Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
June 16 2008
1. Top Items -
The
The
Editorial
In The Spotlight: Southern California readies for a drought
The Sacramento
Editorial
Water must be conserved: Use less or face rationing
Editorial
Valley's feeling parched: It's time to get serious about water conservation
The
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The
By Lester Snow
Northern California had its driest spring ever this year, while
Our Sierra snowpack for the winter ended at a statewide average of 67 percent of normal. Climate change impacts are predicted that will complicate future water management decisions. Major reservoirs in
If we have no improvement during the next rainy season,
The governor's drought proclamation this week strongly encourages conservation, a task led by regional and local water agencies. Many water agencies already had adopted conservation plans, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a longtime leader in water conservation efforts.
Earlier this year, the governor advocated a 20 percent reduction of water use in
But we can't conserve our way out of the current water crisis. Nor can conservation alone “save” the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the state's largest estuary that provides water supplies for about two-thirds the California population.
This drought is an urgent warning that we must swiftly reform and modernize our water supply systems in ways that safeguard and heal the Delta so that it can remain a vital water supply hub for decades to come.
Fortunately, the governor has developed a comprehensive, realistic plan to provide necessary water improvements, including water storage, river restoration and water quality enhancement. More storage is essential to help save water for dry years.
The last major state-built storage projects were constructed more than 30 years ago. Due to our limited storage capacity and the current drought conditions, many major reservoirs in northern
The governor's water plans envision an improved method of moving water through the Delta, to safeguard fish and ecosystems, while assuring the quality of our water supply. He had advocated passage of an $11.9 billion bond issue on the November ballot to move these desperately needed water modernization plans forward.
This kind of water reform must be enacted. The governor's declaration of drought is a clear message that we are out of time to wait.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080613/news_lz1e13snow.html
The
By Deborah Schoch, Staff Writer
Hoping to wring water from the skies, a parched
The project, which will rely on injecting clouds with silver iodide particles, has won county supervisors' backing and is slated to begin this winter.
"We're basically coaxing Mother Nature to give us 15% more rain than there would be otherwise," said county civil engineer William Saunders. He said the county did seeding for several decades, beginning in the 1950s.
This time, officials decided to resume the program after a seven-year lapse caused by concerns over mudslides in some mountain areas ravaged by brush fires.
With
Critics throughout the West have long dismissed seeding as a dubious technological rain dance. They worry it can trigger landslides, such as the deadly one in the
Some water experts, including Peter Gleick at the nonprofit Pacific Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in
"It's a bit of a sign of desperation," Gleick said. "They've been doing cloud seeding for decades, but we've never clearly been able to show if it's what we've done or what nature has provided."
That's because researchers who try to prove seeding's efficacy face unique roadblocks. Rain forms in nature, not in a laboratory, and scientists can't very well seed one cloud and leave another one unseeded as a "control cloud."
Also, cloud behavior varies widely.
"To have them be in the right place at the right time, that's where it gets really complicated," said scientist Daniel W. Breed, who studies cloud physics and precipitation at the
When county public works officials estimate that seeding will increase rain 15%, for instance, they're depending on a 36-year-old county analysis that compares rainfall from a decade of seeding with rainfall during the previous 20 years.
The National Academy of Sciences released a report in 2003 calling cloud seeding unproven and urged more thorough study.
But federal money is scarce, and the most significant studies today are happening in the Mideast and elsewhere overseas, often conducted by
"It's something that I wish there were more good hard research on," said Maury Roos, the state's chief hydrologist. "I think there's something to it. The question is, how much, versus how much is it going to cost?"
Yet the phones are ringing at the offices of so-called weather modification firms that use airplanes or ground-based generators to spray silver iodide above mountains and watersheds, typically on contract to public agencies.
"In a drought, that's when we get the majority of calls," said Don Griffin, president of North American Weather Consultants Inc., the firm the county is hiring, based in
Ironically, a drought can be the worst time to try cloud seeding because clouds are scarce, and the technique works best in a normal year, when it is believed to entice more raindrops from rain clouds, Breed said.
For years, companies such as Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric seeded clouds in winter over the
What sets the
The county plans to target the watersheds of five reservoirs -- Pacoima, Big Tujunga, Cogswell,
While many think of airplanes seeding clouds, the county plans to use ground-based generators, another common method.
The generators will be placed along the base of the San Gabriels and will use flares or propane burners to spray particles. Flares would be used only during winter rains, not during fire season, said Diego Cadena, deputy director of the county Department of Public Works.
Rain and snow are created when ice nuclei in clouds swell from water in the air, create ice crystals and fall to earth. During seeding, silver oxide particles are supposed to act like a proxy for ice nuclei. Since their structure resembles that of ice crystals, the theory goes that spraying particles into clouds will mean more crystals and eventually more rain and snow.
In the San Gabriels, rainwater will be collected in the reservoirs and transferred to spreading basins. There it will percolate into aquifers and later be pumped for public use.
The county did cloud seeding over the San Gabriels in the 1960s and '70s but killed the program after a February 1978 storm caused major flooding in
Eleven people died in the storm and subsequent landslides, with damage estimated at $43 million. Dozens of people sued the county, alleging that seeding a day before the storm worsened its impact and that the uncertainty of the science made seeding dangerous.
Although the county prevailed in all the suits, its attorneys remained leery 13 years later when public works officials proposed restarting the program. The county counsel's office warned at the time that "cloud seeding immediately adjacent to the second largest metropolitan area in the nation involves potential risks of very substantial liability."
Even so, the county resumed seeding in 1991 after requiring North American Weather Consultants to take out a $10-million insurance policy.
The 1978 cloud seeding occurred in the
Seeding was halted again in 2002 after the Curve and Williams fires burned parts of the
Cadena said that although the county is a strong supporter of conservation, funding low-flow toilets -- as Gleick suggested -- is better done by water supply agencies. He said county-funded seeding is timely.
"With everything that is going on today, and the potential for cutoffs of water coming from up north, we're looking at every source of water," he said.#
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-seeding16-2008jun16,0,4814156,full.story
Editorial
In The Spotlight: Southern California readies for a drought
The Sacramento
The giant Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a "water supply alert" last week in an effort to get the 18 million people it serves to conserve.
Cities in the district that haven't implemented local drought ordinances were asked to adopt measures such as setting up hotlines for reporting leaky sprinklers or people who hose driveways. Other recommendations include asking residents to water yards less, take shorter showers and wash only full loads of laundry.
The district, the wholesale supplier of water to urban centers in six counties in
Tuesday's alert follows the governor's June 4 declaration of a drought and is the last step before water rations and fines for noncompliance, said Bob Muir, a spokesman for the water district.
In 2009, the district "will assess reserve levels and supply from the
As part of last week's alert, the board of directors for the water district urged municipal governments to update their water-conservation ordinances, for example by limiting outdoor water use at certain times or encouraging showers of no more than three minutes. At this stage the district can only make recommendations, although municipal governments can enforce new ordinances or regulations.
Most existing ordinances were written during the last drought in the late 1980s and have not been enforced since 1991, said Jeff Kightlinger, the district's general manager.
After lying dormant for almost two decades, many ordinances are no longer relevant to current conservation needs, he said.
In the late 1980s, water use was cut by 30 percent when many Californians replaced appliances such as toilets and shower heads with more water-efficient ones. Those changes fixed mechanics but not behavior, Kightlinger said.
"We've already picked that low-hanging fruit," Kightlinger said. "People have to take more serious measures if they want to save water."#
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/1012784.html
Editorial
Water must be conserved: Use less or face rationing
It's time to get serious about saving water.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks so. The Metropolitan Water District, the main supplier of water in
The urgency of this message was punctuated June 4 when Gov. Schwarzenegger proclaimed a statewide drought, following two years of below-average rainfall, and snowmelt runoff at only 55 percent of normal. His executive order lays out the state's response to the dry conditions that are impacting crops, water quality and raising the wildfire danger across
With the state experiencing the worst water shortage since 1991, it only makes sense for each of us to use our limited supplies of water more wisely or face the likelihood of more severe measures, such as mandatory water rationing.
We all bear the burden of living in a state where water supplies are unpredictable. All residents have a stake in conserving water, no matter where they live in
Sure, storms in January and February were enough to push our countywide rainfall totals to above-average levels for the year. But, the preceding year was one of the driest on record and, even under ideal rainfall conditions, local water supplies are stretched to their limits each year.
This continuing challenge to maintain adequate supplies for homes, businesses and agriculture has prompted local water districts to initiate aggressive water-conservation campaigns.
Last year, The Ventura River County Water District, which pumps water to 2,200 homes in and around Oak View, began urging its customers to cut water usage by about 20 percent.
The Las Virgenes Water District, which serves 65,000 customers in eastern
And, Metropolitan Water District, which supplies water to Calleguas Municipal Water District, which in turn serves
Water agencies offer many water-saving programs such as rebates for installing low-flow toilets and showerheads, landscape irrigation help and free water audits to help cut water use. Many maintain hotlines to report wasteful water use.
Water conservation doesn't have to be painful.
There are also a number of common-sense conservation measures residents can take immediately. Among them: Don't hose down sidewalks and driveways; don't run the hose while washing the car; don't run half loads in the washing machine and dishwasher; don't dawdle in the shower; don't overwater the lawn and landscaping; and don't let a leaky faucet continue to drip.
Those who are even more ambitious can take Eugene Wheeler's lead. The
Beyond what residents can achieve, government can play a role by taking the necessary steps to upgrade the state's water infrastructure, help local water agencies construct more water reservoirs and treatment plants, and incorporate greater use of recycled water.
Water conservation is still a valuable untapped resource. So, while there's no controlling Mother Nature, we can play a large role in using our precious water supplies more efficiently and wisely.#
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jun/15/water-must-be-conserved/
Editorial
Valley's feeling parched: It's time to get serious about water conservation
The
It's official: We're in a water emergency.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an emergency proclamation last week that will open the door to help, including low-interest loans from the federal government as well as tapping into more groundwater for parched farmland.
A dry season last year, leaving north state reservoirs low, coupled with the driest spring ever recorded this year have brought us to this.
The governor's proclamation does not include a mandatory conservation order, but we must assume that's in the offing.
"What you will see up and down the state is water agencies pushing much harder on their customers to cut down on water use," said Laura King-Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors.
"The era of polite requests for 10 percent water cuts is over."
The runoff forecast for
Nine Central Valley counties, including
Most affected so far are Valley farmers and ranchers. This is the height of the irrigation season for many, and the water, in some cases, just isn't there. The farther south you go in the Valley, the worse the situation.
But just because agriculture is getting the brunt of this is no reason to believe most Californians won't eventually share the pain. Mandatory conservation orders will come if voluntary efforts fail.
Doing little things can turn into big things when everyone takes the emergency seriously.
Californians each summer show that they can conserve electricity when hot weather makes demand soar. We can do the same with another valuable resource, water.
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080616/A_OPINION01/806160310/-1/A_OPINION
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