Posted on 03/21/2022 10:27:36 AM PDT by blam
California’s urban water users and farmers who rely on supplies from state reservoirs will get less than planned this year as fears of a third consecutive dry year become reality, state officials announced.
Water agencies that serve 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland, will get just 5% of what they’ve requested this year from state supplies beyond what’s needed for critical activities such as drinking and bathing.
That’s down from the 15% allocation state officials had announced in January, after a wet December fueled hopes of a lessening drought.
But a wet winter didn’t materialize and unless several more inches of rain falls this month, the January-March period will be the driest start to a California year at least a century. That’s when most of the state’s rain and snow typically falls.
Mandatory restrictions on using water for outdoor activities like landscaping and other purposes may come from local water agencies as they continue to grapple with limited supplies, said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.
Local water agencies that know their communities’ unique needs are better poised than state officials to set water use restrictions, Nemeth said.
“I think with this reduced allocation we are going to see more urban areas in California move into some kind of mandatory water conservation,” she said in an interview.
State officials will continue urging people to voluntarily cut water use by 15%, an amount designed to get Californians’ collective water use back to what it was during the last drought, which lasted from 2012 to 2016, Nemeth said.
Statewide water use in January actually went up 2.6% compared to the same month in 2020, due to dry conditions and warm temperatures.
About a third of Southern California’s water comes from state supplies, mostly routed through the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million people. Abel Hagekhalil, the district’s general manager, said in a statement Friday that the public needs to do more to save water.
“We all need to take this drought more seriously and significantly step up our water-saving efforts to help preserve our dropping storage levels and ensure we have the water we need into the summer and fall,” he said.
California is in its second acute drought in less than a decade, and scientists say the U.S. West is broadly experiencing the worst megadrought in 1,200 years, made more intense by climate change.
People adapted their water use during the state’s last drought, in part by ripping up sprinkler-hungry lawns and replacing them with drought-resistant landscaping. Many of those water-saving habits stuck.
But the dry conditions that began anew in 2020 are demanding more conservation, as reservoirs such as Lake Oroville and Shasta Lake remain below historical levels and less water from melting snow is expected to trickle down the mountains this spring.
Current predictions estimate the state will have about 57% of its historical median runoff this April through July, said Alan Haynes, hydrologist in charge for the California Nevada River Forecast Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Melted snow traditionally provides about a third of the state’s water supply.
A very wet December put water content in the snow at 160% of normal levels, but isn’t resulting in as much water runoff as expected because warmer temperatures are causing some of that water to evaporate rather than flow into rivers and streams as it melts, said Nemeth, the Department of Water Resources director.
A persistent lack of water could produce a range of negative consequences for California, including farmers fallowing fields and endangered salmon and other fish dying.
The water providers that rely on state supplies have a certain amount they of water they can request from the state, and state officials make determinations through the winter on how much the providers will get based on supply.
In December, before the major snowfall, state officials told water providers that they wouldn’t get anything beyond what was needed for immediate health and safety, such as drinking and bathing. The state upped that to 15% of requested supplies in January.
Critics of California’s water policy say the state promises more water each year than it has to give. That’s led to a continued diminishment of supply in federally and state run reservoirs, said Doug Obegi, an attorney focused on water for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
“We basically have a system that is all but bankrupt because we promised so much more water than can actually be delivered,” he said.
Officials on Friday also announced a plan to seek a temporary exemption from water quality requirements in Northern California’s Delta, the part of the state’s watershed where the freshwater rivers and salty ocean water mingle.
That would allow the state and federal water projects to release less water into the Delta from the Shasta, Folsom and Oroville reservoirs _ which are the state’s major water supply sources.
The water quality standards are designed, in part, to ensure the water doesn’t get so salty it can’t be used for farming, drinking and protecting the environment.
and soon to be headlines “California imposes new electricity cuts to deal with severe shortage of electricity”
once they are forced onto everything electric
Hi.
My apologies...
Not enough snow melt? Usage downstream? Is it the poor condition of some dams? Water reservoirs?
Or is it the snail darter, salmon or the cock swallow?
Methinks the environmental nazis in the CA legislature does the later species to accomplish their green agenda.
5.56mm
When I see empty swimming pools in Westwood, I believe it is a problem.
I may have grown up in CA, but I also spent over 20 years in WA state. Mo way in hell would I ship Columbia river water to CA.
Eff em.
Bathing is critical ? Who knew.
“Oregon and Washington are also currently in drought.”
I guess I don’t understand the identification of drought. I grew up in the central valley of California which was, and I think still is, a major agricultural area. I never heard the word drought in that area until I was an adult with grown kids living in northern California. I now live in southwestern Washington and they talk drought, also.
A drought means that a place has less precipitation (rain or snow) than normal over a few months or even longer according to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC). Also, according to them, weather can be defined as the conditions experienced in a place over a brief period of time, like day-to-day or even over a week. So there is a wide variance of a definition to use.
All my life there has never been a drying up of the ground water in California which displays rivers, lakes, and sources for water redistribution canals. Everyone is told they are in drought.
In Washington, the “rainforest” area along the southwestern and western slopes of the Olympic Mountains receives the heaviest precipitation in the continental United States. Yet every year, we have a drought. Hence my statement:
“I guess I don’t understand the identification of drought.” But I can perceive the misuse of the existing water much easier. And in many cases, observe it.
wy69
Flush toilets soon to be outlawed.
CA residents will be provided recyclable sticks to push waste down the pipe.
I too was born in Olympia, and I realize that we tend to fight over water. But we have the technology to move resources around and we should get started. Maybe WA/OR could benefit by selling water that currently flows out to sea?
In CA we should also begin to store more water in wet years. We should stop using water to generate electricity — reduce the daily output from lake Shasta for example and use other systems to generate power (Nuclear was already on my mind).
CA should also mine shale and produce more Natural gas. This might be a way to pay for water.
But the little fishies in the delta will get 150% of their allocation
The droughts are in land from the Coasts. Find a drought map, Washington, Idaho, Oregon.
Stopping the generation of electricity by water would accomplish exactly what??? The same water that is used to generate power is the same water that is used for industry, agriculture, and domestic uses.
“Find a drought map...”
Found a few, but they don’t say the same thing twice. An example is Klickitat basins which are currently faring the worst. Southern Center of the state and right on the Hood River for it’s information center and the Hood never dries up. Plus the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is predicting that potable water users will receive 96% of their normal water supply in the coming irrigation season. So this is one of the bad ones with a 4% cut in water on a river that never dries up?
Up here they are using the word drought in my area and the water shed never dries up either with numerous lakes and rivers flowing. I guess my misunderstanding is what they are thinking and it’s inconsistent with facts a little as they base it on rain prediction and snow pack (currently 132% of normal).
wy69
“...they don’t say the same thing twice”
That’s because they are constantly updating them. Portland Propaganda TV weather shows updated drought maps once or twice a month.
If I had my way, I would slow the release until late in the year. The release is established by the power needs, not the water required. You are correct that the water serves more than one purpose and water in the Sac River does eventually get to the Bay and the delta pumps. If we had power from other clean sources, the water could be managed for water use. My hunch is that the supply could be extended over multiple years rather than drained every Fall and then be at the mercy of the winter weather every year or declare another water emergency.
Instead of the god awful way over budget bullet train we should be building desalination plants BUT NOthis stinking useless train NO ONE will ride is far more important!!! The people that lead us are COMPLETE IDIOTS!!
Desalination plants should be springing up in the less habitable parts of coastal areas. There’s lots of water in the Pacific!
No need for fossil fuel or even nuclear; natural evaporation can be used. Think of a lifeboat survival desalinator writ large...very large. A bonus of marketable pure sea salt results as well.
You are right Trump Girl
“Climate change.” /eyeroll
That’s a dam good idea!
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