Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
March 3, 2009
Top Items–
Wet February helps water supply, but not enough
San Francisco Chronicle
Storms help, don't end drought
Contra Costa Times
State's in a drought, but it's not the worst ever
Not only have a series of February storms pushed up mountain snowpack levels, but by historical standards the current three-year dry spell is far from the most severe.
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Wet February helps water supply, but not enough
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/3/09
By Peter Fimrite, staff writer
(03-03) 04:00 PST Phillips, El Dorado County -- The storms pounding the Bay Area and blanketing the Sierra Nevada with snow have brought California back from the brink of the worst drought in state history, but the drenching is not enough to assure adequate water supplies this summer, state water officials said Monday.
The water content of the
That's a turnaround from a month ago, when the water content measured just 61 percent of normal after the eighth-driest January on record had the state teetering on a the edge of its worst-ever water crisis.
"While the storms that we had in February have certainly improved our circumstances over the first of last month, we still have a long way to go," said Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources. "Reservoir storage is still way below average, and the likelihood of large-enough storms to have significant recovery drops way off as we move into March."
Elissa Lynn, a meteorologist for the Department of Water Resources, said the water content in the snow would have to be between 120 to 130 percent of normal by April 1 to replenish the state's reservoirs, the largest of which are less than half full.
"That's just the snowpack,"
Rain and snow would have to fall virtually every day this month to get back to normal, a highly unlikely scenario, according to Steve Anderson, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
Couple of feet of snow
He said rain is expected to continue until Thursday. A couple of feet of snow probably will fall above 7,000 feet in the coming days. The weekend and the first half of next week should be dry, and precipitation is expected to be about average for the next two months, he said.
So far, 25
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought emergency last week and urged cities to reduce water use by 20 percent as experts predicted that snowmelt runoff this spring will be just 57 percent of normal. The latest snow survey does not change the dire predictions, Gehrke said Monday.
Still, the measurements of snow depth and water content at Phillips Station, a state measuring site next to the Sierra-at-Tahoe resort, left Gehrke and his colleagues at least moderately optimistic, especially after meager results earlier in the year.
The snowpack was 101 percent of normal at the station, a privately owned cabin off Highway 50. Most of the other surveys came in a bit below normal for an overall average of 80 percent, Gehrke said.
Such measurements are a key indicator of how much water will be available during the dry summer months because as much as 60 percent of the state's water is contained in its snow-covered mountains during the wet season.
When the snow melts in the spring and summer, the water is used to irrigate 775,000 acres of farmland and quench the thirst of
The measurement at Phillips Station is considered the key measure of water availability in the state. If snowpack is abundant, chances are there won't be a drought.
But nature rules
But nature showed last year that it makes it's own rules. On March 1 the snowpack was 136 percent of normal. Then it stopped snowing, and the state ended up the year with water supplies far below average, Gehrke said. Runoff last year was 58 percent of normal.
January was the Achilles heel of 2009.
The recent storms have left
Two - and maybe three - consecutive dry years come at a difficult time for the state's water supply system. Also hampering water distribution has been aging infrastructure and court-ordered reductions in water pumped through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta - and the state's population continues to grow.
"We can look at this storm and say 'this is good,' but it doesn't mean we can count on it to alleviate the drought conditions,"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/02/BAVA167R2M.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea
Storms help, don't end drought
Contra Costa Times – 3/2/09
By
Despite a fantastic February that dropped nearly 12 feet of snow in parts of the Sierra Nevada,
Reservoirs that were drained to just one-third of capacity a month ago are slowly refilling but remain well below where they would normally be this time of year.
The bottom line:
Still, February's snowfall in the northern Sierra Nevada was nearly 50 percent above normal and went a long way toward making up lost ground for the 11th-driest January on record in that region.
In February, the snowpack was about 60 percent of normal. Today, it is about 80 percent of normal.
Last month, things looked so bleak that the state's top water official warned of the possibility of "the worst
The state's major reservoirs, which were generally about one-third full or about half of normal for this time of year, have crept up somewhat. Among the key reservoirs,
What makes this drought especially problematic is that 9 million more residents have arrived since the last drought ended in 1992, farmers have planted more permanent crops, including grapes and nuts, and environmental considerations have become more urgent and complex.
Delta pumps also are restricted in how much water they can pump during spring, a condition put in place to prevent the endangered Delta smelt fish from going extinct.
"Our problem is not lack of snow. Our problem is the wrong system and the way it's colliding with endangered species issues," said Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies.
State water officials have told their contractors, which include some agencies that serve the Tri-Valley, Silicon Valley and
"We're hopeful that will go up, but it depends on what Mother Nature does," said Jerry Johns, Department of Water Resources deputy director.
In the
The Contra Costa Water District, which serves 500,000 in the east and central parts of the county, is calling for voluntary conservation now but warns that mandatory conservation of as much as 25 percent is expected.
"We will have a better idea at the end of March," Greg Gartrell, assistant general manager, said.
Storms are expected to continue through Wednesday.
"After that, it looks pretty dry," said Elissa Lynn, a senior meteorologist with the Department of Water Resources.
She said that it would take about 12 feet of snow in March to bring snowpack to average depths.#
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_11819991?source=rss
State's in a drought, but it's not the worst ever
Not only have a series of February storms pushed up mountain snowpack levels, but by historical standards the current three-year dry spell is far from the most severe.
By Bettina Boxall
The warnings have been ominous this winter:
Is it really that bad?
If you look at the numbers, the answer is no. Not only have a series of February storms pushed up mountain snowpack levels, but by historical standards the current three-year drought is far from the worst.
Monday, the state Department of Water Resources announced that the mountain snowpack that feeds the state's reservoirs has reached 80% of normal for the date. Precipitation in the northern and southern Sierra has climbed above 90% of average and another storm is on the way.
"Right now it doesn't look too bleak," said Maury Roos, the state's chief hydrologist. "I think we'll have more runoff than last year."
The water interests who have spit out grim news releases the last two months were silent Monday in the face of the growing snowpack.
Those who would like to build new reservoirs and canals and to weaken environmental regulations have invoked the drought like a mantra in recent weeks.
A recently introduced congressional bill that would allow federal officials to relax endangered-species protections in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is titled the California Drought Alleviation Act.
"For over 100 years in
In late January, a public relations firm representing state water contractors trumpeted: "
Sen. Dave Cogdill, a Republican who represents agriculture-dependent
State and federal water managers earlier this year sought to relax delta water quality standards, arguing that because of the drought, it needed to hold more water in upstream reservoirs to preserve cold water flows for salmon in coming months.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last month called for fee increases and outdoor watering restrictions, citing the state's "severe water shortages."
The state is in a drought. But it's "not the worst we've had," said Roos, chief hydrologist for two decades.
Roos looks at two water supply criteria to determine whether the state is in a drought: Runoff from the state's major river systems has to be in the bottom 10% of the record, and total statewide reservoir storage has to be at or below 70% of average.
By that definition, 2007 and 2008 barely made the drought category.
In 1977, the water year (which ends Sept. 30) was the driest on record. Back then, statewide reservoir storage was 35% of average. Statewide storage was more than twice that by the end of September last year, and in 2007. Roos estimated it is about 70% of the norm now, a little less than halfway into the water year.
Roos said it was prudent for water managers to be conservative. "But some of the statements have been pretty grim . . . The climate can change pretty fast."
Said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute in
Even as reservoir and snowpack levels were rising, federal water managers announced last week that they might not make deliveries to some big
"It's extremely likely that the allocations for the [federal Central Valley Project] are going to go up . . . The idea that they'll give zero water to farmers -- that's not going to happen."
Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources, defended his agency's characterizations of the drought, saying that though it may not be the worst hydrologically, other factors are accentuating its seriousness.
There are more people in the state, more farmers have switched to permanent crops that can't be fallowed and growing environmental problems in the delta have restricted water deliveries.
"So the same level of hydrology [that the state experienced] in 1991 produces more severe impacts," Snow said. "That's what spurs us to talk about the potential for the worst drought."#
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drought3-2009mar03,0,7581459.story?track=rss
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