A week of destructive fires in Southern California is ending but danger still looms. Well into what’s considered the wet season, there’s been nary a drop of rain. That’s good for sun-seeking tourists, but could spell more disaster for a region that emerged this spring from a yearslong drought and now has firefighters on edge because of parched conditions and no end in sight to the typical fire season.
In January and February, no less than 125 million gallons of rain fell upon my 200-acre farm, located off Highway 80 between Dixon and Davis. Our soil, blanketed with an annual winter cover crop of mixed grass and legumes, absorbed all of those 24 inches of rain. Not one single gallon left our property. Where did all that water go? Some was used by the cover crop and a small amount evaporated. But most sank down to be stored in the soil and to recharge groundwater. On conventionally managed fields nearby, copious and disheartening amounts of rainwater ran off.
Gary Kremen—the founder of Match.com, former owner of Sex.com, and serial investor—is into water. The entrepreneur started investing in water tech startups a few years ago. Today he’s an elected member of Silicon Valley’s water district, an agency that manages water and flood control for 2 million people. Earlier this year, he helped craft a proposal to build a tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that could improve drinking water reliability for cities from San Jose to San Diego.
When it comes to inspecting dams, California is second to none. A panel of national experts examined the state’s Division of Safety of Dams last year and declared it tops in the field, citing inspectors’ knack for flagging small problems before they turn serious. Getting dam owners to fix those flaws quickly is another matter.
Cracked concrete. Plugged drains. Unchecked tree and brush growth. Broken outlet valves. These are some of the problems that have gone uncorrected for years at California dams in spite of being flagged repeatedly by inspectors from the state Department of Water Resources. The sample below is based on a Sacramento Bee analysis of five years of inspection reports at the 93 dams singled out for further review by state officials following the February crisis at Oroville Dam. All of the dams mentioned below are classified as “high hazard” by the state because of their proximity to people living downstream.
State inspections of California dams reveal that owners of the facilities have a pattern of delaying important maintenance, according to a Bee review of recent inspection records. The Bee reviewed five years of inspection reports by the California Department of Water Resources for 93 dams that the state identified as potentially problematic in the wake of the Oroville Dam spillway failure. All 93 dams are classified as high-hazard, which means that a dam failure could risk lives downstream. The state inspects 1,249 dams in California – federal dams such as Folsom and Shasta are not included.
Southern California is still healing from a historic drought. Yet most people take clean, affordable water for granted because it continues to spout freely from our shower heads and faucets, said Charley Wilson, President of the Southern California Water Committee, at a recent California WaterFix Summit. During a panel discussion at the Summit, water experts agreed that Governor Jerry Brown’s proposed California WaterFix tunnel project will help hedge against predicted losses of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, but will not yield enough water supplies to meet new development demands.
When it comes to inspecting dams, California is second to none. A panel of national experts examined the state’s Division of Safety of Dams last year and declared it tops in the field, citing inspectors’ knack for flagging small problems before they turn serious. Getting dam owners to fix those flaws quickly is another matter.
Officials for CA WaterFix Industry Day announced that while not all funding is available for WaterFix presently, that the first $1 billion for four contracts will be made public today, December 7, 2017. The Design Construction Enterprise (a CA WaterFix unit staffed by Metropolitan Water District employees and associates embedded in the Department of Water Resources), will be organizing into a Construction Joint Powers Authority and awarding contracts despite reports of dubious financial arrangements and project management qualifications as reported by the State Auditor.
The six-year dry spell in Arizona that ended earlier this year was likely an unprecedented event not seen in the past 675 years. The interesting and spooky factoid comes from studies of tree-ring data that were used to estimate flows from the rivers that provide water to metro Phoenix and other parts of central Arizona. As you might think, the freaky stretch of poor river flow doesn’t bode well for the state’s future.
