A helicopter whisks off a rooftop in downtown Los Angeles, climbs above a thin layer of haze and soars over barren mountains past the city’s edge. Soon, scars of climatic stress are evident to L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Martin Adams, general manager and chief engineer of the city’s water and power department, as they peer out the windows. Trees torched years ago by wildfire. Flats parched by sun and little precipitation.
Water has been traded in the Western U.S. for decades, but as the region faces intensifying regulations, shifts in crops and drought concerns, water markets are evolving to reflect the changes.
“The idea of water moving between uses and large distances has changed over the last 30 years. In the last five years especially, there have been big changes,” said Matt Payne, principal with WestWater Research, a Boise-based economic consulting firm specializing in water market research, pricing and trading.
Last week the Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced it will be increasing allocations for the State Water Project. In a press release, DWR Director Karla Nemeth said that December storms have allowed the Department to convey and store water in the San Luis Reservoir. Those storms and additional water have enabled a modest increase in deliveries. The State Water Project (SWP) allocation has been increased to 15 percent of requested supplies for 2022.
Water made California.
The statement is often made about what is arguably the largest and most complex water transfer systems ever created by mankind — the California State Water Project — and its kissing cousin the federal Central Valley Project.
Lake Oroville, one of California’s biggest reservoirs, reached its lowest-ever point this week, breaking a record set decades ago in the latest troubling sign of the punishing drought conditions afflicting the state.
The lake reached a “new historic low elevation” of 642.73 feet of water, which is down from 645 feet in September 1977, said John Yarbrough, assistant deputy director of the California State Water Project, in a statement.
A coalition of Central Valley counties is urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare an emergency declaration in response to the drought crisis.
The chairs of the Board of Supervisors for Fresno, Madera, Stanislaus, Tulare, San Joaquin, Kings, Kern and Merced counties sent a joint letter to the governor in support of a letter from a bipartisan mix of Valley legislators spurring a yet-to-be-issued emergency declaration.
Deltas globally adjust with changes and fluctuations in external conditions, internal dynamics, and human management. This is a short history of big changes to California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in the past and present, and its anticipated future. This history is important for understanding how many of the Delta’s problems have developed, changed, and continue to change.
The rainy season is still young, but that’s about the only consolation to be found in California’s initial estimate this week that farmers who get water from the State Water Project will only get 10 percent of their requested allocations next year. This marks the third consecutive year the initial estimate has been that low.
The Delta Conveyance Project is a necessary investment to secure California’s water future. Let’s face it, our climate is changing rapidly and becoming more unpredictable – wildfires are larger and more frequent, the seas are rising, droughts are lasting longer and storms are fiercer. The need for this project has never been clearer.
The COVID-19 pandemic, we have been told, is transforming how we live, but one aspect of life in California appears immune to change: the state’s perennial war over water.
President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom may have set aside their incessant squabbling over most issues to cooperate on the pandemic, but they are poised for showdown over who controls the state’s vital water supply.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
