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Two years ago, California became one of the last states in the West to pass a law to manage groundwater. The political will to do so took decades. But the bigger battle may be putting the law into practice.

Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County may be a perfect example of how hard it’s going to be.

The region is known mostly for it’s more than 200 wineries. But amidst the rolling hills full of vineyards, it’s not unusual to see tanker trucks delivering water to rural homeowners whose wells have run dry.

The best news for the state is that the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides roughly 30 percent of California’s water supply, was at its highest level in five years. The 2016 snowpack was at 114 percent of the historic average.

Higher snowpack means more runoff to fill the groundwater that supplies the state’s multi billion-dollar agribusinesses in the San Joaquin Valley. The percentage of wells in 2016 that decreased more than 10 feet is nearly half of what it was last year.

Precipitation for the USDM period (June 7-14) was generally below normal for much of the country. Areas that received above normal rainfall were in Florida and along the coast Georgia and the Carolina’s. This was associated with Tropical Storm Colin which exited the coast late in the previous period. Precipitation fell in the Great Basin and central Arizona improving drought conditions in parts of this area. Other areas that received above-normal rainfall were the Northern High Plains and the Southern Plains.

Two years ago, California became one of the last states in the West to pass a law to manage groundwater. The political will to do so took decades. But the bigger battle may be putting the law into practice.

Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County may be a perfect example of how hard it’s going to be. The region is known mostly for it’s more than 200 wineries. But amidst the rolling hills full of vineyards, it’s not unusual to see tanker trucks delivering water to rural homeowners whose wells have run dry.