California’s climate, characterized by warm, dry summers and mild
winters, makes the state’s water supply unpredictable. For
instance, runoff and precipitation in California can be quite
variable. The northwestern part of the state can receive more
than 140 inches per year while the inland deserts bordering
Mexico can receive less than 4 inches.
By the Numbers:
Precipitation averages about 193 million acre-feet per year.
In a normal precipitation year, about half of the state’s
available surface water – 35 million acre-feet – is collected in
local, state and federal reservoirs.
California is home to more than 1,300 reservoirs.
About two-thirds of annual runoff evaporates, percolates into
the ground or is absorbed by plants, leaving about 71 million
acre-feet in average annual runoff.
The Bureau of Reclamation reports that, due to continued dry
conditions, the initial 2015 water supply allocation released
on February 27 for Central Valley Project agricultural
contractors and municipal and industrial contractors remains
unchanged.
The water frozen in snow throughout the Sierra Nevada is 8% of
average — less than a third the size of the smallest on record.
On Wednesday when this disappointing wet season ends, the
headlines will be the next alarm bell in the state’s damaging,
four-year drought.
Already cities and water districts in the North State and
beyond have been working to broker water transfers, remind
folks about restrictions and take other steps in the hopes of
meeting demand during the peak summer months.
When drought makes water scarcer in California, those with
senior water rights are offered more money to move their water
to other users. But fish are asked to give up their water for
free. … For California, even partial markets for
environmental water would satisfy the state’s stated “co-equal”
environmental and economic goals for water management.
Water districts announced a deal Monday that would prevent
scenic Lake Tulloch from being drained — at least until after
the end of the summer boating season.
When water supplies are tight, as they are now, her [Felicia
Marcus's] [State Water Resources Control] board is where
the buck stops in arguments over who gets what.
From east to west, ever since the world began, there was water.
Plentiful. Clean. Always available. None of those descriptions
apply to water today. … The world right now is drowning
in water risks: floods, droughts, contamination, disease, dead
seas, and shortages.
With the state entering its fourth year of drought, some
conservationists are looking at thinning Sierra forests to
increase the amount of water that flows into area rivers. …
On Friday, the Association of California Water Agencies also
released its own report that calls for better headwater and
forest management – and for better collaboration among federal,
state and other agencies, and other stakeholders.
Lawmakers are proposing emergency legislation, state officials
are clamping down on watering lawns and, as California enters a
fourth year of drought, some are worried that the state could
run out of water.
The [U.N.] report, released in New Delhi two days before World
Water Day, calls on policymakers and communities to rethink
water policies, urging more conservation as well as recycling
of wastewater as is done in Singapore.
State water leaders Thursday told water district leaders,
farmers, bankers and many others at California State
University, Fresno, to expect possibly a record-breaking small
snowpack. … The briefing, sponsored by the state Department
of Water Resources and the Water Education Foundation, is an
attempt to explain the dire situation after four years of
drought.
A long-awaited tool created to help manage groundwater was
unveiled Wednesday to the Stanislaus County Water Advisory
Committee, whose members listened politely but seemed less than
thrilled.
News flash: The state doesn’t want to ruin the Valley’s
economy. News flash: Farmers don’t want to see our rivers die
or salmon vanish. Why is it necessary to make such obvious
statements?
California, as you might have heard, is running out of water.
Very, very quickly. … Perhaps you read NASA senior water
scientist Jay Famiglietti’s rather terrifying op-ed in the LA
Times, declaring that, by all available measures, our state has
only one year of water storage left?
State regulators on Monday approved a critical well-monitoring
program that should give the public a better idea of the
groundwater situation in the Salinas Valley.
Residents in this small community [Shaver Springs] bordering
the Sierra National Forest, six miles west of Shaver Lake,
could probably teach people living in water-short communities a
few lessons.
Like the vast majority of Californians, we at Nestlé Waters are
deeply concerned about the state’s drought and how it’s
affecting families, farmers, consumers and businesses.
So far, landowners in the Sacramento Valley have made
commitments for 85,000 acre-feet of water if Sites Reservoir is
built. … A few weeks ago Reps. John Garamendi, D-Walnut
Grove, and Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, introduced a bill to speed
up the Sites Reservoir feasibility study. In the meantime, the
Sites JPA is looking to hire a general manager …
The Lake Don Pedro community is operating in emergency
mode. For the last several weeks, work crews have drilled
well after well, hoping to find groundwater. … Lake
McClure depends entirely on rain and snow runoff from the
Merced River watershed.
Given the historic low temperatures and snowfalls that pummeled
the eastern U.S. this winter, it might be easy to overlook how
devastating California’s winter was as well.
“Hope is not a strategy” when it comes to water supply, said
Bryce Lundberg, chairman of the Northern California Water
Association (NCWA). … At the top of his list is Sites
Reservoir.
Warm temperatures and a lack of snowfall in February have taken
a toll on winter snowpack in the Cascade Mountains and other
areas in the West, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation
Service said Wednesday.
Levels at Sierra reservoirs that supply water for 1.3 million
East Bay customers are as low as they’ve been in nearly 40
years, and it could take a miracle to make them better before
the onset of the long dry season, officials were told Tuesday.
The Shasta County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will consider
purchasing 250 acre-feet of water, about 81 million gallons,
from the McConnell Foundation to feed the needs of four
county-run water districts after projections in February showed
unprecedented water allocation cutbacks from the Central Valley
Project.
[Abelardo De Leon] Garcia, 81, had lost his water well on
Easter Sunday last year. Nearly a year later, his water supply
has been resurrected, thanks to federal funding and a
Visalia-based nonprofit called Self-Help Enterprises.
After 40 years of working on California water issues, it
sometimes feels to me [George Miller] as if we haven’t learned
anything. … The policies of the past century won’t work
in a future where we will face continued population growth and
the effects of climate change.
The California Water Commission was born in a long-ago era, in
a hopeful attempt to filter some of the politics out of the
state’s most important natural resource.
How does the south San Joaquin Valley get some water in
back-to-back drought years while the east side goes without?
And, by the way, vast tracts of farmland on the Valley’s west
side also will be shut out.
Had it not been for a couple of days of snowfall during the
weekend, the ground would have been bare, Frank Gehrke of the
Department of Water Resources said Tuesday during a snow survey
at Philips Station near Sierra-At-Tahoe Road.
A diverse coalition of global businesses operating in
California launched a campaign Thursday to seek and support
solutions to the state’s water supply crunch.
Snowpack—which essentially serves as a water tower for the
western United States—produces vital meltwater that flows off
the mountains each spring. … But the snowpack is becoming
more like a snow gap, as temperatures in the Cascades and
Sierra Nevada become too warm for the snow that replenishes the
ecosystem each winter.
The Monterey Peninsula has struggled for decades to find
solutions to its water supply problems. After a few misfires
over the years, progress is now being made.
State and federal officials favoring fish habitat are to blame
for the Oakdale Irrigation District’s tentative plan to drain
Tulloch Lake this summer, OID leaders told dozens of anxious
lake-area residents.
Snow levels in the Sierra Nevada are at or below what they were
during the driest years in California’s recorded history,
surveyors said Tuesday, dashing hopes that last weekend’s storm
would begin to pull the state out of its increasingly frightful
drought.
Customers of the State Water Project will be getting more water
this year, the Department of Water Resources announced Monday,
but none of the extra water will come from Lake Oroville.
The California Department of Water Resources on Tuesday will
carry out the winter’s third survey of the Sierra Nevada’s
snowpack, which shows no signs of recovery.
In a clear indicator that California is descending into a
fourth year of drought, the federal government on Friday
announced that the Central Valley Project — California’s
largest water delivery system — will provide no water again
this year to most Central Valley farmers and only 25 percent of
the contracted amount to urban areas such as Santa Clara,
Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
The US Bureau of Reclamation says most farmers south of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will face a second year with no
water from the Central Valley Project.
The federal government said Friday it won’t send any of its
reservoir water to the Central Valley for the second straight
year, forcing farmers in California’s agricultural heartland to
again scramble for other sources or leave fields unplanted.
In a sign that the drought actually has worsened, federal
officials on Friday announced an unprecedented second
consecutive year with no water deliveries to many farms up and
down the Central Valley.
In another blow to California’s parched heartland, federal
officials said Friday that for the second year in a row most
Central Valley farmers are unlikely to receive water from the
region’s major irrigation project this summer.
Hundreds of farmers in the Central Valley were told Friday they
can expect zero water deliveries this year from the federal
government, the latest fallout from what is likely to be a
fourth straight drought year in California. … The
announcement does not affect all farms.
Rainfall, snowpack and runoff estimates are way below average,
indicating the state will continue in drought-emergency mode
throughout the year, state and regional water experts told a
gathering of 120 water managers Wednesday at a forum sponsored
by the Southern California Water Committee and the National
Water Research Institute.
In the January/February issue of Western Water Magazine, Writer
Gary Pitzer delves into the notion of a “sustainable” and
“resilient” water supply. His article highlights what
sustainability and resiliency mean to a state in the middle of
a drought and with a growing population and water needs that
stretch from bustling cities in the north and south to the rich
agricultural fields of the Central, Imperial and Coachella
valleys and Central Coast. … Read the excerpts from this
issue. Purchase a printed magazine or subscribe to the
digital, interactive version.
… in fact, the city’s rain totals since Oct. 1 — the
beginning of a rain year that ends Sept. 30 — show that L.A. is
still on pace for a below-average year.
With tap water becoming an increasingly hot commodity in the
drought, East Bay officials say it’s time to turn up the
pressure on meter cheaters and others who steal water.
California’s unusually high temperatures and shortage of
precipitation — especially snow — will probably continue into
the spring, federal scientists said Thursday.
The P-3 Orion aircraft was part of an unprecedented research
effort that sampled and measured two atmospheric river storms
that gave half the state a welcome soaking a week ago.
After resisting disclosure, Monterey Peninsula Regional Water
Authority president Jason Burnett released a draft proposal
late Tuesday aimed at delaying a state-ordered cutback in
pumping from the Carmel River by four years.
Exactly six months ago, the Capitol’s politicians were hailing
a new era of bipartisan comity and cooperation with the
overwhelming passage of $7.5 billion in bonds to improve the
state’s water supply.
California will need to address several key water policy areas
to secure a safe and reliable water supply, improve the
ecosystem and reduce flood risks, according to a new
comprehensive multi-topic policy paper released Tuesday by the
Public Policy Institute of California.
The Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee will examine Gov.
Jerry Brown’s approach to water funding and local funding needs
during a 10 a.m. hearing in Room 4203 of the Capitol.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is
considering possible water cutbacks of 10% or more to local
agencies as the region’s drought shows no signs of lifting
despite recent rains.
The Metropolitan Water District, the agency that supplies the
bulk of the water for Southern California, is considering water
rationing by summer unless statewide drought conditions
radically improve, the agency announced Monday.
Southern Californians may face water cutbacks this summer, the
Metropolitan Water District warned Monday after outlining
options for rationing amid the state’s fourth straight year of
drought.
As the state faces a possible fourth year of drought, Northern
California is enjoying a healthy wet winter so far, with
rainfall levels at 100 percent of their historic average or
above in nearly every city, and reservoirs, while still not
back to normal, steadily filling.
Here’s the bad news: Despite days of precipitation,
California’s snowpack was barely boosted after a weekend of
storms that brought power outages, downed trees, thunderstorms
and a threat of tornadoes.
The weekend storm brought more than an inch of rain around the
Bay Area by Saturday evening and up to 2 feet of wet snow at
higher Sierra Nevada elevations near Lake Tahoe, but Northern
California’s largest drinking water reservoirs were still well
below average levels.
Farmersville is coming to the rescue of its drought-stricken
neighbor by allowing residents of Cameron Creek Colony rural
subdivision to hook up to the city’s water system.
Gov. Jerry Brown and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell
announced Friday a $29-million plan to help California’s
parched Central Valley cope with the ongoing drought.
As California awaits a Pacific storm to bring rain, the latest
U.S. Drought Monitor report shows a slight easing of drought in
the southern part of the state last week.
The California Board of Food and Agriculture on Tuesday heard
updates from federal, state and local water officials on the
drought and anticipated actions for the coming year.
Today, snow sensors scattered through the Sierra, satellite
imagery and aerial flybys augment the 106-year-old “manual
survey.” The technology helps to provide a clearer update of
California’s water conditions that water agencies depend on to
perform the increasingly crucial job of managing our
diminishing water supply for the rest of the year.
City leaders on Tuesday night will examine water issues,
including the wells that provide the supply now and the
prospects for river and recycled sources.
The dry January was the topic of discussion Monday at a meeting
held by the Sonoma County Water Agency, which provides drinking
water to more than 600,000 residents in Sonoma and Marin
counties — relying exclusively on rainfall captured in two
reservoirs.
The Bureau of Reclamation is seeking applications for the Basin
Studies Program in 2015. Interested non-federal entities
wishing to participate in the selection process should submit a
short letter of interest to their respective Reclamation
regional office by Feb. 24, 2015. Through basin studies,
Reclamation works with state and local partners to conduct
comprehensive water supply and demand studies of river basins
in the western United States.
Felicia Marcus gets in the shower when it’s still cold. As
full-time chair of California’s State Water Resources Control
Board, Marcus has a key role in how California stewards its
finite resources during a devastating drought.
Traditionally California’s wettest month, January’s meager
rainfall has produced a miniscule improvement in the crucial
winter snowpack in the Sierra Nevada that historically provides
about 30 percent of the state’s water needs.
The state Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation, the two agencies that operate most of California’s
large dams, are in the early stages of studying possible rules
changes to accommodate shifts in hydrology expected with a
warming climate.
For the first time ever, San Francisco, Oakland and Sacramento
have recorded no rainfall for the month of January — nada drop.
… Southern California has had better luck, enjoying a
couple of significant weather systems this month that came up
from the south.
The latest survey of California’s mountain snowpack on Thursday
brought the bad news slamming home: This month will rank as the
driest January in state history at many locations, virtually
assuring a fourth straight year of drought. On Thursday, the
statewide snowpack was 25 percent of normal for the date.
After receiving nearly 160 percent of normal rainfall in
November and December — thus causing Santa Cruz to suspend
mandatory water rationing for residential customers — the
driest January on record stands as a stark reminder of how
vulnerable the water supply is to nature’s mood swings.
On the eve of the January snowpack survey of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, water management officials said Southern
California’s largest water wholesaler may need to institute
stricter water limits if winter precipitation does not improve.
As part of the newly formed Californians for Water Security,
the Silicon Valley Leadership Group has joined a coalition of
farmers, businesses and labor, environmental and water leaders
to support the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, Gov. Jerry Brown’s
bold strategy to fix the state’s deteriorating water
distribution system.
As California caps what may be its driest January on record,
Frank Gehrke will lead a bevy of surveyors on Thursday to a
predetermined spot on Echo Summit in an exercise that has
become a monthly downer in the documentation of the state’s
historic drought.
Department of Water Resources (DWR) snow surveyors are likely
to encounter above-normal temperatures and below-normal
snowpack when they conduct their second survey of the wet
season on January 29.
A year after forming a special panel to evaluate future water
supply options, the Santa Cruz City Council on Tuesday agreed
to extend the group’s timeline for making recommendations and
increase spending for a facilitator to guide the work.
A city that normally sees well over 2 inches of rain in January
will likely finish the month with two-hundredths of an inch.
But Stockton won’t be the only community to record its driest
January ever.
Less than three months after California voters approved a water
bond that contains $2.7 billion for new water storage, one of
the leading projects under consideration has suffered a
potentially fatal setback.
Since the last of a series of rainstorms on Dec. 18, only 0.23
of an inch of rain has fallen, as measured by the Marin
Municipal Water District at Lake Lagunitas.
In some of the world’s driest places, atmospheric moisture is a
major source of water for native ecosystems. … Some
drought-minded California residents along the coast, perhaps
yearning for a clear ocean view, have suggested harvesting
fog as a water supply.
In preparation for the initial 2015 water supply allocation
announcement in late February, the Bureau of Reclamation
provided an update today [Jan. 23] on water supply conditions
for the federal Central Valley Project (CVP).
Santa Barbara County water agencies announced Friday that they
will receive $2 million in state funding for a pumping project
at Cachuma Lake — a source of drinking water for 220,000 people
on the southern central coast — where water levels have dropped
precipitously low.
Just over a month ago, we were watching rain gauges fill up and
going to sleep at night with visions of our reservoirs rising
again after a long, punishing drought.
A split Marina Coast Water District board decided to resume its
previous quest for a desalination plant, with a goal of
providing a new potable water supply within two years to new
development in Fort Ord, including Monterey Downs.
The Turlock Irrigation District could cap water deliveries at
about 40 percent of the customary amount even if the rest of
winter brings average rain and snow. The district staff on
Tuesday night provided an initial look at the supply for 2015,
which is looking to be a fourth straight year of drought.
When you hear about water users south of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta complaining about delta smelt forcing
restrictions on water pumping, take it with a grain of salt.
At the Bay Delta Science Conference held last fall, Heather
Cooley from the Pacific Institute gave a presentation entitled,
“The Untapped Potential of California’s Water Supply,” which
draws on a series of reports jointly released by both the
Pacific Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council
that looks at the opportunities for expanding California’s
water supply through urban and agricultural efficiency, water
reuse, and stormwater capture.
For all the discussion of how the city, parks and golf courses
guzzle water, the lion’s share of L.A.’s supply is sucked up by
residential customers, according to data from the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power.
Following winter storms, state officials have slightly
increased their estimate of how much water will flow to
Southern California this year through the canals and pipelines
of the State Water Project.
Federal agencies released a pair of forecasts showing dry
conditions will persist in parts of the drought-stricken West,
suggesting there won’t be enough snow to boost water supplies.
For the first time, water crises took the top spot in the World
Economic Forum’s tenth global risk report, an annual survey of
nearly 900 leaders in politics, business, and civic life about
the world’s most critical issues. Water ranked third a year
ago.
In Sacramento, it has been three weeks since state weather
stations received measurable rain, and as of Wednesday, the
Sierra snowpack was at 38 percent of normal.
State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, noted at a Sacramento gathering
of water policy experts and elected officials on Monday that
water oversight begins with figuring out how much water is
needed for cities, agriculture, industry and the environment.
Despite December storms that prompted flood warnings and
brought more than eight inches of rain to areas of the
Tri-Valley, the much-needed precipitation did little to relieve
the drought’s impact on the former gravel quarry between
Livermore and Pleasanton.
Two Inland Empire water wholesale agencies, just like most
consumers, are tired of dealing with the impact of drought. …
The IEUA [Inland Empire Utilities Agency] and the San
Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, are working to
increase local supply reliability through future projects in
the next decade.
A succession of December storms filled North Coast reservoirs
to their highest level in months, but the most important gauge
of California’s water storage is still stuck on drought.
As Los Angeles looks for any way it can to save water, City
Council members turned their attention Wednesday to how
Caltrans irrigates its landscaping along freeways.
Soquel Creek Water District leaders said Tuesday they want to
conduct a districtwide survey of all customers before pursuing
a binding vote on how to increase the water supply. Board
members said they don’t want to ask voters to support a project
or series of solutions without a sense of what customers want.
California is entering a fourth year of drought. The welcome,
wet conditions that appeared earlier this winter gave way to
dryness during the latter half of December.
The only answer to the question of when the drought will end is
that there’s no sure answer. … The major reservoirs in
Northern California are below historical averages, but they are
above the levels from 2014, which is cause for cautious
optimism for some northern state water contractors.
Snow levels that didn’t quite measure up turned a snowshoe
party in the Sierra into an exercise in hand-wringing on
Tuesday as it became clear that recent storms have done little
to end California’s historic drought.
The winter’s first survey of the Sierra Nevada snowpack found
more snow than last year at this time, but officials said much
more is needed to end the California drought.
Measurements of Sierra Nevada snowpack on Tuesday [Dec. 30]
showed more snow than surveyors recorded a year ago. But state
water officials said it was far from enough to signal a
potential end to California’s continuing drought.
I shared your confusion briefly last week. Readers called and
emailed, wondering if the drought had ended after two separate
news stories featuring the numbers 10 and 11 – each followed by
12 zeroes. We’re talking trillions of gallons of water.
Rules protecting threatened salmon and steelhead were upheld
Monday by an appeals court, a decision that may help the
fragile Delta but also may crimp a portion of the state’s water
supply.
A federal appeals court Monday overruled objections by Central
Valley farmers, water districts and a federal judge and upheld
the government’s reduction of water shipments from the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in order to protect salmon,
steelhead trout and other species.
Ruling that water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta
is important not just for people but also for the fish that
swim in it, a federal appeals court on Monday backed
environmental restrictions on deliveries to urban Southern
California and San Joaquin Valley agriculture.
Los Angeles gets 88% of its water from three major aqueducts,
flowing from the Colorado River, Owens Valley and the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. … Officials have long
warned that a massive temblor on the San Andreas could destroy
key sections of the aqueducts, cutting off the water supply for
more than 22 million people in Southern California.
There’s no way of predicting if Mother Nature will continue to
shower the Bay Area when we turn the calendar to 2015, but this
month is shaping up to be one of the wettest Decembers in
decades — at least in some parts of the region.
A storm that unleashed rain on parts of Northern California
already soggy from big downpours headed south in the first of a
one-two punch of much-needed moisture this week.
The strong Pacific storm that left Northern California a sodden
mess will not have much impact on the state’s historic drought,
meteorologists said Friday.
The powerful system was being fueled by a stream of tropical
moisture up to 400 miles wide and 3,000 miles long known as an
“atmospheric river.” … National Weather Service
forecasters issued a blizzard warning for parts of Northern
California – the first since Jan. 4, 2008 – and said the storm
overall could be the most “significant” since that year.
One storm does not end a drought as severe as this one,
meteorologists and water managers emphasized again Thursday.
But this storm and last week’s milder one have done something
very important: They have saturated the parched ground across
Northern California so much that rainfall is finally starting
to fill up the state’s dangerously low reservoirs as it runs
down streams, rivers and hillsides.
Overall rainfall amounts in the Los Angeles region will remain
the same in coming decades, according to a new study that
examined the effects of a warming climate on Southern
California precipitation. The third in a series of UCLA studies
on the impact of climate change on Los Angeles, the report is
good news for the city’s efforts to develop more local water
supplies.
A storm expected to be one of the windiest and rainiest in five
years pushed across parts of Northern California early Thursday
as schools canceled classes and residents stocked up on
supplies. … The storm is expected to later pound parts
of Southern California before a weakening system moves east
through Nevada, Idaho, Arizona and New Mexico.
From the Department of Water Resources: Welcome to the
2015 Water Year season of water supply forecasting! The first
water supply forecast has been completed.
Along the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, runoff pollution
from abandoned mines in “Gold Country” could threaten
California’s primary water supply. A pilot project at
one mine site is intended to
prevent contaminated runoff from reaching the Yuba River.
The public is invited to participate in the meeting on Tuesday,
Dec. 9, 2014, from 1:30-4:00 p.m. at the Bureau of Reclamation
Regional Office, 2800 Cottage Way, Cafeteria Conference Room
C1003 (adjacent to the Cafeteria), Sacramento, CA 95825.
Interested individuals, agencies and stakeholders may
participate person or online. … Reclamation will present a
summary of climate change impacts and findings identified in
the Sacramento and San Joaquin Basins Climate Impact
Assessment, released on Sept. 22.
The public has a unique opportunity Tuesday to learn about how
climate change may alter the availability of water in
California and to offer ideas on adapting to those changes.
As California struggles through the drought, the first to
suffer are rural residents with shallow private wells and
limited incomes. They live in cabins in Modoc County, among the
golden rolling hills of Paso Robles, in the farmworker towns of
the San Joaquin Valley and a chaparral-covered valley in
northern Los Angeles County.
The bonanza of rain over the last week has boosted Marin’s
totals to above average, filled reservoirs and has allowed
endangered coho salmon to make their way back to local streams
sooner than normal. … And the rain is far from over with more
predicted for the weekend and early next week.
Los Angeles is the nation’s water archvillain, according to
public perception, notorious for its usurpation of water
hundreds of miles away to slake the thirst of its
ever-expanding population. … Recently, however, Los Angeles
has reduced its reliance on outside sources of water.
Heavy downpours took a parting shot Thursday at California,
triggering flash floods that temporarily stranded more than
three dozen people in their cars in inland Riverside County as
the state took stock of the effects of days of steady
downpours.
A group of Italian developers is planning three million square
feet of retail construction, plus 2,200 homes, in Tusayan, a
newly incorporated village with a population of just 587 at the
entrance to the park [Grand Canyon], posing what park officials
describe as a major threat to the water supply for the Colorado
River.
Parts of the Bay Area have gotten almost as much rain in the
past two days as fell all of last year. Recent storms put us
well above our normal rainfall average. And — yes — we’re still
in a drought.
At long last, and thank goodness — the rain. … As much as we
need the rain, though, what Southern California and the rest of
the state really need is to refill our biggest reservoir — the
Sierra snowpack — because that’s where most of our water comes
from.
A record-setting storm covering Southern California was
expected to begin tapering off Wednesday after triggering
dozens of evacuations and putting city crews in Ventura and Los
Angeles counties on alert for mudslides. … The storm
left Northern California sopping too.
This might be the only state in the nation where a rainy day —
complete with blinding sheets of water, shoe-sopping flooded
intersections and chalk gray skies — puts people in a good
mood. And with good reason.
This post is a collection of graphic representations of current
reservoir and hydrologic conditions drawn primarily from the
Department of Water Resources website, as well as a few others.
Water level at Lake Oroville, the second-largest reservoir in
the state water delivery system, is at 26 percent capacity and
is approaching its historic low set in 1977, state water
contractors announced Tuesday.
Every five years the U.S. Geological Survey collects data from
counties all over the Nation for the national water use report,
a thorough document that provides water resource managers and
private citizens with accurate information on how much water is
being used in specific places for a wide variety of purposes.
Following a year of record drought, water managers throughout
the west are searching for information and ideas to ensure a
reliable and sustainable water supply. To meet this growing
need for information, Bureau of Reclamation Principal Deputy
Commissioner Estevan López announced today [Nov. 19] that
Reclamation has awarded $9.2 million for 131 research projects.
Another storm system slogged its way through San Francisco on
Thursday, bringing much-needed rain, lightning and threats of
hail and waterspouts to the region, forecasters said.
In October of 2014, the Hamilton Project and the Stanford Woods
Institute for the Environment hosted a forum, New Directions
for U.S. Water Policy, which brought together government and
agency officials with policy experts to discuss the release of
new papers highlighting opportunities from improving water
management in the West.
Let’s consider the possibility that this drought we’re in could
last more than than just a few dry years. … Meanwhile, most
Californians live in cities designed, to a great extent, on the
promise of nearly endless water, imported from wetter parts of
the state via massive engineering projects like the California
State Water Project.
It’s the dead of autumn and there’s no sign that the California
drought will ease up. When wells run dry the immediate answer
is to dig a new one, but they’re expensive. In some parts of
the state there’s been an uptick in water theft, but in Central
California many homeowners are turning to a legal water
solution that’s not dependent on city water lines.
The historic statewide drought has struck especially hard along
the southern San Mateo County coast. While other parts of the
Bay Area are served by big water agencies with steady if
shrinking supplies, most of the homes and small farms here,
less than an hour’s drive from Silicon Valley, rely on creeks
and wells, many of which have stopped flowing.
Fall has arrived, but in Southern California, warm, dry
conditions remain. While the state has received some rain in
recent weeks, the overall picture remains largely unchanged.
As California heads into its annual rainy season, water
managers, farmers and millions of residents with parched yards
are hoping huge storms will finally break the state’s historic
three-year drought. Don’t count on it.
A serious drought in the American West has called national
attention to our country’s water resources. U.S. businesses
report substantial concerns over water supply, while the
current drought in California has cost the state billions of
dollars in economic losses.
Imagine harvesting your own water — no water utility, no
monthly water bill. Instead, you have equipped your home with a
rain catchment system or atmospheric water generator, and
connected it to your tap. Monterey will soon be a site for just
such an experiment.
The world is perilously ignoring the water crisis that is
occurring underfoot, writes Jay Famiglietti in the journal
Nature Climate Change. A professor of Earth system science at
the University of California, Irvine, Famiglietti has helped
refine the premier tool for understanding large-scale changes
in groundwater reserves.
The Nevada Irrigation District has suspended delivery of fall
irrigation water for the first time in more than 20 years, a
move intended to preserve water supplies during California’s
ongoing drought.
A report released Thursday cautions that the $7.5 billion water
bond on California’s November ballot may not yield “real
improvements” to the state’s water supply or environment.
Things were bad enough for Rochelle Landers before her well
went dry. … She has an acre in the Sierra foothills, in a
sparsely populated town an hour northeast of Sacramento with a
seemingly abundant water supply despite the drought.
This drought year, as in those past, California water
regulators have given away to cities and farms some river flows
critical to fish and wildlife. … There are, however, legal
backstops to prevent harmful reductions in fish flows, even
during a drought as severe as this one.
A plan by PG&E to temporarily shut down a powerhouse that
feeds water from the Eel River to the Russian River may cut
into consumer supplies this winter by further reducing the
amount of water coming into Lake Mendocino.
Gov. Jerry Brown pitched his plan Monday for a water bond and a
rainy-day fund at a Stanford University water conference. …
He called his water plan a “four-term effort.”
Even ideas are being conserved as Santa Cruz continues its hunt
for alternative water supply solutions. … The so-called
ideas convention was hosted by the city’s 14-member Water
Supply Advisory Committee.
About 100 people listened at a public meeting in Fresno to
sometimes passionate statements from speakers who faulted
everything from the feasibility analysis to the notification
for the hearing on the draft Environmental Impact Statement for
Temperance Flat Reservoir.
Drought is rampant these days in many parts of
the American West, so consider this a pretty sweet gift:
You’ve just been given the rights to some water. … Your
job is to turn around and use that resource in the most
valuable way possible.
This summer, California’s water authority declared that wasting
water — hosing a sidewalk, for example — was a crime. Next
door, in Nevada, Las Vegas has paid out $200 million over the
last decade for homes and businesses to pull out their lawns.
This week, the $288 million tunnel begins carrying the Bay
Area’s water supply from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite
National Park to the Peninsula, bolstering the dependability of
the region’s water system.
Only time and nature will determine whether Lake Oroville will
continue its steady drop or begin to climb back. On Monday, the
lake was at a low water elevation of 670 feet. Capacity is 900
feet.
The campaign for a $7.5 billion water bond and a budget reserve
measure is running a TV ad that says reserves will help
“protect the water and the fire services we need” in future
economic downturns.
The lure of a San Gabriel Mountains wilderness teeming with
wildlife, rivers and breathtaking panoramas is so strong that
it now draws 3 million annual visitors whose presence,
paradoxically, has overrun the region and degraded its beauty.
President Obama will address that reality Friday by announcing
that he is designating part of the mountains a national
monument.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project began water
year 2015 (Oct. 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2015) with 3.1 million
acre-feet of water in six key CVP reservoirs (Shasta, Trinity,
Folsom, New Melones, and Millerton reservoirs and the federal
share of the joint federal/state San Luis Reservoir). This is
less than half of the 15-year average annual carryover of 6.4
million acre-feet and about 2 million acre-feet less than the
amount with which the region started WY 2014.
In the Gallegos household and more than 500 others in Tulare
County, residents cannot flush a toilet, fill a drinking glass,
wash dishes or clothes, or even rinse their hands without
reaching for a bottle or bucket. Unlike the Okies who came here
fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the people now living on
this parched land are stuck.
California turned the page this week on the fourth-driest water
year on record, an occasion marked on the North Coast by
dwindling reservoir supplies and restrictions on water use.
In the midst of a record-smashing dry cycle in the United
States, the organization with the most influence over state and
federal drought policy wants to do a better job managing the
crisis. … On September 18 and 19, the Western Governors’
Association, a forum for state leaders, will welcome to Norman,
Oklahoma, agency officials, industry representatives, and
technical experts who will offer insight on how a multi-year
drought in the western United States is challenging the energy
sector.
Help will soon be on the way for about 100 residents who live
in the Big Bend Mountain Mobile Home Park in Yankee Hill.
… Luckily, the park was added to a list for emergency
water supply funds, with money recently approved by the state.
