California is under new orders as of Monday to aggressively work to protect all water supplies from weather extremes brought on by climate change.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to expand statewide storm runoff capture capacity, noting how years of prolonged drought finally paused after three weeks of atmospheric river storms slammed the Golden State at the beginning of the year.
A recent report showed that there is not enough groundwater in a sub-basin surrounding Buckeye to provide the area with a 100-year supply.
That could be a trend seen across the West as a study from ASU found that California’s megadrought has excellent groundwater depletion.
California’s Central Valley covers 20,000 square miles and is a vast agricultural region with a value of approximately $17 billion per year in crops.
The storms that have been battering California offer a glimpse of the catastrophic floods that scientists warn will come in the future and that the state is unprepared to endure.
Giant floods like those that inundated the Central Valley in 1861 and 1862 are part of California’s natural cycle, but the latest science shows that the coming megafloods, intensified by climate change, will be much bigger and more destructive than anything the state or the country has ever seen.
Noemi Barrera has spent four months without running water for herself and her four children and is among many people in California living without it as wells across the state run dry. Like most in the 184-person agricultural community of Tooleville, nestled by the Tulare County foothills, Barrera can hear the county’s water truck arriving down the street to bring five-gallon jug rations every other week.
Thousands of years ago during the last Ice Age, rivers flowed from giant glaciers in the Sierra Nevada down to the Central Valley, carving into rock and gouging channels at a time when the sea level was about 400 feet lower. When the glaciers retreated, meltwater coursed down and buried the river channels in sediment.
The land along the Arroyo Pasajero Creek, halfway between Sacramento and Los Angeles, is too dry to farm some years and dangerously flooded in others. Amid the cycles of wet and dry — both phenomena exacerbated by climate change — a coalition of local farmers and the nearby city of Huron are trying to turn former hemp and tomato fields into massive receptacles that can hold water as it percolates into the ground during wet years.
After a third straight year of severe drought, the Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project begins the 2023 water year with 3.6 million acre-feet of water in storage — one of the lowest starting points in recent years. The CVP’s major reservoirs are (from north to south) Trinity, Shasta, Folsom, New Melones, Millerton, and the federal share of San Luis Reservoir. The water year begins Oct. 1 each year and ends Sept. 30.
A Central Valley lawmaker says she’s committed to supporting farmworkers who risk losing income during the drought – but state and labor groups are at odds on the best approach.
The past three years have been the driest on record in California and officials warn that streak could continue.
Most of the state is under severe-to-exceptional drought conditions, fueling risks for wildfires and putting Central Valley farmers in an even bigger pinch, as they struggle to keep their crops alive.
The weather, in next couple of months, will determine if there will be some relief for the state. Until then, water officials say conservation needs to remain a way of life.
Most Californians are feeling the effects of the drought. But in areas of the state where people rely on groundwater, such as the San Joaquin Valley, the pain of this drought is especially severe. Wells are going dry and there’s intense competition to find and pull more water from underground.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
