Drought, heat, and wildfires all threaten Wine Country grape harvests, but growers are getting creative to defend their crops.
Climate change is endangering California’s wine industry. Just ask some of the industry’s titans.
Justin Seidenfeld’s vineyard ran out of water last year. The area of Petaluma where his Parliament Hills Vineyard is located received just 4.5 inches of rain throughout 2021, not nearly enough sustenance for his vines of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
“We ended up trucking water in at a very, very high cost,” Seidenfeld said, “and even with that trucking, we had barely enough to get by.”
The State Water Board on Tuesday will consider emergency regulations to address severe shortages in the Russian River watershed. The actions are designed to protect drinking water through 2022 for junior rights holders in the Northern California region.
If the Lake Mendocino storage level falls below 29,000 acre-feet by July 1, the first curtailment orders under the regulations would go into effect. More orders would follow every two weeks if the level continues to decline. The lake level is currently at 34,000 acre-feet, with triple-digit temperatures this week likely to evaporate some of that water. The regulations also include curtailment orders for Sonoma County along the lower watershed.
Dredging is common in navigable waterways, but the project underway at the Napa Sanitation District property in southern Napa County is a little bit different.
The dredging is taking place in a vast sewage treatment pond. And the material being removed is biosolids, which is another way of saying sewage sludge.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
