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Seeing little rain or snowmelt in sight, the California Department of Water Resources for the first time in history said on Friday that rural farms and communities will get little to none of their usual annual allocations of Sierra snowmelt to grow crops and furnish tap water this upcoming year.

As forecasters expect 2014 to be the driest year yet of a three-year drought, water managers in a state where water has long had a complicated relationship with industry, farms, people and politics say they can no longer supply annual allocations to the 29 million people who take from the San Joaquin River Delta.

The announcement is a “stark reminder that California’s drought is real,” said Gov. Jerry Brown. His warning of a potential “megadrought” suggests that the state’s dry period could last not just years, but centuries, raising the stakes for new water solutions and adjustments in the country’s most populous state. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2014/0201/For-first-time-zero-allocation-
of-snowmelt-for-Calif.-s-parched-farms-video

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How bad is the California drought? So bad that in 2013, even the traditional soggy parts of the state received less precipitation than Phoenix, Arizona. “The last year threw the old records out the door,” said Steve Johnson, a meteorologist with Atmospherics Group International, a private weather forecasting company. “On a 1 to 10 scale, 2013 was a 14 to 16. That’s how big an event this was compared to the previous drought.”

On January 17, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency, a move that will allow California to seek federal aid as it struggles to provide adequate water supply. Initial plans are to request a 20% water use cutback from Californians.

Statistically, 2013 was an unprecedented year by an unprecedented margin, so dry that it shattered a handful of previous records by 40 to 60 percent. For instance, average annual precipitation at San Francisco International Airport is 20.65 inches. The previous drought record was 9.22 inches in 1952. Last year, the rain gauge at the airport measured just 3.38 inches – similar to what was recorded in parts of the Mojave Desert in southern California and southern Nevada. http://www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/water-efficiency-watch-jan-2
014.aspx

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Water officials across California have been increasing their efforts to promote water conservation after officials announced Friday that they won't send any water from the state's vast reservoir system to local agencies beginning this spring.

The move is unprecedented in the 54-year history of the State Water Project and will affect drinking water supplies for 25 million people and irrigation for 1 million acres of farmland.

Friday's announcement puts an exclamation point on California's water shortage, which has been building during three years of below-normal rain and snow.

"This is the most serious drought we've faced in modern times," said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board.

State Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin said there simply is not enough water in the system to meet the needs of farmers, cities and the conservation efforts that are intended to save dwindling populations of salmon and other fish throughout Northern California.

For perspective, California would have to experience heavy rain and snowfall every other day from now until May to get the state back to its average annual precipitation totals, according to the Department of Water Resources.

Friday's announcement reflects the severity of the dry conditions in the nation's most populous state. Officials say 2013 was the state's driest calendar year since records started being kept, and this year is heading in the same direction.

A snow survey on Thursday in the Sierra Nevada, one of the state's key water sources, found the water content in the meager snowpack is just 12 percent of normal. Reservoirs are lower than they were at the same time in 1977, which is one of the two previous driest water years on record.

State officials say 17 rural communities are in danger of a severe water shortage within four months. Wells are running dry or reservoirs are nearly empty in some communities.

The timing for of Friday's historic announcement was important: State water officials typically announce they are raising the water allotment on Feb. 1, but this year's winter has been so dry they wanted to ensure they could keep the remaining water behind the dams. The announcement also will give farmers more time to determine what crops they will plant this year and in what quantities.

Farmers and ranchers throughout the state already have felt the drought's impact, tearing out orchards, fallowing fields and trucking in alfalfa to feed cattle on withered range land.

"A zero allocation is catastrophic and woefully inadequate for Kern County residents, farms and businesses," Ted Page, president of the Kern County Water Agency's board, said in a statement. "While many areas of the county will continue to rely on ground water to make up at least part of the difference, some areas have exhausted their supply."

Groundwater levels already have been stressed, after pumping accelerated during the dry winter in 2008 and 2009.

"The challenge is that in last drought we drew down groundwater resources and never allowed them to recover," said Heather Cooley, water program co-director for the Pacific Institute, a water policy think tank in Oakland. "We're seeing long term, ongoing declining groundwater levels, and that's a major problem."

With some rivers reduced to a trickle, fish populations also are being affected. Eggs in salmon-spawning beds of the American River near Sacramento were sacrificed after upstream releases from Folsom Dam were severely cut back.

Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, urged everyone to come together during the crisis.

"This is not about picking between delta smelt and long-fin smelt and chinook salmon, and it's not about picking between fish and farms or people and the environment," he said. "It is about really hard decisions on a real-time basis where we may have to accept some impact now to avoid much greater impact later." http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/02/02/california-cuts-off-water-to-agen
cies-serving-millions-amid-drought/

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S.F. leads state in water conservation

California declared a drought only two weeks ago, but in San Francisco water conservation efforts have been under way for decades - with significant results.

Already, San Francisco residents use the least amount of water per day compared with the rest of the state - 49 gallons on average as opposed to 100 statewide.

"A lot of it is behavioral things - get to know your water use first, then adjust simple things," said Julie Ortiz, PUC water conservation manager. "Fill up the dishwasher and clothes washer before you run them, fix leaks."

Overall, water use in the city has declined by 12 percent since the last major drought - and the last mandatory rationing - ended more than two decades ago, and residential use is down by 18 percent.

The SFPUC continues to press conservation incentives for both residents and businesses, including free conservation evaluations, free water-efficient gardening classes, and financial grants for people doing landscaping and community gardens. Its also continues to provide free water-efficient devices, such as low-flow showerheads, and rebates for new toilets, clothes washers, urinals and business equipment such as ice machines.

Effect of incentives

All the free fixtures and rebates handed out by the utilities commission in 2013 alone will save 1.5 billion gallons of water over their lifetime - which is equivalent to the water used annually by 20,000 single-family homes.

"San Francisco and our wholesale customers have been very good about using water wisely. ... If you look over the last several years, as the population has increased, the total water usage of our customers has decreased, which is a really amazing sign," said Kelly, adding that "it's not only a one-time decrease in usage, but long-term reductions," because of new fixtures. More at http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/California-drought-S-F-leads-sta
te-in-water-5194523.php

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The three most important things to know about a piece of real estate, as they say, are location, location and location. That may be true most places, but not in Southern California, where the burning question has to do with water. As in, Where can I get some?

For most of the 20th Century, Southern California’s answer was “steal it.” The Southland’s politicians used every trick imaginable to get their hands on someone else’s water, whether it belonged to folks in the Owens Valley (and Mono Lake), Arizona, Mexico or Northern California. As late as the 1990s, Schemers floated ideas to take water from the Columbia River and British Columbia. California’s water wars made for a great movie (Chinatown), a best-selling book (Cadillac Desert) and an epic Mark Twain line (in California, whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over).

Southern California usually got its water, and just as often the rivers got screwed. In 1979, with the construction of New Melones Reservoir east of Stockton, the dam-building craze finally ended; by then, 660 dams blocked California rivers. In the 1990s, California turned to restoring its rivers. The public approved a $1 billion ballot measure for river restoration, targeted dozens of dams for removal, and demanded that Los Angeles return water to both the Colorado River and Mono Lake, which it now has done.

That would be the end of the story, except for one inconvenient fact: The Southland's population is expected to grow by about 43 percent to about 22.3 million people by 2020.

But before newcomers buy that gleaming new ranchette in Riverside, they might ask: Where’s the water?

The answer is: There is no water.

There is no surplus ready to tap. There is no water that isn’t owned or used by someone, or some living thing.

In fact, officials now predict that California will experience annual shortages of 4 million acre-feet to 6 million acre-feet by 2010 unless steps are taken now to address the declining reliability of the state's water supply system.

Even if there were a surplus, environmentalists say it should remain in rivers, which are showing promising signs of recovery. But the recovery could stall if California’s rivers have to give up more water to the rapidly growing Southland.

With every new subdivision, and every new green lawn, the Southland digs a deeper and deeper hole. It can’t get out by stealing water anymore. But water can be bought. http://www.times.org/archives/2000/draining.htm

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...the results are flat, at best. Salmon and the endangered delta smelt that pass through the delta are in more danger than ever; millions of dollars in crops have collapsed in the Central Valley because of water shortages; levees are old, getting older and could fail after a major earthquake; statewide water rationing for the driest parts of Southern California are inevitable; and interested parties are back in court fighting for their side of the issue.

In other words, all sides of this complicated public policy battle seem to agree on one point: that CalFed, which was created to bring new life and vision to a stale set of issues, has failed at the outset of its 30-year mandate.

Nor were CalFed officials willing to press farmers to change their planting patterns to less water-intensive crops. Farmers in California have been planting corn, cotton and alfalfa (all water-intensive crops) for decades without regard to the logic of growing them "in a hot place where water is scarce". http://www.eenews.net/stories/69000

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Desalination isn't the answer to California's water problem

On Wednesday, the California Coastal Commission may green-light a massive desalination plant in Huntington Beach. If approved, it would be the second operation in the area. The nation’s largest seawater-to-drinking-water facility is under construction in Carlsbad and is expected to begin delivering a potable product in 2016.

Coastal Commission staff have recommended major changes to the proposed Huntington Beach plant to prevent marine life from being sucked up with the seawater. Staff estimate the ocean intake pipe could pull in some 80 million fish larvae, eggs and tiny sea creatures from about 100 miles of the coastline. They want the applicant, Poseidon Resources, to build an intake system under the sea floor that would gently pull water through a layer of sand, filtering out the marine life. Poseidon has said that would be too expensive and would effectively kill the project.

Here’s my recommendation. Shelve the proposal.

Ocean water desalination doesn’t pencil out. It’s far too expensive to produce potable water from seawater — about $2,000 an acre foot, compared to about $1,000 an acre foot for imported water. It requires a tremendous amount of energy to purify saltwater. And there are potentially serious environmental impacts from sucking in millions of gallons of ocean water and pumping the leftover brine back into the ocean.

That’s why Long Beach shelved plans for a desalination project with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. It’s a lot cheaper to conserve water or recycle it.

In fact, Orange County has a model water recycling operation down the road in Fountain Valley, where sewage water is purified in a treatment plant and then pumped to large ponds to percolate into the groundwater supply. This costs about $900 an acre foot and uses one-third the amount of electricity of a desalination plant, according to the Orange County Water District. And it reuses wastewater rather than sticking a straw in the ocean.

Climate change will affect the reliability of California’s water supply. Utilities throughout the state should be thinking about how to use less water imported from Northern California and the Colorado River, and developing “homegrown” water through recycling and conservation. Desalination should be a last resort. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/13/news/la-ol-ocean-water-desalin
ation-20131112

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Marin Housing is a public corporation authorized to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing for low and moderate income people. We are empowered to undertake all activities necessary to accomplish this public purpose, including acquiring property, developing housing, issuing tax-exempt bonds, entering into mortgages, trust indentures, leases, condemning property, borrowing money, accepting grants, and managing property. http://www.marinhousing.org/

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In 1966, a freeway revolt changed the future of Marin County forever, decisively defeating a major east–west route intended to accommodate development and tourism in scenic West Marin. On December 9, an angry crowd of homeowners and nature lovers challenged pro-growth assumptions by decisively rejecting freeways, confronting state engineers, and threatening to recall the county’s supervisors. The event marked a critical turning point in the politics and government of this peninsula just north of San Francisco.

The effort to stop this road galvanized a growth-control movement that came to dominate Marin politics, led by local politicians and planners. A destiny of parkland, agriculture, and permanent open space replaced expectations of rapid residential development in Marin residents’ collective imagination. Transportation policy, critical to protecting this destiny, took on new meaning: limited access became the first barrier against development. By 1971, a new local regime had coalesced, uniting political and economic interests in support of an agenda dominated by growth control, and inscribing Marin’s new future in local policy and planning. http://www.usc.edu/schools/price/keston/institute/documents/LNDRevoltA
gainstSprawl.pdf

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A strategic infill approach that supports affordable housing for members of the workforce at selected mixed-use locations near existing jobs and transit, along with an emphasis on green building and business practices offers Marin communities a way to carry out the four E’s of sustainability (Environment, Economy, Equity and Education) while also preserving agricultural land, open space, sensitive resource areas and existing single family neighborhoods. http://www.marincounty.org/depts/cd/divisions/planning/environmental-r
eview/eir-archived-projects/marin-county-housing-element

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Fresh snow is blanketing the Sierra this week, but not enough to put a big dent in the statewide drought.

State surveying crews, making their monthly trek on skis and snowshoes to high-elevation weather stations, said Thursday that the snowpack is just 24 percent of average for this time of year. That means the mountain runoff that normally fills reservoirs and makes up a third of the state's water supply will amount to little more than a trickle.

Although there's more snow than there was a month ago - when the accumulation was just 12 percent of average and surveyors found bare ground in some spots - it's likely that cities and farms that depend on the Sierra for their water will come up short in the summer.

"It's not a good situation for us," said Steve Ritchie, assistant general manager for water for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which delivers water from the Sierra to 2.6 million Bay Area customers. "We're waiting for the snow to melt and come down and fill our reservoir, but it ain't happening."

Voluntary cutbacks

The district is among several Bay Area agencies that are asking people to reduce their water consumption by 10 percent, while hoping late-season storms will head off the need for mandatory rationing.

Some North Bay communities, which depend on local supplies, and Sacramento have already imposed mandatory cuts.

The wet weather hitting California this week is helping. A system from the Gulf of Alaska dropped a foot of snow in the High Sierra since Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service, and an additional 15 inches is expected this weekend. The incoming storm is expected to drop large amounts of rain over much of the state.

With precipitation at just 42 percent of average in the northern range and 36 percent in the southern mountains, much more is needed. But more may not be on the way. The weather service's Climate Prediction Center is projecting a drier-than-average spring. More at http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/California-drought-Snowpack-grow
s-but-not-enough-5274225.php

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ranchers face a water shortage as well as a lack of feed, with prices skyrocketing for forage, as the drought has killed West Marin's pastures. The situation is so bad that officials should consider saving the grass and weed cuttings from highway median mowing for use as cattle feed... More at http://www.marinij.com/marinnews/ci_25011698/marin-water-chief-water-r
ationingt-april-1

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Seventy-five percent of MMWD's (Marin Municipal Water District) water comes from 21,635 acres of protected watershed on Mt. Tamalpais and in the grassy hills of west Marin. These areas are mostly forested MMWD-owned lands and other undeveloped rural lands. Rainfall from these watershed flows into MMWD's seven reservoirs. http://www.marinwater.org/controller?action=menuclick&id=221

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