A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
February 8, 2008
2. Supply
Officials: Wet January won't solve water issues;
Editorial: Drought foresight? - Riverside Press
Letters to the editor:
Response to article “Pass area storms (3 more inches of rain) (Feb. 1) put a dent in the - drought”
Officials: Wet January won't solve water issues;
While Southwest County received just about as much rain in January as fell in all of 2007, water officials say it is still not enough to make up for recent dry years.
Temecula, for example, recorded 7.36 inches of rain last month, compared with 7.94 inches in calendar year 2007.
The rainfall season runs from July through June and Temecula already has experienced more than 13 inches of rain this season while receiving just 3.75 inches during the 2006-07 season.
Such higher recent rain totals are driving down demands for water, but "we are still facing some issues," Bob Muir, spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said recently.
"We are hoping for the best and hope the rain keeps coming," he said.
"We have seen drops in demands as much as 20 percent" from member agencies, Muir said.
The Metropolitan district is a consortium of 26 cities and water districts that provides drinking water to nearly 18 million people in Southern California, averaging deliveries of 1.7 billion gallons of water each day over a 5,200-square-mile area, which includes some of
"We have to remember that about half the water we rely on comes from the Colorado River and Northern and
And there are issues in those areas, according to state water officials.
While there have been concerns with water shortages, one dry year is not enough to constitute an actual drought, the department states. The last major statewide drought was 1987 through 1992, and the last drought in
The Department of Water Resources issued a news release Monday that described an increase in its allocation of 2008 State Water Project water for long-term contractors from 25 percent to 35 percent of their requests.
The State Water Project is a series of reservoirs, dams, pipelines and pumping stations that deliver
The Metropolitan Water District is one of the long-term contractors with the Department of Water Resources.
"We can credit a wetter-than-average January for an impressive increase in our water supplies and snowpack," DWR Director Lester Snow states in the release. "However, tighter pumping restrictions in the (Sacramento-San Joaquin) Delta will limit how much of this water we can actually provide to many parts of
Those restrictions come after a federal court last year limited pumping in the delta to protect the delta smelt, a small slender-bodied fish. The smelt was listed by both state and federal officials as "threatened" in 1993, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.
Without that court action in place, the Department of Water Resources estimates that the 35 percent allocation announced Monday would be more like 50 percent, meaning more water would be available.
Timothy F. Brick, chairman of Metropolitan's board of directors, recently commented on the State Water Project's delivery reliability report, which was released late last month.
"This sobering assessment of the state's water situation serves as a reminder that, despite the recent rains, the problems in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta remain unresolved," Brick said.
"We face a new reality in
Metropolitan officials continue to ask everyone to be smart in their water use ---- to conserve voluntarily.
"We are telling people to cut back and use common sense, like turning off sprinklers when it rains," Muir said.
With some very dry periods during the last eight years, he said, challenges remain for this year and beyond.
"A drop saved today is a drop that can be used later," Muir said.
Even with the heavy rains in January, that doesn't mean this will continue to be a wet season, according to officials.
Climatologists with CalTech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Ivory Small, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said earlier this week that their three-month outlook predicts a "slightly below normal" amount of rain for
January, traditionally, "can be a very, very wet month," Small said.
He cited January 1998 when El Nino conditions brought significant rainfall.
Last month, according to Small, the heavy rain came because the jet stream that typically "meanders around" instead decided to come right through
"It doesn't take long to get (rainfall) numbers up when that happens," he said. "That can happen when the jet is this strong."
As of now, February has not started out as wet as January was.
The jet stream is staying to the north, Small said, so there is no rain predicted for the area for at least the next week. #
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/02/08/news/californian/riverside/20_50_292_7_08.txt
Editorial: Drought foresight?
Riverside Press
Those changes should start in the Legislature, which has let disagreement over new dams stall progress on water issues again this year. But that battle revisits old controversies instead of looking to future needs -- and the partisan standoff does nothing but make the state's water situation more precarious.
The most immediate legislative need is a plan to safeguard the state's primary water supply. Two-thirds of
But environmental concerns prompted a court ruling last year slashing water exports from the delta.
The state also needs to focus on the broader water picture. Two studies published in the journal Science last week outlined changes in weather patterns that will have profound consequences for the
One report found that human activity, including rapid growth in the Southwest, had contributed to a steadily warming and drier climate, less winter snowpack and reduced water flows over the past five decades. The second study warned that water planners will have to adjust to greater variation and unpredictability in climate.
The grim outlook:
The climate changes represent long-term trends. Californians should not let the recent rains and the above-normal winter snowfall this year lull them into complacency.
These and previous studies suggest that
And
More efficient water use will require changes in building codes, improvements in aging water systems and even alterations in personal habits.
Such policy and social shifts will take extensive cooperation by federal, state and local agencies, businesses and residents. The future requires changes -- and a partisan impasse offers a poor foundation for building a better state water policy. #
Letters to the editor:
Response to article “Pass area storms (3 more inches of rain) (Feb. 1) put a dent in the drought” – 2/8/08
By John Jeter, President San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency
Your front page article “Pass area storms (3 more inches of rain) (Feb. 1) put a dent in the drought” caught my attention. The article concludes “The California drought appears to be waning ... ”
While the recent storms have certainly added to our local water supplies and have also reduced water demand, it is far too early to declare that our drought is “waning.”
Consider the fact that the
As of this writing, the State Water Project's allocation for 2008 is only 25% (it was 60% last year). The two major reservoirs in the State Water Project system,
A federal judge's ruling last summer on an endangered fish has cut exports from the Delta to Southern California and the
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the largest water agency in the state, has stated that, while it previously could count on increasing storage in its local reservoirs seven years out of every ten, due to the court decision it now expects to be able to add to storage only three years out of ten, while withdrawing from storage or breaking even the other seven years.
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The
We are all grateful for the recent storms and their impact on our water supplies. However, we must still be diligent about water use and practice good water conservation measures. Many water experts are predicting water shortages this summer in many parts of
http://www.recordgazette.net/articles/2008/02/08/opinion/02opinion.txt
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