critical to water supply, and improved forecasts of where
atmospheric rivers will make landfall are vital for more
effective management of reservoirs.
A key state regulator on Thursday OK’d an agreement to have
California American Water Co. buy future water from the planned
Pure Water Monterey Expansion project. The agreement signals a
major new water supply for the Monterey Peninsula. Mike
McCullough, the director of external affairs for Monterey One
Water (M1W), said the authorization defines the terms and
conditions for the sale of water from the expansion project.
Monterey One Water is the public wastewater agency operating
the Pure Water Monterey recycled water project and which will
operate the Pure Water Monterey Expansion … The three
involved parties – Cal Am, the Monterey Peninsula Water
Management District and Monterey One Water reached an agreement
on the language of what’s called a Water Purchase Agreement
more than a year ago.
On the surface, these would appear to be challenging times for
investors in San Dimas-based water utility holding company
American States Water Co. Its water utility subsidiary, Golden
State Water, has several systems along California’s Central
Coast, one of the regions hardest hit by the ongoing drought,
which in turn has forced the utility to pay more for imported
water. Even more challenging is a year-long delay in Golden
State Water’s rate case before the California Public Utilities
Commission. The case is supposed to set water rates for this
year through 2024. Yet as 2022 draws to a close, the case is
still lingering before the commission, and a decision is not
expected until the first quarter of next year.
As water in the Western U.S. becomes an increasingly rare
commodity, the driest states are grasping at solutions for an
even drier future — investing heavily in technologies to
maximize the conservation, and creation, of the region’s most
precious resource. … With more than a thousand miles of
Pacific Ocean coastline, California appears to have access to a
wellspring that other arid states lack. The technology to
transform that unlimited sea supply into potable drinking water
has existed for decades, through a process called desalination.
Yet while two new desalination plants have received approvals
in the past couple months, California’s coast isn’t exactly
teeming with such facilities.
The winter storm that dropped rain across the Bay Area dumped
snow on the Sierras and ski resorts across Tahoe. Heavy snow
and slick roads also made for dangerous driving conditions but
the precipitation is a boon for California’s water
supply. Building on gains during a storm in early
November, this latest storm brought statewide snowpack up to
106% of normal for December 1, according to the California
Department of Water Resources. The snow is beneficial but
it’s still early in the season, said Andrew Schwartz, the lead
scientist at UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Laboratory. The
previous water year, for example, started out with plentiful
rains during October and December 2021 but were followed by
an extremely dry start to 2022.
In a warming and drying California, water agencies across the
state are looking for new water sources and trying to better
utilize the ones they have. Pacifica has a potential source of
water not available to many communities: the drippy gray
moisture that blows ashore in the form of fog. Fog is composed
of tiny water droplets; together, a cubic mile of fog can carry
some 56,000 gallons of water. The North Coast County Water
District … installed experimental fog-catchers over the
summer at three district sites … The fog-catching
devices are simple: a 1-meter square of polyethylene mesh
stretched over a frame and installed facing into the prevailing
wind. When the fog blows in, the mesh collects droplets of
water like a giant spider web. The drops fall into a collecting
trough below and flow through a gauge that measures the amount
of water.
On this edition of Your Call, we’ll discuss the California
Coastal Commission’s recent approval of a controversial
desalination plant in Monterey County. The plan was approved 9
years after it was first proposed, following 13 hours of debate
at a public hearing. Proponents of the plan view desalination
as a critical source of drinking water in a drought-starved
region. Environmental justice advocates argue the plant could
raise costs for low income residents and harm marine life and
other wildlife habitats. What is the future for desalination in
the west, during an era of climate-induced mega-droughts?
With the brassy stutter of a rusty wheel whizzing downhill, an
American coot announces itself from the shores of Pinto Lake as
Kendra Hayashi scoops water from the side of the dock. Today,
the sample in her glass bottle looks mostly clear, as does the
liquid buoying the bird. But three weeks earlier, she says, the
lake’s surface bloomed with potentially toxic algae. The coots
and mallards didn’t seem to notice. … Hayashi manages a lab
at UC Santa Cruz that monitors microcystin—a toxin produced by
algae in the genus Microcystis—in Watsonville’s Pinto Lake.
Though it once had among the highest measured levels of
microcystin of any freshwater body on earth, the lake hasn’t
had a toxic event in years, thanks to local cleanup efforts.
Climate change poses a significant threat for all of
agriculture, but it has particularly disruptive potential for
the wine industry. This is because wine quality is closely
linked to weather and quality is linked to value. … There are
many potential impacts to consider. Climate Change will
probably mean more frequent and severe droughts such as the one
that the California is currently experiencing. The
availability of ground or surface water varies greatly between
regions in the state, but it is possible that this issue will
inhibit any further planting and render some vineyards
inoperable. Severe temperature spikes can lead to sunburning
and yield/quality loss for the fruit and those events are
likely to become more common.
Boosting what has been a mediocre start so far to the winter
season, a storm from the Pacific Northwest is expected to bring
widespread rain to the Bay Area early Thursday and blanket the
Sierra Nevada with up to 3 feet of new snow. … The
storm system would be the first significant rain or snow in
Northern California in more than three weeks, and comes as the
state is entering its fourth year of drought. A hoped-for storm
fizzled last weekend, but this one is on track, forecasters
say….California desperately needs a sustained pattern of rain
and snow this winter. The last three years have been the driest
three-year period statewide since records began in the 1800s.
Most of California’s urban water agencies believe they have
enough supplies to last through another seven months of
drought, but nearly 20% of them — including many in Southern
California — say they could be facing significant shortages,
according to a new state report. The California Department of
Water Resource’s first annual water supply and demand
assessment surveyed the state’s urban water agencies to see how
they are managing tight supplies through conservation efforts
and improved drought planning. … [Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California] spokeswoman Rebecca Kimitch added
that deteriorating conditions on the Colorado
River mean the rest of Southern California could also see
calls for increased conservation in the coming months.
Rumors sometimes lead to news stories and sometimes not. In the
case of Slippery Rock Ranch — TV mogul Dick Wolf’s property in
the Goleta foothills — the gossip was that Montecito residents
were filling their swimming pools with water from the ranch’s
aquifers. While a publicist with the ranch stated last
week that Slippery Rock was not selling water or filling
Montecito swimming pools, the Goleta Water District
confirmed that they quietly settled a long-simmering
water dispute with the Law & Order creator in
the sum of $10 million. In Santa Barbara Superior Court,
Slippery Rock Ranch and the Goleta Water District had disputed
since 2015 over possession of the rainwater sluicing off and
infiltrating down under the ranch. The Water District pointed
out that the ranch — 740 acres above the border of Los Padres
National Forest — was in a watershed that contributed to the
district’s Goleta Groundwater Basin.
December is cutting in line and bringing its entourage of rain,
wind and snow to Northern California this week. Bay Area
residents are already getting a taste of this
upcoming shift in the weather pattern as bitter, cold air
sweeps into the region today. This cold air will be
followed up by a winter storm that will bring strong winds and
rounds of rain to most of Northern California…. The
bitter cold air mass settling in Tuesday will help keep the
snowline in the Sierra Nevada close to 1,000 feet through the
rest of the week…. This means that parts of the Sierra
Nevada, including Donner Pass and several ski resorts above
7,000 feet like Kirkwood and Palisades could end up seeing as
much as 4 feet of snow between Thursday and Friday.
The California Coastal Commission recently approved the
construction of two more desalination plants, one near
Monterey, and one by Dana Point. This adds to the four already
providing drinking water in the state. But in 2020, this same
commission advised not to build the Monterey plant. What
changed? The state has faced its driest three years on
record, and it needs more potable water for its almost 40
million residents, especially the ones living on the coast.
… Many countries in the Middle East, and even parts of
the United States, rely almost exclusively on desalinated
water, which is ocean water with the salt and other impurities
removed. Nevertheless, there are significant costs in terms of
energy needed for the desalination process and environmental
damage. In the case of the plant near Monterey, local residents
complained about other factors too.
Federal water managers on Monday warned California cities and
industrial users receiving water from the Central Valley
Project to prepare for a fourth year of drought and possibly
“extremely limited water supply” during 2023. The U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation, an agency of the Interior
Department that oversees water resource management, said
drought conditions in California have persisted despite early
storms this month, and warned of looming water conservation
actions. … The agency said water storage is near
historic lows in the reservoirs it oversees in the state, which
irrigate more than 3 million acres of land in central
California and supply major urban centers in the Greater
Sacramento and San Francisco Bay areas. The project’s water
provides supplies for approximately 2.5 million people per
year.
Most Californians don’t expect to see anything like a white
Christmas, but this year, even a damp Christmas is looking
unlikely. An update to the Climate Prediction Center’s
official winter forecast shows a hot and dry season ahead
for much of the Golden State. The 90-day outlook was published
Thursday morning by the Climate Prediction Center, part of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA)
National Weather Service. It gives people a rough idea of what
December, January and February will look like across the
country. The outlook shows the effects of La Niña still clearly
visible. A La Niña climate pattern tends to divide
the country in half, bringing a dry winter to the southern half
and a wetter winter to the northern half.
After more than a decade in the trying, a major desalination
plant to serve the Monterey Peninsula has cleared a significant
hurdle—in theory, at least. In a 13-hour meeting that adjourned
just after 10pm on Thursday, Nov. 17, the California Coastal
Commission approved a conditional coastal development permit
for California American Water, the private water utility that
serves the greater Monterey Peninsula, to build a desalination
project in neighboring Marina, a city whose residents are
vehemently opposed to it, and who would not be served by
it. One thing that was continually brought up during the
meeting, and that was acknowledged in the Coastal Commission’s
staff report that recommended approval (with many conditions,
some potentially insurmountable), is that the project is rife
with complexity, both from technical and environmental justice
standpoints. … One question that remained unanswered was
who would pay for the project.
Could San Luis Obispo’s wastewater help save Edna Valley
agriculture? That was the question of the night on Nov. 15 for
the SLO City Council, which took a deep dive into the future of
its recycled water program—including whether it wants to sell
any “extra” water to Edna Valley to help neighboring farmers
reduce their draw on groundwater. By a 4-1 consensus (with
Councilmember Jan Marx dissenting), the City Council agreed
that it’d be a good use of city resources to explore short-term
sales of recycled water to the Edna Valley region.
On a dirt road on a cool autumn morning, deep in the
rugged backcountry of San Benito County, Alex Hubner bounces
over boulders in his Toyota Tacoma truck, eyeing each passing
plant like a bounty hunter seeking prey. He stops suddenly
beside a lonely gray-green lump, its roots gripping the
inhospitable serpentine soil like skeletal fingers. Crouching
over the plant, Hubner takes a closer look. It’s a rare variety
of sulfur buckwheat — past its prime, seeds scattered.
… Based at UC Santa Cruz, Hubner and his wife, Lucy
Ferneyhough, are collectors for California Plant Rescue, a
state-funded consortium of botanical institutions that aims to
find and conserve the botanical diversity of the Golden State
… to store seeds and sprouts, each a modern-day Noah’s ark
that could help protect against the permanent loss of rich,
unique and irreplaceable lives.
The California Coastal Commission [Thursday night] approved
another desalination plant, despite citing its high costs,
risks to Monterey Bay’s environment and “the most significant
environmental justice issues” the commission has faced in
recent years. The commission’s divided, 8-to-2 vote came
after 13 hours of debate at a Salinas public hearing packed
with several hundred people, plus more crammed into overflow
space. Many of the 375 who signed up to speak opposed the
project — some in tears. Much of the debate focused on the
fairness of locating a for-profit company’s facility in the
Monterey County city of Marina — which does not need the water
and is home to designated disadvantaged neighborhoods. The
expensive supply will flow to other communities, including the
whiter, wealthy enclaves of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Pacific Grove
and Pebble Beach.
As California enters a fourth year of drought, experts warn a
likely drier-than-average winter means little relief for much
of California and Nevada. Nearly 41% of California and 43% of
Nevada is in extreme drought, according to the latest
California-Nevada Adaptation Program report prepared by program
manager Julie Kalansky. The U.S. Drought Monitor indicates that
over the last month drought conditions have not changed very
much. There was little to no precipitation throughout the
region to start off the water year in October, though a system
of storms in early November moistened the landscape and brought
some snow to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So far 2022 has
been California’s driest and Nevada’s 8th driest in nearly 130
years of recordkeeping.
In 1995, Bill Clinton was president, Pixar produced Toy
Story (the first fully computer-animated feature film),
and a NATO offensive ended war in Bosnia. It was also the year
the California State Water Resources Control Board determined
that California American Water was pumping roughly three times
more water from the Carmel River than it is legally entitled
to. The board issued Order 95-10, requiring Cal Am to cut back
its use of river water to the legal limit. Here we are, 27
years later, and the cease-and-desist order is still in effect.
… And that brings us to the issue du jour, a
controversial desalination plant proposed by Cal Am, set to go
before the California Coastal Commission for a vote on
Thursday, Nov. 17. There are a lot of reasons to object to this
project … -Written by Sara Rubin, editor of the Monterey County
Weekly.
San Luis Obispo County has been restricting new groundwater
wells in the Paso Robles subbasin for nearly a decade. Now
county supervisors are hoping to tack on a carbon sequestration
mandate.
[On Thursday, Nov. 17 at 9am the Public Utilities Commission]
will consider whether to grant a permit to Cal Am to build a
4.8 million-gallons per day (mgd) desalination project that
would draw its source water through subsurface slant wells from
under the beach in Marina, on property owned by Cemex, whose
sand mine on the property has now been shut down. One
elephant in the room, which is completely omitted from the
Coastal Commission’s staff report—which recommends that the
commission approve the project, with conditions—is that it
doesn’t address who would pay for the unused capacity of the
desal plant. Right now, if Pure Water Monterey expansion is
approved, there is no projected demand for more water for at
least 20 years. -Written by David Schmalz, Monterey County Weekly
columnist.
California is enjoying fewer extreme wildfires than it has in
years, which experts attribute to a combination of summer rain,
calm weather and increased forest management. As of Thursday,
fires had blackened less than 363,000 acres throughout the
Golden State. That’s far less than last year, when 2.5 million
acres burned, and 2020, when fires torched a record 4 million
acres. … But Ferguson and other experts warned that
wildfires are now a year-round threat, largely thanks to
climate change, which dries out vegetation and soil with
record-breaking high temperatures and persistent drought.
Microplastic particles are widespread in Monterey Bay anchovies
and the diving seabirds that eat them as a main food source -
which could possibly impact the birds’ reproductive systems,
according to a new study. Scientists at UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis
and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance studied microplastic
pollution in Monterey Bay by testing microplastic particles in
the water and in anchovies and common murres, a bird species
found in abundance in the region. … The study also comes two
months after California became the first state in the
United States to begin requiring water agencies to test for
microplastics, which can be found everywhere from clothing,
food packaging, drinking water and the ocean.
With California butting up against 840 miles of
ocean, desalination seems an obvious solution to the
state’s water woes. However, the cost, energy demands and
environmental impacts have made the technology largely
unworkable. Three years of drought may be
changing the calculus. The latest push for desalination is
on the Monterey Peninsula, where a plan for a plant, which has
faced more than a decade of hurdles, is poised to win approval
this week from the California Coastal Commission. The $300
million-plus proposal calls for pumping seawater from wells
beneath Monterey Bay, near the city of Marina, and piping it
ashore to the popular tourist region to help relieve a longtime
water shortage… the Monterey Peninsula Water Management
District, which works with Cal Am to ensure water for the area,
said the new supply could run as much as $7,000 per acre
foot.
The last time San Luis Obispo ran critically short of water,
the city pumped heavily from wells along Los Osos Valley Road.
The aquifer was so overtaxed by residents and farmers that the
ground sank, resulting multi-million dollar lawsuit settlements
over damaged businesses and homes. Since the 1990s, the city
has adopted a series of water measures — including rebates for
more efficient fixtures, upgrading the sewer plant to deliver
treated water to landscaping, and building a pipeline
delivering water from Lake Nacimiento…. The city is
currently leading the Groundwater Enhancement Project, which it
described as “an initiative to to ensure responsible use of
groundwater in the San Luis Obispo Valley Groundwater Basin.”
Monday morning, the San Luis Obispo County Service Area 23 –
Santa Margarita water system operator discovered a break-in at
the Santa Margarita water storage facility, according to the
San Luis Obispo County Health Department. The storage facility
fence was vandalized and the lock accessing one of the water
storage tanks was cut providing access to the drinking water
supply. Because it is unknown whether perpetrators tampered
with the water, as a precautionary measure, the tank was taken
out of service and is being drained. It held about 100,000
gallons of water at the time of the incident.
It’s been more than two years since Cambria applied to turn its
emergency water system into a more permanent fixture, but
there’s been little progress since then. According to Cambria
Community Services District (CCSD) board member Harry Farmer,
the permit application was submitted to the county in July
2020. … Cambria’s water issues have been ongoing for
more than a decade, but the problems with the now-proposed
water reclamation facility started in 2014, after the district
declared a water supply emergency. Due to a dire water shortage
situation, SLO County proceeded to grant the CCSD an emergency
permit to build a water supply project, bypassing the typical
requirements needed to obtain an operating permit.
Thursday, Nov. 17 is shaping up to be a momentous day for the
future of the Monterey Peninsula’s water supply, as two major
state boards – the California Coastal Commission and the
California Public Utilities Commission – are set to weigh in on
two separate projects that aim to add supply to the local
portfolio. Arguably, the more weighty of the two hearings is
the Coastal Commission’s, which is meeting for three days in
the Board of Supervisors chambers in Salinas. In those chambers
on Nov. 17, the commissioners will consider whether to grant a
coastal development permit to California American Water for its
proposed desalination project in Marina, which has been a
lightning rod for controversy since first being proposed nearly
a decade ago.
Carbon sequestration garners a lot of attention from those
interested in climate change and sustainable agriculture. The
piece that should be added to much of the conversation,
however, is the relationship of water and carbon. “We
should be considering that carbon sequestration and plant
growth doesn’t happen without water,” says Nick Goeser,
Principal and co-founder of Carbon A List … Goeser,
who co-founded Carbon A List with Christophe Jospe, adds that
raising public awareness that carbon sequestration and
sustainability don’t happen without water is important.
In October 2021, ecologists shattered the top of a dam on Mill
Creek, near Davenport, California, with a hydraulic hammer.
Within hours, the entire structure was down. For at least 110
years, the long-obsolete dam had kept threatened steelhead from
reaching important spawning habitat just upstream.
…. Then, in September 2022, [Ian] Rowbotham’s team
spotted juvenile steelhead above the former dam site. To their
surprise, they also found 15 juvenile coho salmon downstream.
It was the first time coho, an endangered species, had ever
been recorded in Mill Creek….The experience adds to a growing
body of research documenting the speedy recovery of fish and
other species after dams are removed
The first significant storm of the season is forecast to hit
Northern California this week, KCRA 3 meteorologist Eileen
Javora said, with Monday and Tuesday designated as KCRA 3
Impact Days for travel in the Sierra. The cold front with rain
and snow arrives around midnight to 1 a.m. on Monday through
the Valley. That’s also when the snow will start to pick up in
the Sierra. Both rain and snow in the forecast are making
Monday and Tuesday KCRA 3 Impact Days to highlight possible
travel issues. Javora says the snow will start above 5,000
feet and will likely lower in elevation by early morning.
Officials warn about potentially dangerous driving conditions
through the Sierra.
Remnants of an atmospheric river brought Northern
California its first solid storm of the year – rain splattered
across the Bay Area and Central Coast, while some parts of
Tahoe saw snowfall boosted to above average levels for this
time of year. Despite a historic heat wave in September,
weather unexpectedly turned colder and wetter. … Weather
forecasts signal this is the beginning of a larger pattern of
more rain and snow to come throughout November….If the
pattern continues, the fast-moving, hot-burning, severe
wildfires emblematic of California’s fire season, will go
dormant.
Highlighting the growing problem of plastic pollution in the
world’s oceans, whales swimming off the California coast are
ingesting millions of tiny pieces of plastic every day, a new
study led by marine biologists at Stanford University has
found. Blue whales, the largest animals on Earth, are each
consuming about 10 million pieces of “micro-plastic” daily — or
as much as 95 pounds a day in some cases — nearly all of it
found in the krill and other tiny organisms they eat. Smaller
fin whales are ingesting roughly 6 million pieces of the
confetti-like litter a day as they feed. And humpback whales
that primarily eat fish are eating about 200,000 pieces a day,
the study estimated.
You may see low-flying helicopters over the Central Coast. Do
not be alarmed, the California Department of Water Resources
will be using helicopters to do a survey of groundwater
basins. They will be doing electromagnetic surveys to
support drought response. During the surveys, a low-flying
helicopter tows a large hoop with scientific equipment
approximately 100 feet above the ground. The schedule and
map of where the surveys can be found here. … Survey
data creates an image of the subsurface down to a depth of
about 1,000 feet below the ground surface and provides
information about large-scale aquifer structures and geology.
If the climate crisis is coming, the water crisis is already
here. As rice fields were fallowed in California, Lake
Mead water levels almost sunk so low that Hoover Dam could no
longer generate power … Thirty percent of the world
population will face water shortages of some kind by 2025.
… The water crisis will only be solved if we realize the
once quixotic vision of desalination, turning seawater into
freshwater. Today, roughly 18,000 desalination plants produce
around 1% of the world’s freshwater, with production
concentrated in regions of high water scarcity such as Israel
and Australia. … The desalination process is so
energy-intensive that desalination plants often require
carbon-emitting power plants right next door, which can
increase costs up to 10 times higher than groundwater. -Written by Dr. Grayson Zulauf, a clean energy
entrepreneur and CEO of Resonant Link.
The Bay Area and most of California has seen a roller coaster
of active weather patterns over the course of the past few
months, ranging from extreme heat waves to unusual storms and
season swaps. These fluctuations have been largely attributed
to the shifts in two global weather patterns: the Pacific North
American Oscillation (PNA) and La Niña. And it looks like
November will be ruled by the PNA. This means the chances for
low-pressure systems from the Pacific Ocean bringing wet
weather to California will increase over the next thirty days.
… A deep plume of moisture is set to slam the
Pacific Northwest beginning the first day of November, and a
storm off the coast is likely to tap into some of this
moisture. Weather models expect a good soaking in both the
Pacific Northwest and Northern California.
This is no ordinary witch’s brew. It’s one part of the recipe
to study thiamine deficiency in our California Central Valley
Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) populations. In 2019,
hatcheries noticed an eerie and shivering change in juvenile
Chinook salmon. Offspring were laying on their side at the
bottom of tanks, swimming in corkscrew motion (see video
below), or not surviving at all. In other words, for many
juvenile salmon, they were not quite dead, only slightly alive.
… But now, we are left with a major question: how did
these fish became thiamine deficient in the first place? And if
this is being seen in our hatchery fish, what about the fish in
the wild? To understand thiamine deficiency in salmon, we need
to understand the past, present, and future using an array of
different samples.
Fall started off dry for many in the West, but as the wet
season nears, a change in the weather is set to bring rain,
mountain snow and cooler conditions…. The dry conditions
have spread from Seattle… to Sacramento, California,
where only 0.28 of an inch has fallen in the same time, a mere
33% of average…. Whether precipitation falls as rain or snow,
the influx of moisture will help to improve the stubborn
drought across the region…. More than 40% of California is in
the throes of extreme drought, so rain and mountain snow are
desperately needed in the Golden State.
Back-to-back atmospheric rivers are expected to bring 3 to 6
inches of precipitation to parts of the Pacific Northwest
through the middle of next week. But is the storm system going
to make it all the way to California? Not exactly, Newsroom
Meteorologist Gerry Díaz said, but the remnants of the
atmospheric river means the Bay Area will likely see rain next
week. … The amount of precipitation is expected to be
far less in the Bay Area than in the Pacific Northwest.
… The atmospheric rivers set to hit the Pacific
Northwest are right on schedule. … Over the following months,
atmospheric rivers make landfall further south.
Local agricultural groups continue to speak out against a new
proposed county ordinance regulating water use from the Paso
Robles Groundwater Basin, which will go before the SLO County
Planning Commission on Oct. 28. The new ordinance, championed
by a majority of the Board of Supervisors, would lift a
basinwide moratorium on groundwater pumping by giving all
property owners up to 25 acre-feet per year of exempted water
use. The current exemption is 5 acre-feet per year. After
months of negotiating with county officials and dissecting its
environmental impact report, SLO County farming groups remain
adamantly opposed to the ordinance, claiming that it will
exacerbate the basin’s overdraft and add “cumbersome” new
layers of regulation on agriculture.
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
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.
New to this year’s slate of water
tours, our Edge of
Drought Tour Aug. 27-29 will venture into the Santa
Barbara area to learn about the challenges of limited local
surface and groundwater supplies and the solutions being
implemented to address them.
Despite Santa Barbara County’s decision to lift a drought
emergency declaration after this winter’s storms replenished
local reservoirs, the region’s hydrologic recovery often has
lagged behind much of the rest of the state.
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
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.
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.
ARkStorm stands for an atmospheric
river (“AR”) that carries precipitation levels expected to occur
once every 1,000 years (“k”). The concept was presented in a 2011
report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) intended to elevate
the visibility of the very real threats to human life, property
and ecosystems posed by extreme storms on the West Coast.
Mired in drought, expectations are high that new storage funded
by Prop. 1 will be constructed to help California weather the
adverse conditions and keep water flowing to homes and farms.
At the same time, there are some dams in the state eyed for
removal because they are obsolete – choked by accumulated
sediment, seismically vulnerable and out of compliance with
federal regulations that require environmental balance.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
