A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 29, 2007
2. Supply
Butte County looking for a buyer of Lake Oroville water - Chico Enterprise Record
Water supply shrinks; Flow from Northern California being cut drastically -
WELLS IN THE FOOTHILLS:
County's wells are coming up dry - Sonora Union Democrat
Wading through the water issue - Lake County Record Bee
SNOWPACK CONDITIONS:
Column: Waiting for the first snow; It may be cold in the Sierra, but it isn't wet yet -
By Heather Hacking, staff writer
After the news came out Monday that state water contractors should expect to get only an estimated 25 percent of their usual allotments, there should be plenty of buyers.
Details, including price and the buyer or buyers, have not been narrowed down.
Under provisions set up when Oroville Dam was constructed,
Many years, the actual amount of water available is less. But state water contractors still must pay for the full allotment. In
In the past,
Over the years the county has known that one day it would be asked to pay for the full allotment or risk losing it in the future.
This year the state announced that the county would be required to pay that full amount.
It would be a struggle for the county to come up with $811,000 for the water payment. However, this year the Department of Water Resources has agreed to let the county sell the water (estimated at about 5,000 acre-feet) for use outside the county.
It is hoped that the sale will be enough money to pay the $811,000 bill.
It is uncertain whether the option to sell outside of the county will be available in future years.
The
Vickie Newlin, of the county Department of Water and Resource Conservation, said it looks like the county will be able to use about 8,000 acre-feet of that water within the county by 2009 and all of the water within 7-10 years.
Newlin said she sent out letters to a list of state water contractors asking if they'd be interested in buying some or all of
About six responded with interest, Newlin said.
She'll continue to work with them. An update to the board is expected next month.
This year is a dry year and many water agencies throughout the state have already been asking customers to voluntarily cut back on their water use. There will also be deals with water districts looking to buy water from other districts, such as agricultural water districts.
In the north state, those ag water transfers often involve selling water instead of growing rice, and this year prices of rice are high enough that local rice farmers seem less willing to sell water.
Also, there are always many "what-ifs" about water transfers such as the ability to move water through the Delta depending on water levels and environmental conditions.
This makes a deal with the county more attractive to the 28 state water contractors who have been told water supply will be tight. Because
The State Water Project is the nation's largest state-built water and power conveyance system. There are 33 storage facilities, 21 lakes and reservoirs and 5.8 million acre-feet of water storage. #
http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_7587484
Water supply shrinks; Flow from
By Shawbong Fok, staff writer
The Inland Empire's water supplies from Northern California next year are going to be cut in half thanks to a drought as well as an endangered fish swimming in a delta near
In the face of less water flowing locally, landscapers, golf courses and even citrus growers might get socked with higher water bills.
"We might hand water (with a hose) the dry spots," said Bill Henning, superintendent of Shandin Hills Golf Club in
The water cuts are the result of some of the driest weather in years.
The
San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, which serves about 600,000 residents in an area from
In 2008, the water district is expected to get 58 percent less water than this year from the state, said Randy Van Gelder, water district general manager.
"I don't know if there'll be a raise in rates," said Joe Zoba, Yucaipa Valley Water District general manager. "Just because there's a shortage of water from the state doesn't mean there'll be an increase in water rates."
The California State Water Project includes reservoirs, lakes, storage tanks, canals, tunnels, pipelines and pumping and power plants that move and store water in the state.
Collectively, the State Water Contractors deliver water to more than 25 million residents in the state and to more than 750,000 acres of agricultural land.
The water delivery cuts, which are among the largest since 2003 in the
That fish needs the water in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta where it lives. The delta is located at the western edge of the Central Valley by the confluence of the
On Aug. 31, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger limited how much water could be delivered from the delta between December and June.
The State Water Contractors on Monday announced water cuts that will permit the statewide consortium to purchase only 25 percent of the requested water.
This will supply only about half of what's needed for the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, officials said.
"We'll have to secure more water from
Sixty percent to 70 percent of water from the State Water Contractors is used for landscapes, both commercial and residential.
The result of these cuts will be conservation measures, including everything from the showcasing of low water-retention plants and irrigation techniques to tests in
This isn't the first time a water shortage has hit Californians. Drought conditions in the early 1990s pushed water agencies to adopt conservation techniques.
"Conservation is a means to adapt to water changes," said Linda Fernandez, an environmental scientist at UC Riverside.
The
Already,
Not all water agencies in
"Each agency will respond differently depending on local conditions," said Bob Muir, spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves western
http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_7585296
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 11/29/07
By Glenda Anderson, staff writer
"This means even more belt-tightening for our customers," said Redwood Valley County Water District Manager Bill Koehler, noting residents have voluntarily cut water consumption by 30 percent.
The district's water board will hold a special meeting today to consider declaring a water emergency and decide a course of action, he said.
While residents south of Healdsburg can rely on
The agency is authorized to reduce the flow, but the district must keep adequate levels of water flowing through the
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20071129/NEWS/711290428/1033/NEWS01
WELLS IN THE FOOTHILLS:
County's wells are coming up dry
By Hoyt Elkins, staff writer
More than 20 families whose wells have failed are now hauling tanks full of water from the Calaveras County Water District's Jenny Lind Water Treatment Plant to meet their household needs.
"Many wells in western
"Some of these people, especially in the Burson area, cry on the telephone when they tell me they can't afford to deepen their wells," Pattison said, "But, it's a hit and miss thing. We don't have enough information to establish goals and objectives to meet future water needs in that area."
Pattison told board members that population growth, and another drought like the extended dry spell of 1987 through 1992, could make "a mudhole" of New Hogan Reservoir.
The current problem of failing wells is hard to explain or understand without more data, Pattison said.
"We have reports from well drillers who say you can sink a well in one location and get good flow," he continued, "and then you can try another one 100 feet away and get nothing."
Pattison's proposal is to set up a uniform grid of monitoring stations to measure the depth of aquifers supplying the county's groundwater. He intends to offer a $50,000 local match to attract as much as $250,000 in grant money authorized by the state under the Local Groundwater Management Assistance Act of 2000.
The act is intended to help local agencies understand how to manage groundwater resources effectively to ensure the safe production, quality and storage of groundwater in the state.
Meanwhile, CCWD is offering water at the Jenny Lind Water Treatment Plant to folks whose wells have failed. The charge is $10 a month.
Gary Freitas, 56, of Burson is a homeowner with an eight-person household who shows up at the plant "three or four" times a week to fill a 425-gallon plastic tank in the back of his pickup.
"I had a well drilled 550 feet deep in 1993," Freitas said. "About a year ago, I started getting mud and almost no water. The aquifer has been going down every year."
Freitas commutes from Burson to
"I love where I live, and I want to retire here," he said, "but, there are people drilling for water up here now that go as deep as 1,100 feet and get nothing. That's about as deep as anyone can drill."
Freitas and many of his rural neighbors have depended on groundwater for years to supply their household needs.
"I have horses and goats to think about, too." he said. "I appreciate what CCWD is doing for us, it's really generous. Still, we've got to get a long-range solution to this problem before it's too late."
CCWD directors voted 4-0 to authorize Pattison's effort to raise money for monitoring.
Director Ed Rich was not at the meeting. #
http://www.uniondemocrat.com/news/story.cfm?story_no=25081
Wading through the water issue
By Elizabeth Larsen, staff writer
The meeting is being organized by Cobb area water district manager Robert Stark. Water district managers, county administrators and the public are invited to the meeting. The goal is to spark collaboration and discussion among the key players in water-related issues in the county.
With population growth in
One of the goals of the collaboration, Stark said, is for agencies to talk about tapping into the state's integrated water management plan that allocated $25 million to the north coast. "To apply for a grant, you have to show that your agencies have agreed upon goals... One goal, in my opinion, would be to complete a county-wide water management study to graph and chart the aquifers so we know what kind of sustainable water sources we have," Stark said.
He said he didn't know whether the county has conducted a study of
At the last
One example of information that needs to be shared between water managers and county administrators, Stark said, are water table levels and the levels of two common minerals in
"If Dunken Pumps (one water district in the county) are seeing water tables dropping out in the valley, or if they have high iron levels, we should all know about it. In Cobb, when the water wells are low, the iron and manganese levels were acceptable. When the wells are full, that's when we have the problem. You'd think it would be the other way around, but it's not. We can exchange this kind of information."
John Benoit, executive officer of LAFCO, said he will be attending the meeting. "I'm very interested in the meeting. I think it would be valuable, so that water districts can work together, with more collaboration."
He said LAFCO is in charge of probable growth boundaries for the districts. When new developments get their sustainable water supply report reviewed by the county, then LAFCO reviews it. He said there is no data on ground water levels or county-wide studies on aquifers. "We don't have any data, except in
http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_7585740
SNOWPACK CONDITIONS:
Column: Waiting for the first snow; It may be cold in the Sierra, but it isn't wet yet
By John Krist, columnist
JENNIE LAKES WILDERNESS — It is the last weekend in November, and the road and trail have led us from summer through fall and into the realm of winter.
It seemed like summer at the coast, where warm breezes blew, and where my son and I began this quick backpacking trip in the early hours. It was autumn when we drove through the middle elevations of the Sierra's western slope, where the dead leaves of deciduous trees carpeted the ground with yellow and brown. And it is winter here as we hike more than 8,000 feet above sea level. There are no obvious signs of the season save one: It is just past noon, the warmest this day will get, and the air temperature is in the mid-40s.
As we trudge upward along the dusty path, we leave the shade of scattered pines and cross an exposed slope of shattered granite that reflects the glare of sunlight. The open slope grants a view to the north. And what we see there is an image from the restless nightmares of
In the distance stand the peaks of the Monarch Divide, a winding crest of crags and fluted summits rising high above the
And there is not so much as a glimmer of white anywhere to be seen on those slopes. Not a single patch of snow or ice breaks the gray monotony of naked rock.
As our trail leads us higher, eventually depositing us on the shore of gemlike
The winter snowpack, multiplied along the 400-mile length and 50-mile width of the Sierra, also hold the key to
Given that half the Sierra precipitation falls between January and March, it is early yet to conclude that the picture this year is grim. But last year was a dry one in the Sierra; on April 1, the date on which the snow accumulation typically is greatest, the statewide snowpack was only 40 percent of average. It was essentially gone by June 1. And it has yet to begin its slow reconstitution.
A little more than a week before this post-Thanksgiving alpine trek, at a breakfast meeting of the Association of Water Agencies of
"If we do that now, we won't have to go to rationing," said Don Kendall, general manager of the Calleguas Municipal Water district. Joining him in that warning of potential shortages were Steve Wickstrum, general manager of the Casitas Municipal Water District, and Dana Wisehart, general manager of the United Water Conservation District.
They were motivated in part by low rainfall in their own region, crucial to the supplies of Casitas and United, but also by potential reductions in the amount piped south by the State Water Project — water that originates, for the most part, as snow in the Sierra. Some of those pending cuts are due to endangered-species protections, but drought also is playing a role. And beyond the immediate shortages and disruptions looms the bigger issue: the likelihood that in an era of warming climate, the anemic
We rose shortly after dawn, and quickly built another small campfire to ward off the sub-freezing chill. A coyote barked and howled briefly across the lake, but otherwise the forest was silent. No birds, no squirrels, no sound of anything but the crackle of burning twigs. It's as if everything was waiting — waiting for snow. #
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/nov/29/waiting-for-the-first-snow/
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