The latest Spring snowstorms helped increase California’s water supply and lake levels, but the Golden State continues to face drought conditions.
April’s wet weather in northern California have increased water levels at lakes like Folsom Lake.
“The particular storm of this week increased the rain and snow over northern California by about 5-10 percent,” said Meteorologist and forecaster Jim Mathews with the National Weather Service.
Heavy snow in Northern California has given a recent boost of moisture to a region grappling with drought.
The Central Sierra Snow Lab at the University of California, Berkeley said Friday that more than 16 inches (43 centimeters) of snow fell in the past day.
“We are now at 61% of our normal #snow #water equivalent for this date,” said a tweet from the lab specializing in snow hydrology and climatology.
The spring storm had triggered warnings from the Oregon border down through the southern Cascades and the northern Sierra Nevada. But the late-season precipitation was welcome after a dry winter.
Among the many complex arguments over water in California, one particularly heated debate centers on whether the state should seek more drinking water from a plentiful but expensive source: the Pacific Ocean.
The debate has reached a critical stage in Huntington Beach, where Poseidon Water has been trying for more than two decades to build one of the country’s largest desalination plants. The California Coastal Commission is scheduled to vote next month on whether to grant a permit to build the plant.
After weeks of work, I’m pleased to report that thanks to the improved relationship between the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and the San Diego County Water Authority, along with increased collaboration with other water agencies across Southern California, we helped reduce proposed rate increases to our wholesale water supplies by 7 percentage points over the next two years. This is good news for water ratepayers!
The bottom line is this: Instead of raising wholesale water costs by 17% over the next two years, MWD unanimously adopted consecutive 5% increases. This will allow MWD to cover increasing costs facing every sector of our economy, including our water industry, while limiting the impact on residents and businesses.
My thanks to MWD Chairwoman Gloria Gray and MWD General Manager Adel Hagekhalil and their team of dedicated professionals, who heard water agencies’ concerns and presented a lower rate increase proposal that brought the MWD board together. It’s also important to note the role of San Diego County’s delegates, who sit on the MWD Board and played a key role in lowering the costs. These delegates (Lois Fong-Sakai, Gail Goldberg, Marty Miller, and Tim Smith) represent you and worked diligently over several weeks to help gain support from their colleagues for the rate proposal that prevailed.
I also want to thank the retail water agencies across San Diego County that supported our region’s delegates by sending letters to MWD, including Escondido, Helix, Olivenhain, Otay, Santa Fe, Sweetwater, and Valley Center. It makes a huge difference for the MWD board, which meets in Los Angeles, to see that we are a united region.
Water issues are not simple, and many challenges remain as the Water Authority takes on setting its rates for 2023. We all still face enormous challenges depending on the severity of drought conditions. For example, if Lake Mead water levels continue to drop, the ability to generate hydroelectric power at the Hoover Dam could grind to a halt. The demand and cost of electricity could skyrocket, which could severely affect the cost of water delivery. However, please be assured that your Water Authority Board will continue to make the affordability of water a priority.
(Editor’s note: The Helix Water District, Otay Water District, Olivenhain Municipal Water District, Santa Fe Irrigation District, Sweetwater Authority, Valley Center Municipal Water District, and the City of Escondido, are seven of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)
Conserving water and reducing pollution are two of many benefits from a new program in San Diego County.
Through a partnership between the County of San Diego’s Watershed Protection Program and the San Diego County Water Authority, residences and businesses in unincorporated areas of the county became eligible for newly enhanced water-use efficiency rebates in 2021. The Waterscape Rebate Program saves money for residential, commercial, and agricultural customers who make landscape upgrades to improve the region’s climate resilience and reduce the flow of pollutants into waterways.
The new concierge-style assistance program helped members of a Spring Valley homeowners association benefit from available incentives and rebates. As a result, residents saved money on landscape upgrades while reducing the flow of pollution into waterways and conserving water.
More than 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, but only 0.5% it is actually accessible to us. Removing salt from ocean water, known as desalination, can create drinkable water during a time of extreme drought and soaring demand. So what’s the problem?
Conserving water and reducing pollution are two of many benefits from a new program in San Diego County.
Through a partnership between the County of San Diego’s Watershed Protection Program and the San Diego County Water Authority, residences and businesses in unincorporated areas of the county became eligible for newly enhanced water-use efficiency rebates in 2021. The Waterscape Rebate Program saves money for residential, commercial, and agricultural customers who make landscape upgrades to improve the region’s climate resilience and reduce the flow of pollutants into waterways.
The new concierge-style assistance program helped members of a Spring Valley homeowners association benefit from available incentives and rebates. As a result, residents saved money on landscape upgrades while reducing the flow of pollution into waterways and conserving water.
Rancho San Diego Association, the first HOA to complete a project through the program and a customer of Otay Water District and Helix Water District, replaced nearly 40,000 square feet of unused grass and installed smart irrigation timers. Photo: Courtesy Rancho San Diego Association
To make applying for rebates easier for large landscapes, the county added a Landscape Optimization Service, a unique technical assistance program for large-scale landscaping projects. The program helps applicants with large landscapes, such as HOAs and commercial properties, navigate the requirements, overcome barriers, and maximize their rebate eligibility.
LOS staff analyzes estimated water and cost savings, which details how quickly the project will pay for itself. The program also offers discounted designs to participants.
The finished project is estimated to reduce water use by almost two million gallons annually. Their total project costs prior to the rebate were approximately $120,000. After the rebates, the HOA paid just $13,000 for the project. Photo: Courtesy Rancho San Diego Association
“Many of our larger customers, such as HOAs, are run by volunteers who don’t have the time or resources to undertake large landscape projects,” said Joni German, Water Resources Specialist at the Water Authority. “Most of their landscapes were put in during the 1970s, and many are ready for a water-efficient upgrade. This partnership with the County enables us to offer HOA customers a first-of-its-kind program with assistance from start to finish.”
Rancho San Diego Association, the first HOA to complete a project through the program and a customer of Otay Water District and Helix Water District, replaced nearly 40,000 square feet of unused grass and installed smart irrigation timers. The project is estimated to reduce water use by almost two million gallons annually. Total costs prior to the rebate were estimated at $120,000. After rebates, the HOA paid $13,000 for the project.
Currently, seven San Diego County HOAs are working through the process of removing common area grass with the support of County of San Diego contractor Environmental Incentives.
The project is estimated to reduce water use by almost two million gallons annually. The total project costs prior to the rebate were approximately $120,000. After rebates, the HOA paid $13,000 for the project.
“The County is proud to partner with HOAs, like the Rancho San Diego Association, to help protect local waterways by transitioning to a more sustainable landscape,” said Scott Norris, Land Use Environmental Planning Manager with the County Water Protection Program. “We look forward to expanding the Landscape Optimization Service in the coming years to assist more properties in upgrading their outdoor space and helping protect water quality.”
Sustainable landscapes produce multiple benefits, which include reducing water use, enhancing habitat, increasing stormwater retention, and decreasing runoff.
The enhanced incentives include rebates starting at $3 per square foot for turf replacement, $60 per smart controller station, $65 per rain barrel, and up to $450 per cistern. In addition to offering technical assistance to upgrade larger landscapes on multifamily and commercial properties, a cost-share is available for agricultural growers to make water-saving upgrades.
Water customers in unincorporated San Diego County can determine their eligibility at SanDiegoCounty.gov/WatershedRebates. The Landscape Optimization Service is actively recruiting new participants.
The Waterscape Rebate Program helps to protect local waterways by reducing pollutants that enter storm drains. When irrigation systems overflow from landscaping, runoff may carry pollutants like pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers into the storm drain system and cause the same adverse effects as runoff from rainfall. Reducing turf helps reduce irrigation use and runoff.
The program includes outreach and education to commercial, industrial, and residential properties in unincorporated areas of the county. San Diego County is also offering programs with rebates for upgrades, including rain gardens, gutters, permeable pavement, and regular septic system pumping.
(Editor’s note: The Helix Water District and Otay Water District are two of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region.)
San Diego’s top water managers have pleaded for months with state officials in Sacramento not to adopt mandatory drought restrictions similar to those imposed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown in 2015.
For now, it appears their concerns have been heeded. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently laid out a pathway for curtailing water use that gives local jurisdictions significant flexibility over how hard to push residents to conserve.
Few landfalling atmospheric rivers in the current water year have reached California, now in the third year of a statewide drought.
The latest update from the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, shows that Water Year 2022 started strong in October, but weaker storms did not ease dry conditions.
The CW3E report, Distribution of Landfalling Atmospheric Rivers over the U.S. West Coast During Water Year 2022: Summary Through March, was published April 7.
“While Water Year 2022 began with an exceptional AR over California in October, the state only experienced strong or greater magnitude AR conditions FIVE times, resulting in three straight water years of below normal activity,” according the report.
The report shows that the “lack of impactful events over consecutive years” – water year 2021 and water year 2020, combined with the current water year, has resulted in three straight years of below normal activity. Bottom line: If California hoped strong atmospheric rivers would end the current drought this water year, that’s not happening, at least so far. And the two previous years were a bust, creating extremely dry conditions across the state.
The San Diego County Water Authority partnered with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes, at UC San Diego in 2020 to better predict atmospheric rivers and improve water management before, during, and after those seasonal storms. The Center and its partners share best practices in forecast-informed reservoir operations, increased research around atmospheric rivers and droughts, and develop strategies for mitigating flood risk and increasing water supply reliability.
“Through our partnership with CW3E and the AR forecasting tools they’ve developed, it better prepares us in management of our water resources using regional storage,” said Jeff Stephenson, Water Resources Manager with the San Diego County Water Authority, in 2021. “This storage, in conjunction with developing multiple water supply sources in the San Diego region, has prepared us for years when rainfall levels are below normal in the region.”
For additional details and graphics go to: https://bit.ly/38rSTNE.
(Editor’s Note: Atmospheric river analysis by Chad Hecht, Julie Kalansky, & F. Martin Ralph. This analysis is considered experimental.)
The current multi-year drought across the West is the most extensive and intense drought in the 22-year history of the U.S. Drought Monitor. Precipitation deficits during the first three months of 2022, across parts of the western U.S., are at or near record levels. As the climatological wet season ends across portions of the West, with below average snow cover and reservoirs at or near record-low levels, concerns for expanding and intensifying drought and water resource deficits are mounting.
During March, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 44.1°F, 2.6°F above the 20th-century average. This ranked in the warmest third of the 128-year period of record. The year-to-date (January-March) average contiguous U.S. temperature was 36.3°F, 1.2°F above average, ranking in the middle third of the record.
The March precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 2.26 inches, 0.25 inch below average, and ranked in the driest third of the 128-year period of record. The year-to-date precipitation total was 5.66 inches, 1.30 inches below average, ranking seventh driest in the January-March record.
Temperatures were above average across much of the West and along the East Coast. California ranked sixth warmest for the January-March period.
