Californians should brace for another year of brown lawns, tight water restrictions and increased calls for conservation as state water managers Thursday warned that severely reduced allocations are once again likely in 2023.
It’s not easy enforcing water regulations in the West. Just ask the officials in California who have been trying for almost a decade to penalize a man who took water from the river system that feeds San Francisco and bottled it for sale to stores like Starbucks.
California water agencies that serve 27 million people will get just 5% of what they requested from the state to start 2023, water officials announced Thursday. The news of limited water comes as California concludes its driest three-year stretch on record and as water managers brace for a fourth year with below-average precipitation.
For the second year in a row, the State Water Project will cut deliveries to 5% of requested supplies amid a continuing drought that officials Thursday termed “a new era.” The network of 21 dams and hundreds of miles of canals, pipelines and tunnels serves 27 million Californians from Chico through the Central Valley to Los Angeles, though not San Diego County.
A new report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) seeks to “dispel a common myth” by declaring there will be no end to agriculture— “as some have envisioned.” The researchers conclude the industry and communities will continue to thrive, despite a rapidly shrinking footprint from water restrictions. “California’s farmers have shown an extraordinary capacity for adaptation to changes in prices, technology and the regulatory environment,” they note.
As California confronts another extended drought and its impacts, it is more obvious than ever that the state has failed to address its water supply and management challenges for far too long. The immediate fallout of the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in is frightening: local residents with wells running dry; urban water rationing and critical shortages; massive fallowing of some of the nation’s most productive agricultural land and the resulting impacts on food prices; and significant uncertainty about our ability to adapt to the future.
California’s Department of Water Resources announced that it has awarded $86 million in financial assistance to meet the immediate and long-term water needs for millions of Californians. The department is providing $44 million to its Small Community Drought Relief Program and $42 million to its Integrational Regional Water Management Program.
The first sign of serious trouble for the drought-stricken American Southwest could be a whirlpool. It could happen if the surface of Lake Powell, a man-made reservoir along the Colorado River that’s already a quarter of its former size, drops another 38 feet down the concrete face of the 710-foot Glen Canyon Dam here. At that point, the surface would be approaching the tops of eight underwater openings that allow river water to pass through the hydroelectric dam.
Many Californians will wake up this morning to a relatively rare phenomenon: Rain. Today, the freezing-cold temperatures and high-powered winds that have gripped much of the state this week are set to give way to a good old-fashioned winter storm: Both Northern and Southern California are expecting rain, strong winds and heavy mountain snow, with an avalanche warning in effect through Friday for backcountry areas in the Sierra Nevada.
The use of smart meters to enforce water restrictions could encourage widespread conservation — but not without local backlash, a new study has found. Amid California’s ongoing drought, researchers partnered with the city of Fresno in summer 2018 to access and identify water violations via household meter data.
