A winter storm is expected to drop several inches of new snow Thursday in the Sierra Nevada, and meteorologists with the National Weather Service are optimistic more systems will follow in the coming days. Thursday’s storm, which could deliver 6 to 10 inches of snow in the higher elevations, comes on the heels of a system Monday that brought as much as 7 inches of fresh powder to Tahoe area ski resorts.
hadn’t been living in arid Southern California for long before I toured the Colorado River Aqueduct — the 242-mile system of dams, pumps, and channels that divert water through the Mojave Desert to the sprawling 20-million population Los Angeles region. It’s a vast engineering marvel and something that, in concept, is remarkably simple. The New Deal-era Parker Dam — a magnificent Art Deco structure that straddles the California-Arizona border — traps water from the river and pumps it to a holding pool at the top of a mountain.
Maybe I was naïve. Back in October 2014 I wrote a column in F&H promoting the passage of the Proposition 1 water bond on the November ballot chiefly because money in the bond would be dedicated to water storage, something desperately needed as California faced a drought. One of our readers commented under the article that I was naïve to believe that money would ever be spent for water storage, that dams were an anathema to the powers that be in Sacramento. More than three years after voters approved the bond the $2.7 billion set aside for water storage is still unspent.
Earthquakes aren’t the only concern on the Pacific Coast. Though sea level rise is most often paired with Miami’s future, thousands of miles away, tidal wetlands along the West coast are vulnerable to sea level rise too, particularly in California and Oregon. Focusing on 14 estuaries on the West Coast, a new study published Wednesday in Science Advances localizes the future destruction due to sea level rise.
About 92 percent of California is under some level of drought, according to a report released by the National Drought Migration Center on Thursday. That’s a three-fold increase from conditions just three months ago, when only 26 percent of the state was experiencing drought. The drought conditions are broken down into five categories, ranging from abnormally dry to exceptional drought. Right now, no part of California is being affected by extreme or exceptional drought, according to the report.
The Sierra snowpack may be next to nothing, but the Stockton area is set to receive another full supply of water from New Melones Lake, and there’s no reason to expect a shortage here this year, officials said. While the lack of snow is a big concern for the state as a whole, most reservoirs still are in healthy shape for the moment thanks to last winter’s floods. New Melones probably is in the best condition of the major reservoirs, at 134 percent of normal.
Less than a week after an expert told NBC 7 Responds the city’s water meter testing procedures had “inadequacies” and past testing results were incomplete, the Public Utilities Department announced Wednesday they will be refunding customers who paid for meter tests during the past seven months. The policy change will only cover tests performed in the current fiscal year, going back to July 1, 2017.
A reservoir capable of holding 1.6 billion gallons of recycled water is set to sustain south Orange County by the end of 2019. Once completed, the Trampas Canyon Reservoir will store enough excess treated water in the winter months to meet irrigation demands in the region during the summer. It will also be the largest surface water reservoir in south Orange County, with the capacity to hold more than one-half of the recycled water the district will generate from its nearby Chiquita Water Reclamation Plant, officials said.
With the snowpack in California’s Sierra Nevada now at 20 percent of average – lower than at the same time three years ago, the driest year on record – Californians are girding for a repeat of drought conditions. Water scarcity seems likely to be a recurring part of our future. Legislators in Sacramento, therefore, would be remiss to delay the adoption of a group of bills that would place the state on a path to ensuring more sustainable water supplies.
They say we could use some rain. Why? Let the deluge happen up north. Root for a huge snowpack in the Sierra. Pray for 40 days and 40 nights of rain in the Colorado River Basin. But must we be guilted into acting like we want downpours that wash away parts of the county? Come now. We like sunshine, every day. That’s why we love it here. That’s why so many songs about Southern California feature sunshine.
