Tens of millions of gallons of water are flowing through a major pipeline in North San Diego County after successful repairs on a distressed section of Pipeline 4. The urgent repair project is a testament to the San Diego County Water Authority’s proactive Asset Management Program, which helps maintain water supply reliability while saving ratepayers money.
That risk is on display this week in the Plains states, where fierce winds are targeting parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado and Nebraska.
In an effort to protect the infrastructure at Lake Powell and the ability of Glen Canyon Dam to generate electricity, the U.S. Department of the Interior may keep nearly a half million acre-feet of water in the Utah reservoir instead of releasing that water to the Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada this year as scheduled.
Although it’s not clear the Department of Interior proposal would have any immediate impact on Colorado, it highlights the challenges of balancing a system relied on by 40 million people that has been taxed by water users and climate change. It’s also a reminder of the dire assessment of water in the West amid the driest two-decade stretch in the past 1,200 years.
The South Bay’s largest water provider is limiting when and how often people can water their yards as Santa Clara County faces the effects of a deepening drought.
“People spent so much money on their landscape they want to maintain it. Especially in town here. There’s a lot of wealth in Palo Alto. And they don’t want to see their yards go dry,” said Steve Crosariol, who works in Palo Alto and lives in Cupertino.
On a recent day in the San Joaquin Valley, the rain falling outside was cause for celebration for Aaron Fukuda.
“For us, water is a mood,” Fukuda, president of the Tulare Irrigation District, said over the phone.
As a third consecutive dry year sets in on California, drought has become a source of stress and anxiety for farmers and communities. But rain brings happiness. If only the rain came more often, Fukuda stated.
Green lawns, old appliances and leaky pipes all consume significant amounts of California’s water, and researchers have calculated in a new study that the state could reduce water use by more than 30% in cities and suburbs by investing in measures to use water more efficiently.
The study by the Pacific Institute, a water think tank in Oakland, also found big untapped potential for urban areas to reduce strains on overused rivers and aquifers by investing in local projects to recycle more wastewater and capture more stormwater.
Concerned about diminishing water supplies this summer and a failure of the public to hit conservation targets, Santa Clara County’s largest water agency is moving forward with plans to ask the county’s 2 million residents to water landscaping no more than two days a week, down from the current three days.
Last June, the Santa Clara Valley Water District declared a drought emergency and asked the public to cut water use 15% compared to 2019 levels. But in February, amid record-dry conditions, South Bay residents ignored that request, cranking up sprinklers and increasing water use countywide by 23%.
The Coachella Valley Water District will consider implementing several water conservation measures on Tuesday, including a ban on outdoor water use for spray irrigation during daytime hours, requiring restaurants to only serve water upon request, and increasing the turf rebate amount.
The meeting comes as the state is in a deepening drought after one of the driest starts to spring in decades. Almost all of California and much of the Western U.S. is in severe to extreme drought, according to U.S. drought monitor.
Northern California is suffering when it comes to extreme drought conditions, very little snow and a wildfire season predicted to start much earlier.
Farms that rely on irrigation from a depleted, federally managed lake on the California-Oregon border, along with a Native American tribe fighting to protect fragile salmon, will both receive extremely limited amounts of water this summer as a historic drought and record-low reservoir levels drag on in the U.S. West.
More than 1,000 farmers and ranchers who draw water from a 257-mile-long (407-kilometer) river that flows from the Upper Klamath Lake to the Pacific Ocean will have access to roughly one-seventh the amount they could get in a wetter year, a federal agency announced Monday. Downstream salmon will receive about half the water they’d get if the reservoir was full.
