[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: Supply - 11/24/2008

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

November 24, 2008

 

2. Supply –

 

Californians told to prepare for dry 2009

Riverside Press Enterprise

 

Experts fear 3rd straight dry winter likely

San Francisco Chronicle

 

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Californians told to prepare for dry 2009

Riverside Press Enterprise – 11/22/08

By DOUGLAS QUAN

California has been through two consecutive years of drought. Could 2009 bring a third?

 

"It's not likely, but it shouldn't be discounted either," said Klaus Wolter, a University of Colorado climatologist and guest speaker at a conference Friday in San Diego sponsored by the California Department of Water Resources.

 

In the next several months, Southern California is forecast to be drier than normal, while Northern California is forecast to have close-to-normal levels of precipitation, he said.

 

The state has encountered three consecutive years of drought on only two previous occasions: 1959 to 1961 and 1990 to 1992.

 

Regardless of what the projections say, Californians should still plan for the worst because of depleting surface run-off and groundwater basins, said Jeanine Jones, interstate resources manager for the Water Resources Department.

 

"We should plan for a dry 2009," she said.

 

Storage in the state's reservoirs is at a 14-year low. The water system has been further stressed by a court order restricting water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to other parts of the state, including Southern California.

 

In response, the governor announced earlier this year a goal to reduce per capita water consumption across the state by one-fifth by 2020. He also ordered the Department of Water Resources to help facilitate the transfer of water to respond to emergency shortages in the state.

 

Experts at the conference said imported water from the Colorado River remains a "bright spot." Fifty-five percent of water used in California comes from the Colorado River.

 

Storage in the Colorado River's main reservoirs -- Lake Powell, between Utah and Arizona, and Lake Mead, between Nevada and Arizona -- remains at 56 percent capacity, said Jerry Zimmerman, of the Colorado River Board of California.

 

But he also said that increased water usage from population growth and the effects of global warming and climate change, which is reducing the mountain snowpack, threaten the Colorado River water supply. #

http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_S_water22.3e709f8.html

 

 

 

Experts fear 3rd straight dry winter likely

San Francisco Chronicle – 11/22/08

By Kelly Zito, staff writer

 

 (11-21) 17:50 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Dodging a disastrous third year of drought in California could take the kind of winter mega-storms that leave almost as much ruin as they do rain.

 

Government plans massive Citigroup rescue effort 11.24.08

But even a few "pineapple express" storms - torrents of warm, wet air carried from the southwest - won't totally offset two critically dry years and legal rulings that limit water pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, scientists at a state water conference said Friday.

 

"We need much more than average (precipitation) to recover water storage, and even then we face an uncertain future with respect to the delta," said Jeanine Johnson, interstate resources manager for the California Department of Water Resources. "The real message is, we need to plan and prepare as if 2009 will be dry."

 

City representatives, water managers and consumers from across the state heard the twin "D" words - dry and drought - quite a lot at a first-ever winter precipitation outlook conference held Friday by the Department of Water Resources.

 

Although weather forecasts are notoriously tricky (just turn on the 11 o'clock news), a handful of scientists who study everything from oceanography to tree rings gathered in San Diego to parse the available data about California's water history and discuss what it could bode, if anything, for 2009.

 

Some of it didn't sound good.

 

California is in the midst of a two-year drought. So far. Research on tree-ring growth shows the Western United States experienced a prolonged dry spell that lasted 60 or 70 years, during the 1100s.

 

"That's certainly a concern from the stand that we've developed our modern civilization during a period that's been relatively wet," said Dave Cayan, scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

 

Klaus Wolter, of the Western Water Assessment at the University of Colorado, expects more dry weather in Southern California this winter and an average year in Northern California.

 

An average year wouldn't spell doom for supply conditions in the north. But it wouldn't slake demand from growing cities or dramatically raise state reservoir levels, which stand at 14-year lows. Several urban communities already have instituted mandatory or voluntary water conservation, and farmers have cut back plantings and left some fields fallow.

 

The situation is even more dire in naturally dry Southern California, where some water-thirsty crops and rampant development have strained the water system.

Complicating matters for both regions, a federal judge sliced water exports through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to 35 percent of normal. The move, designed to protect the endangered delta smelt, highlighted the deterioration of an estuary that funnels water to 25 million Northern and Southern Californians.

Due in part to the delta decision, operators of the State Water Project in October said they will deliver only 15 percent of the normal supply during the current water year, which runs through Sept. 30, 2009.

 

Nevertheless, some scientists on Friday said there are some small reasons to be optimistic about nature's ability to surprise.

 

Particularly strong winter storms, for instance, are capable of dousing the state over several days with as much as one-third of its annual water supply. Some indicators point to the possibility of such this season, according to Mike Dettinger of the U.S. Geological Survey.

"A few storms can make a huge difference in California," Dettinger said. "They're big guys ... but they're not just disasters, they're a huge part of our water supply."#

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/22/MNV8149Q32.DTL

 

 

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DWR’s California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff,  for information purposes, by the SWR Public Affairs Office. For reader’s services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost2.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news . DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of California