The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors has ended the local drought emergency it declared two years ago, but officials are encouraging residents to continue conserving water.
The board’s unanimous vote came Tuesday and accompanied a series of measures to continue the county’s water conservation and drought preparation efforts.
Between Christmas and January this year, a parade of nine atmospheric rivers — vast streams of water vapor flowing east from the tropical Pacific — pummeled California. The trillions of gallons of rain poured on the state caused widespread flooding. While the rain topped up some drought-depleted reservoirs and aquifers and filled out snowpack in the Sierra Nevada, much of the water quickly ran off into the sea, flowing off asphalt and farms or released from reservoirs to prevent further flooding.
California farmers are encouraged by the series of atmospheric river storms that brought near-record rain and snow, filling depleted reservoirs and bolstering the snowpack.
Frost Pauli, vineyard manager for Pauli Ranch in Potter Valley in Mendocino County, said he feels optimistic after three intense years of drought. He said the winter storms “have been excellent for our water supply.”
The State Water Resources Control Board on Tuesday approved a groundbreaking agreement that allows “senior” water rights holders in the upper Russian River watershed to share their supply with junior rights holders whose claims might otherwise be suspended due to drought.
The collaborative, community-first approach, negotiated over many months by agricultural, municipal, tribal and other stakeholders in the region, is the first of its kind to try to bring balance to the allocation of scarce water supplies in a state governed by what one board member called an “inherently inequitable” water rights system.
With parts of the North Coast facing what forecasters say is shaping up to be “extreme drought” this year, the region’s water managers are busy exploring near- and long-term options.
But new large reservoirs like Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino aren’t among them.
Even as the first of seven large reservoirs funded by the 2014 $2.7 billion California water bond is set to get under construction elsewhere in the state, agency officials and local lawmakers say the regulatory and political environment has shifted dramatically from decades ago when the Golden State’s big water catchments were constructed.
Rain came early last fall, but whatever hope blossomed for a better than normal — or even average — year is gone. There is no March miracle in the forecast, and summers are dry in California, so mandatory water conservation isn’t going away any time soon.
“We had a great start to the beginning of the wet season … and we have basically flatlined since then,” Jeanine Jones of the California Department of Water Resources said during a virtual town hall meeting on Thursday that Sonoma Water billed as “a huge reality check.”
In January, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began testing a process to determine which reservoirs within its South Pacific Division are possible candidates for the use of forecast-informed reservoir operations. Relying on advancements in weather and hydrologic forecasting to improve reservoir management, FIRO offers a method for optimizing operations. Ultimately, the Corps intends to assess all its reservoirs nationwide to see whether they might make good candidates for FIRO.
Typically, reservoirs designed for purposes of flood control and water supply are operated in accordance with guide curves that are designed to ensure adequate storage capacity in advance of flood events and maximize storage for later uses.
A dry January with little rainfall across much of Northern California actually didn’t hurt the state’s water storage levels, according to data from the California Department of Water Resources.
In fact, thanks to a little snowmelt, water levels were up for all reservoirs from December to January. Lake Mendocino, which has a capacity of 122,400 acre feet, saw the biggest boost from 17% of storage capacity in December to 35% in January. One acre foot is the equivalent of one acre of land covered in one foot of water. Trinity Lake, with a capacity of 2,447,650 acre feet, had the smallest increase from 29% in December to 30% in January.
The storage level in Lake Mendocino was on pace to drop below 15,000 acre feet on Saturday, meaning a quarter of the supply water managers had hoped to keep in store by Oct. 1 already has been released. The rapid shrinkage of the reservoir after two years of historic drought raises unsettling questions about the future for a range of consumers along the upper Russian River, whose supplies already are heavily restricted.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
