We all know we’re in the midst of a terrible drought in California.
And we all know we’ve got an 1,100-mile coastline.
Is desalination the answer to our problems?
No. It comes after water conservation and recycling, and is just one tool among many that might prevent the state from going dry.
California farmers who struggled to make it through record-breaking drought and heat in 2021 are bracing for another bad year, this time without any additional water from the state.
The state said it won’t give any water from the State Water Project to farmers unless drought conditions improve. That could mean even higher food prices at a time when consumers are struggling with an ongoing pandemic and inflation across the board.
An ambitious project to restore tidal wetlands on almost 1,200 acres of delta farmland has just completed its first phase, and the hoped-for transformation already is flourishing: River otters, rare seabirds and a single black bear have all returned to once-drained-out pastureland called Dutch Slough — results that hold promise for similar efforts toward many California environmental goals, including storage of greenhouse gases.
Desperation over water scarcity has produced any number of schemes to relieve the crisis. But few are as chuckle-headed as a plan to pump groundwater from beneath the Mojave Desert and transport it 200 miles to urban Southern California.
This is the Cadiz water project, which has been percolating along since the turn of the century.
When Lucas Zucker talks about sea level rise in California, his first thoughts aren’t about waves crashing onto fancy homes in Orange County, nor the state’s most iconic beaches shrinking year after year.
What worries him most are the three power plants looming over the Oxnard coast, and the toxic waste site that has languished there for decades. There are also two naval bases, unknown military dumps and a smog-spewing port. Just one flood could unleash a flow of industrial chemicals and overwhelm his working-class, mostly Latino community.
October was a welcome water wonderland, but November was pretty much a dry bust for the Golden States. Was California’s wet October a sucker punch to the state’s all important reservoirs?
“Historically, 1976, which was historically dry, started off with a wet October, so we’re not counting our chickens yet,” said East Bay Municipal Utilities District Public Information Officer Andrea Pook.
Groundwater in Calif.’s Central Valley is at risk of being depleted by pumping too much water during and after droughts, according to a new study in the American Geophysical Union journal Water Resources Research.
The study finds that groundwater storage recovery has been dismal after the state’s last two droughts, with less than a third of groundwater recovered from the drought that spanned 2012 to 2016.
You may have seen it on social media or heard it while talking to a friend: This is a La Niña year, so California won’t get any rain this winter and the severe drought is only going to get worse. Right?
Maybe not. Although that’s a common belief, it’s not supported by past history. The reality is that a lot depends on where you live.
Caught in one of the driest two-year stretches in state history and with long-range weather forecasts coming up mostly empty, the key players battling California’s drought have plenty to be concerned about.
Whether it’s plunging reservoir levels, crumbling canals, empty wells or salmon die-offs, the water woes that have plagued the state for decades have returned forcefully during the pandemic.
California is likely to emerge from the winter with little relief from drought, federal climate experts said Thursday, setting the stage for a third year of dry weather and continuing water shortages. The monthly climate report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration projects that drought conditions will persist in almost all of California through February. With the next three months historically the state’s wettest, the opportunity for drought recovery is essentially lost.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
