[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 10/1/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

October 1, 2008

 

1.  Top Items -

 

 

State is vulnerable to water woes in 2009

Contra Costa Times

 

Drought expected to continue as new water year begins

Whittier Daily News

 

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State is vulnerable to water woes in 2009

Contra Costa Times – 10/1/08

By Mike Taugher, staff writer

California enters the 2009 water year today highly vulnerable to shortages and facing the possibility of widespread rationing after two dry years.

 

A third dry year in a row would be especially difficult in the East Bay, where one district is already rationing water and another could face a steep cut to its supply.

Two back-to-back dry years, although not unusual, came as the conflict between water deliveries and the Delta ecosystem reached a breaking point. And 2008 started out with some healthy storms before it dried up, taking water managers by surprise.

 

Because key reservoirs are low, there's not much water in reserve if the coming winter is dry. And if the coming winter is wet, it will be difficult to move that water to where it is needed because of new legal restrictions on water deliveries meant to protect a crashing Delta ecosystem.

 

"We're at the brink of a water crisis with two dry years," said Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the state's largest water district. "The delivery system is not working. It's collapsing."

 

Across California, water managers are increasingly using words such as, "scary," "crisis," and "grim" to describe the water supply outlook for 2009.

"It's looking like not quite, but very close, to the conditions we had at the end of 1977, which is one of the driest years on record," said Contra Costa Water District assistant general manager Greg Gartrell. "If its dry, it's very scary."

 

The Contra Costa Water District is especially vulnerable because it gets all of its drinking water from the Delta. It could find itself imposing mandatory 20 percent rationing if this winter is dry, Gartrell said.

 

Even if 2009 is an average year, California would face the same threat of water shortages a year from now that it faces today, Gartrell said.

 

Although most Californians have been shielded from the effects of the short drought so far, farmers have fallowed fields in the San Joaquin Valley and stumped avocado trees in Southern California.

 

The East Bay's largest water district, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, is already rationing water. That district's isolated water system is especially vulnerable to droughts, but it can also recover from drought more quickly than the state's sprawling, interconnected water projects that deliver water to other parts of the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

 

Since the last major drought ended in the early 1990s, California has grown by about 6 million people, and Southern California lost a significant portion of its Colorado River water because of drought and an interstate water treaty.

 

"It potentially sets up a dire situation," said Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources. "We're starting to get to the point where you actually have economic impacts as a result of a water shortage."

 

The Delta supplies at least some tap water to two-thirds of Californians. About one-third of the Bay Area's water comes from the Delta, about the same proportion as Southern California.

 

Because of the ecological collapse in the Delta, a federal judge last year imposed restrictions on how pumps that take water out of the Delta are operated. Those two sets of pumps, one owned by the federal government and one by the state government, are partly to blame for the collapse of Delta smelt and other fish species.

Water managers say the ruling cut Delta water supplies by as much as one-third.

 

"One reason the pain has not been bad is storage is available that sort of hides the problems you've got from the public," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. "The very large amounts of storage was a veil that protected people from the train wreck that was happening in the Delta."

Quinn said that a dry year, either in 2009 or in the near future, will prove a rude awakening because that storage is depleted.

 

"More and more agencies will have rationing, and by that I mean mandatory rationing with teeth," Quinn said.

 

And although the court order limiting pumping is expected to be replaced with a new permit from federal biologists in the coming months, few expect any relief.

"The next two, three, four, five, six, seven years are going to be rough," said Chris Scheuring, a water attorney for the California Farm Bureau.

 

Since the 1990s, when drought and plummeting fish populations caused water shortages in parts of California, state and local water officials have labored to prevent a repeat. Billions have been spent to increase groundwater storage and water use efficiency and enhance the environment.

 

But the Delta's environment did not improve, and in fact, its decline accelerated.

 

"All the pieces of the puzzle were in place and we were ready for a drought, until August 2007," said Quinn, referring to the court order to restrict Delta water deliveries.

 

Quinn said he sees no way around the possibility that California could be perpetually threatened with water shortages for at least a decade, until an engineering fix is developed.#

http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_10603166

 

 

Drought expected to continue as new water year begins

Whittier Daily News – 10/1/08

By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer

With the official end of the water year Tuesday, experts pointed to record-low levels in aquifers and continued dry weather as factors likely to push the San Gabriel Valley into another year of drought.

 

Today marks the beginning of a new water year, which counts rainfall and snowpack runoff from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30.

 

The Main San Gabriel Basin, an underground aquifer that spans the San Gabriel Valley, is expected to reach its lowest level in 75 years if drought conditions continue.

And the amount of runoff recorded in the Sacramento Valley - which is the main measure used to determine the state's available water - is also below average.

"We've had two critically dry years in Northern California, where we get about a third of our water from," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. "This is a very, very, challenging and tough situation."

 

And it could get worse.

 

"This year was relatively low," said Maury Roos, chief hydrologist for the California Department of Water Resources. "Climatologist tend to think that it could be drier than average next year."

 

These recorded lows, along with a decline in imported water and an increase in demand, could lead to higher rates and rationing, officials said.

Most of Southern California's imported water from the north is pumped from the Sacramento Valley, where the average runoff level is 18.6 million acre-feet.

 

But the 2007-08 water year yielded only 10.2 million acre-feet, about the same as the year before. The lowest recorded year in the past century was 1977, which came in at 5.12 million acre-feet.

 

The low rainfall in the Bay Area parallels other local and statewide measurements.

 

In the Main San Gabriel Basin, the water level is approaching historic lows.

 

Last month, it was recorded at 203.5 feet above sea level. The lowest recorded level was 195.5 in 2005.

 

Statewide, the total rainfall and snowpack added up to only 26 million acre-feet - only 60 percent of the 71 million acre-feet average.

 

California's reservoirs are down to 62 percent storage capacity. Diamond Valley Lake, a reservoir built by the MWD that is capable of storing nearly 800,000 acre-feet, is expected to be sucked down to 50 percent capacity by the end of the year.

 

"We are moving into the potential third dry year, and there is not any sort of guarantee that we will be able to refill the reservoirs," said Jennifer Persike, spokeswoman for the Association of California Water Agencies.

 

Records show that there have been other, much drier periods, such as from 1924-34, 1976-77, and 1987-92.

 

"We've had quite a bit drier years and have had very wet years," Roos said. "It only takes one week of rain to make a difference."

 

But Kightlinger said that even if the rainy season bounces back, court orders calling for the cutback of pumping the delta because of impacts to endangered species will limit how much water can be collected.

 

"Even if we get good rainfall, until we get our conveyance system fixed," Kightlinger said, "we are going to face an uncertain future." #

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_10604412

 

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