California is home to many of the world’s most advanced and innovative technology companies. Yet, while Silicon Valley and up-and-coming Silicon Beach are cutting-edge, another critical component of California’s economy – agriculture – is hobbled by outdated systems, particularly when it comes to how water is delivered and used.
California’s top water manager said Monday that the problem-plagued Oroville Reservoir will have a new spillway in place to prevent potentially dangerous outflows of water in time for the next rainy season. The pledge follows concern that the reservoir’s concrete main spillway, which fractured in February, would require more than the dry summer and fall months to fix because of the extent of damage.
By every wet indication, California is about to lift the drought state of emergency order imposed in January 2014. So we thought this would be a good time to talk to Felicia Marcus, the chairwoman of California’s Water Resources Control Board (you can call her the Water Czar.) This interview has been edited and condensed. Do you think these past three years have produced permanent changes in how Californians use water?
Re “State’s plan for river flows spells disaster” (Page 7A, March 20): Restore the Delta agrees that Gov. Jerry Brown’s Delta tunnels proposal and the San Joaquin water plan by the State Water Resources Control Board will be a disaster economically and ecologically for the Delta, and that the State Water Board ignores the Delta’s area of origin rights (Water Code Sections 12200-12205). But we disagree with San Joaquin County Supervisors Chuck Winn and Katherine Miller’s treatment of fish issues.
Jason Tucker’s job title is facility manager at the Glen Canyon Dam. But you could also say he’s also a kind of banker. Colorado River water flows into his bank – the reservoir behind the dam. He can then loan it out to create electricity. Some even call the dam here a kind of “savings account,” tapped as needed to replenish Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, which lie past the Grand Canyon to the west.
This is northern California’s wettest year of record, so far. The Yolo Bypass has been flooded for most of this wet season, and is still flowing. Are Delta water exports going to exceed the previous record exports from 2011 (6.5 maf)? The figure above compares this year’s Delta water exports compare with other years before and after the 2007 Wanger Decision, and the drought years (2012-2016). So far, the State Water Project and Central Valley Project together have pumped a little less than in 2011, 2006 (another wet year), or 2007. They are all pretty close (with most of these highest-export water years falling after CVPIA and Endangered species restrictions on Delta pumping).
With all the downpours and flooding across California this winter, it might seem that the pressure to begin managing the state’s precious groundwater supply would ease up a bit. Instead, the state is pushing to quicken the pace of implementing groundwater regulations. “To protect critical water infrastructure, we need to think about what we can do at a faster pace” than the long-term deadlines now in groundwater law, said Jeanine Jones, a Department of Water Resources manager, citing new aerial images pinpointing severe over-pumping.
As Governor Jerry Brown asks for additional federal assistance following February’s heavy storms, a larger question looms as to how California should pay to repair – and improve – its defense against floods. In the request dated March 19, Brown asked President Donald Trump to declare a major disaster for the state, estimating the total damage at more than $539 million. That sum, however, represents just a fraction of the billions of dollars experts say are needed to protect Californians from the threat of flood.
Outside the window of Helen Dahlke’s office, at the University of California at Davis, the clouds hang low, their edges seeming to brush against the building. It’s raining intensely, an unusual event in a perpetually parched state suffering from a five-year drought. “It looks like the end of the world,” says Dahlke happily.As a hydrologist and professor who studies how water flows over and through rock, soil, fields, and farms, she is something of an H2O whiz.
The confounding statements from the state Department of Water Resources about the Lake Oroville spillway crisis just keep coming.The disaster has been a public-relations nightmare from the beginning, but DWR keeps making matters worse with its words and actions. As the repair bill for the crumbling spillway and the emergency response approached $200 million last week, DWR acting Director Bill Croyle — who has exhibited a troublesome tendency to downplay the incident since it started Feb. 7 — used an inappropriate analogy when asked at a press conference whether the crisis could have been prevented and who was responsible.
