A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
October 2, 2007
2. Supply
Local calls for water cutbacks here to stay;
CLIMATE CHANGE:
Valley could soon see effects from global warming; UC Merced research team will study Sierra Nevada snowpack - Fresno Bee
Local calls for water cutbacks here to stay;
San Diego County Water Authority officials said last week that early projections suggest county residents should have all the water they need in 2008 -- and maybe even a little left over to store away -- if the state has "normal" rain and snow this winter.
Even so, local residents and Southern Californians are going to be asked to cut their water use because of uncertainty surrounding
"We really need to conserve," Water Authority Water Resources Manager Ken Weinberg said Monday. "It's going to take several years to fix the plumbing in the bay delta."
In August, a federal judge ruled that the pumps that send water to
The court ruling prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to convene an ongoing special legislative session to try to forge a bond measure to fix water supply problems.
Southern California's main water supplier, the Metropolitan Water District, says the cuts in pumping from the delta could slash its
Metropolitan and Water Authority officials say the only way to fix the delta is to a canal around or through the delta to separate endangered fish from
The idea is controversial in
Weinberg said that no matter what the state decides to do, it could be several years before water flows freely from
The Water Authority started marketing a "20-gallon challenge" campaign after the August court ruling to try to get people to cut back their water use voluntarily. The campaign aims to get people to cut their use by 10 percent.
Last week, Weinberg told Water Authority board members at their monthly meeting that the agency needed to continue to push the conservation campaign.
"The 20-gallon challenge is in place," Weinberg said. "We need to do that no matter what. That's one of the conclusions we've drawn from our analysis. What we've been telling the public is, 'if we can save water now, we can store it for the following year when we need it.' "
State Department of Water Resources officials operate the State Water Project, recently released very early projections of how much water they think they could move to customers of Metropolitan and other contractors next year in two scenarios: a winter with average rain and snow, and a winter with poor precipitation.
Weinberg said in an average year, Metropolitan would probably be able to make up for some Northern California supply shortfalls by taking some water out of storage and deliver 560,000 acre feet of water to San Diego County residents. One acre foot of water is enough to sustain two households for a year.
Combined with deliveries from the Water Authority's deal to buy water from Imperial Valley farmers, and storage and other projects from local water agencies, the Metropolitan supplies would satisfy the county's projected 700,000 acre foot demand, and give it 56,000 to store in local reservoirs, Weinberg said.
On the other hand, Weinberg said the "bad-year" scenario could force the Water Authority to leave the county 29,000 acre feet short. He said that could prompt the agencies to push the public to voluntarily cut back even more, or lead to mandatory cuts. #
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/10/02/news/top_stories/1_02_2810_1_07.txt
CLIMATE CHANGE:
Valley could soon see effects from global warming; UC Merced research team will study
By Mark Grossi, staff writer
Amid the pines near
The project by the
"We want to understand the processes that take place from the top of the vegetation all the way down through the ground water," said Roger Bales, lead researcher and member of the UC Merced Sierra Nevada Research Institute and
More than half of
Scientists believe the amount of the state's precipitation won't change a lot for the Sierra in the future, but they do expect more of it to come as rain and less as snow. The new observatory will help answer a number of the basic questions related to that change.
How does the ecosystem work right now and how is it likely to change? What role do plants play? Will forests become more susceptible to devastating wildfire?
The National Science Foundation this year funded the Sierra observatory as well as similar projects in
Researchers hope the project will be extended beyond five years if they produce useful information.
The research team will include experts from UC campuses --
The experts come from many academic disciplines, such as biology, hydrology, geomorphology, geochemistry and others.
The observatory is basically a research site, which is about a 2-square-mile area, called the Kings River Experimental Watershed, within the
Bales and others now are installing equipment to measure soil moisture and the snowpack. They want to get the equipment in place before the first snow flies this year.
The Forest Service has researched the region for years, learning more about the health of forests and how they should be managed. Officials placed instruments to measure stream discharges and weather.
The agency also has developed a telemetry network to transmit data from the area. The network runs off of the same solar power system as the meteorological towers and stream measurement devices in the Providence Creek area.
The experimental area ranges in elevation from 5,000 to 7,000 feet, which is the transition zone where snowfall typically stops and rainfall begins. That transition area is expected to move higher in elevation as the climate warms.
Climate models suggest average temperatures will rise 1 to 3 degrees over the next 40 years in the West. As the warming progresses, the annual spring snow runoff will begin earlier in
UC Merced scientists believe the first effects of those changes might be seen in the transition zone where the observatory will be.
Said Bales, "The elevations we're studying will have [the] possibility for the greatest change in the next decade." #
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/153550.html
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