[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 5/19/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

May 21, 2007

 

2. Supply

 

Agency expects extreme summer drought

The forecast by federal meteorologists is bad news for firefighters, who've had a busy winter and spring. No rain is likely until fall. -

Los Angeles Times

 

Climate change upon Y-S? -

Marysville Appeal-Democrat

 

Restored river water could take a U-turn -

The Fresno Bee

 

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Agency expects extreme summer drought

The forecast by federal meteorologists is bad news for firefighters, who've had a busy winter and spring. No rain is likely until fall.

Los Angeles Times – 5/19/07

By Rong-Gong Lin II, Times Staff Writer

Federal meteorologists expect "extreme" drought conditions this summer in Southern California, offering more bad news for firefighters who are already dealing with record dry weather.

The forecast by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dashed the hopes of some officials that the region's bone-dry winter and spring would give way to a mild summer.

"We've gone from moderate to severe drought, and we've jumped to extreme," said Bill Patzert, climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.

The evidence is clear: Both Lake Mead and Lake Powell on the Colorado River are at half capacity, Patzert said. Downtown L.A. has received less than 4 inches of rain this year and is set to claim a record for its driest season.

"We can pretty much count on no rain into the fall," said Miguel Miller, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Diego.

This season's dry spell has been caused in large part by a persistent high-pressure ridge over the eastern Pacific Ocean that has blocked many storms from hitting Southern California, Miller said. The few storms the region has experienced have fizzled because they came over land rather than over the ocean, he added.

Things won't change this summer, Patzert said, noting that cooling temperatures on the eastern Pacific Ocean are leaving the region a weather pattern that brings drought conditions.

"We're potentially looking at La Niña light," Patzert said, dubbing it "the demon diva of drought."

Drought conditions in Southern California have historically coincided with catastrophic wildfires, Patzert said.

Dry conditions in the late 1950s and early 1960s contributed to the Bel-Air/Brentwood fire of November 1961, which destroyed nearly 500 homes and prompted the first brush-clearance laws. The 1993 fires in Malibu and Laguna Beach, which also destroyed hundreds of homes, also came during a major drought.

Southern California has experienced numerous wildfires this winter and spring. Homes were destroyed in Malibu and Beverly Hills, while hundreds of acres were scorched in Orange County.

In just the last two weeks, firefighters had to deal with major blazes in Griffith Park and on Santa Catalina Island.

"It really brings home the point when people are talking about brush clearing," Patzert said. "No matter who it is, homeowners, Caltrans or the city, the people better stop doing the pointing game and start doing the clearing game. We're definitely in for it here."

The effects of the dry conditions have been felt throughout the region. California's poppies and other wildflowers did not bloom this year, putting pressure on the state's beekeepers who rely on those flowers to make honey. Cattlemen are selling their cows early, their ranches too dry to grow natural grasses for cattle feed.

Still, many water agencies in Southern California have not called for water conservation, as underground storage and reservoir systems have improved since the drought of the late 1980s and the early 1990s.

During that drought, agencies promoted water conservation, leading restaurants to avoid serving drinking water unless customers asked. People stopped watering lawns, hosing down sidewalks and, at times, flushing toilets. But officials offer a grim long-term assessment. Southern California gets much of its water from outside sources, including the Colorado River and Northern California. The mountain snowpack vital to water imports from Northern California is at the lowest level in nearly two decades.

Several Central Valley and Northern California cities have imposed mandatory or voluntary water controls. On May 1, for example, Santa Cruz began prohibiting lawn watering from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. In April, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission asked its customers to curtail water use, warning about mandatory rationing this summer and fall. #

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drought19may19,1,5500503.story?coll=la-headlines-california

 

Climate change upon Y-S?

Marysville Appeal-Democrat – 5/19/07

By John Dickey, Staff Writer

 

SACRAMENTO – Global climate change could be felt in Northern California with bigger floods, more intense rainstorms and less spring runoff to feed thirsty cities, the Department of Water Resources chief hydrologist said Friday.

Maurice Roos spoke about climate change and water in California to the state Reclamation Board in Sacramento. He explained data on runoff and precipitation projects, and outlined some of the possible long-term effects on California climate.

If precipitation is about the same, warmer temperatures would mean more winter runoff followed by smaller volumes of spring and early summer snowmelt.

One key change for Yuba, Sutter and Colusa counties – where four rivers run through – is a possible shift to higher snow levels during winter storms. Each one-degree Celsius rise in temperature would raise the snow level 500 feet.

Higher snow levels would mean less of the precipitation would be locked up high in snow. The result would be more winter runoff and floods.

“If you turn the whole Sierra into a rain zone, you’re going to have floods more often,” said Roos, in an interview after his talk.

Higher elevation snow can be a problem because snow stays up on the mountain while rain flows downhill. The Yuba-Sutter area is protected against all but extreme storms by Oroville Dam.

But the system was tested in 1997 when a warm “Pineapple Express” storm, coupled with low-elevation snow, threatened to send a large amount of water over the dam’s emergency spillway, prompting Yuba-Sutter to evacuate.

While climate change is a long-term problem, temperatures seem to be getting warmer now. The Western Region Climate Center shows temperatures that have gone up a degree or so, said Roos. That is contested by some who believe bigger cities are contributing to higher temperatures.

“There does seem to be some changes,” Roos said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, comprised of a global team of scientists, projects that extreme events like floods will be more likely by the year 2100, said Roos.

Climate change could make it tougher to fill Lake Oroville, which is already quite difficult to fill now. The standard practice is to keep enough reservoir space in winter to catch big storms, then top off the reservoir with spring runoff after flood season.

But with global warming, there would be less spring runoff to catch.

Cold-water fish like trout and salmon could also be hurt by warmer water temperatures.

And farmers’ fields would experience more evaporation, meaning that more water may be needed.

Though long-term prospects for more floods could be worrisome, Roos noted there are plenty of more immediate problems, such as levee improvements.

The good news, according to John T. Andrew, chief of special projects for the department, is that climate change is going to unfold incrementally and over water systems that have some flexibility. Andrew also spoke at Friday’s Reclamation Board meeting.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger passed an executive order in June 2005 that recognizes global climate change and establishes greenhouse gas emission targets.#

http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/climate_48616___article.html/change_snow.html

 

Restored river water could take a U-turn

The Fresno Bee – 5/20/07

By Mark Grossi, Staff Writer

 

As farm officials brainstorm ideas to replace irrigation water that soon will be used to restore the San Joaquin River, no concept seems more intriguing than a colossal U-turn that would send water back to farms.

 

In two years, east San Joaquin Valley farmers are to begin complying with a court settlement by relinquishing about 15% of their river water to revive sections that have run dry because of the Friant Dam.

 

Farm officials are talking now about many water replacement approaches, including the U-turn. That idea, also known as recirculation, involves a sweeping and possibly unique plumbing job to reuse water in farm fields after it runs through the state's second-longest river.

It's not the only option, and water officials say they are examining lots of possibilities.

 

"There are no golden guarantees" about which option will work, said Mario Santoyo, assistant general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority, a quasi-public agency representing farmers and water districts. "Recirculation is worth discussing."

 

Helping farmers cope with water loss is one of the two main goals in what may be the largest river restoration ever in the West.

The other goal is the revival of the San Joaquin ecosystem and two dead salmon runs. It has been six decades since the river was dammed to build a thriving farm economy on the Valley's east side.

 

Farmers and environmentalists last year settled an 18-year lawsuit over restoring the river. In the settlement, recirculation is mentioned among other water-replacement options such as buying additional water in wet years.

 

Here's how recirculation would work: Pumps would capture some water from the northbound San Joaquin River and send it south down the California Aqueduct toward 1 million acres of east Valley farmland. The rest of the river would continue flowing toward the Pacific Ocean.

 

Once the water is pumped into the California Aqueduct, it would run along the west side of the Valley. The water would have to be moved east across the Valley in new canals or the existing Cross Valley Canal in Kern County.

 

These maneuvers might require tens of millions of dollars for new canals, pumping plants and other changes along 200 miles of the Valley.

 

Water officials say they do not know of a similar project in California or anywhere else on such a grand scale. Utility companies routinely recirculate water between mountain reservoirs and reuse it to generate electricity, but the San Joaquin idea might be a first.

Like any major alteration for water delivery in California, the idea would be laced with tough questions. How much water could be retrieved? Wouldn't downstream river users have a right to the water, too? Who would pay for the replumbing? It is too early to answer those questions.

 

The process of restoring the river is being discussed in Washington. Congress is working on legislation to provide some federal funding for river restoration. The House passed a budget bill Thursday that accounts for the federal share of river restoration costs, which are pegged at $500 million.

 

The legislation needs to work its way through Congress before the details can be discussed for recirculation or other ideas, said Hal Candee, lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, the national environmental watchdog that led the legal fight over the river.

He said the water management efforts would be explored in accordance with the legislation and the legal settlement.

"I don't believe the federal government has gotten to that level of specificity," he said.

 

Friant water officials, however, said they wanted legislators to be aware of the possibilities with recirculation. They provided legislators about a half-dozen scenarios several months ago to help them understand the idea.

 

But environmentalists and farm officials agree the loss of some irrigation water does not mean an end to verdant fields on the east side. There are many ways to bolster irrigation supply.

 

"We've been through some dry years in the past," said Ron Jacobsma, general manager of the Friant water authority. "Farmers turn to ground water. In some districts, they bank water underground in wet years. Some districts have agreements with other districts to help each other out with other sources of water."

 

The lawsuit settlement calls for a new federal water account offering farmers extra, cheap water in wet years, such as last year. Beyond the settlement, farmers and districts are working on their own to find water replacement.

 

For instance, the Chowchilla Irrigation District is talking with the Merced Irrigation District about connecting the two systems. Chowchilla has a Friant contract for San Joaquin water. A connection to the Merced district would allow the Chowchilla agency to also buy Merced River water.

 

"People are exploring all kinds of avenues like this," said Chowchilla farmer Kole Upton, president of the Friant water board.

Far downstream on the San Joaquin near Stockton, water officials pay attention as ideas such as recirculation are discussed.

Many downstream farmers, cities and fishing groups prefer the idea of allowing restoration water to run all the way to the huge pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where the state's two longest rivers meet.

 

Lawyer Dante Nomelini of the Central Delta Water Agency, representing area farmers and some city interests, said the extra flow might help the delta, the sprawling but ecologically damaged hub of California's vast water network. The delta is the source of water for more than 22 million Southern Californians as well as several million acres of farmland.

 

But Nomelini and others know one recirculation option would be to build a new pumping station somewhere along the river south of the delta before it can reach their section of the San Joaquin.

 

"We're not against recovery of this water for Friant," he said. "But there's no enthusiasm here for intercepting it before the delta."

On the other hand, Santoyo of Friant said it would be simpler if the water was intercepted before the delta to avoid complications of water quality problems, endangered species and other water agencies' needs.

 

"It would be better not to have to deal with all the concerns there," he said.

 

Nomelini said the San Joaquin's water might not even need to be sent back to east-side farmers. The water instead could be used in a series of trades involving delta districts and other agencies, culminating in east-side farmers getting extra water from a different river source.

 

"You don't need to send them the exact molecules of water that came from the river," he said.

 

Chowchilla farmer Upton said such discussions highlight a much larger problem for east-side farmers. The east-side delivery system does not easily connect to the network of canals reaching hundreds of miles into water-rich Northern California. If there were a more direct connection, recirculation and other approaches might be less complicated.

 

"The downside here is that Friant is basically isolated," he said. "But I still think recirculation is a possibility." #

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/48850.html