Industry Trends for California Water & Ag | 03.05.21 |
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KTLA 5, 03/02/21
California will likely face a critically dry year with much less runoff from the Sierra Nevada snowpack than normal and reservoirs that already are showing the impact of winter precipitation that is well below average, state water authorities said Tuesday.
The state Department of Water Resources’ latest survey from a network of electronic stations found that the water content of the overall snowpack was 61% of the historical March 2 average and 54% of the average on April 1, when it is historically at its maximum.
Surveys of the Sierra snowpack, which normally supplies about 30% of California’s water, are a key element of the department’s water supply forecast. December, January and February are typically the wettest part of the so-called “water year,” which starts on Oct. 1 each year.
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BBC News, 03/03/21
This year is likely to be critically dry for California. Winter storms that dumped heavy snow and rain across the state are not expected to be substantial enough to counterbalance dry conditions. Lake Oroville plays a key role in California’s complex water delivery system. This 65km-square body of water north of Sacramento is the second-largest reservoir in California. It is crucial to the state’s complex water delivery system.
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Nevada Public Radio, 02/22/21
Dry conditions are the worst they’ve been in almost 20 years across the Colorado River watershed, which acts as the drinking and irrigation water supply for 40 million people in the American Southwest. As the latest round of federal forecasts for the river’s flow shows, it’s plausible, maybe even likely, that the situation could get much worse this year. Understanding and explaining the depth of the dryness is up to climate scientists throughout the basin. We called several of them and asked for discrete numbers that capture the current state of the Colorado River basin.
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Washington Post, 03/03/21
The year 2020 is going to be remembered for a lot of things, many of them not so good. Included in the not-so-good list is the drought that has plagued the West, lasting into 2021. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which has published weekly maps since 2000, the 2020 drought is the worst, in terms of its geographical scope, in more than 20 years. Almost 80 percent of the Western U.S. is in drought, with nearly 42 percent of the region in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought. Much of the region experienced developing drought in the summer, following a warm and dry spring. Since then, conditions have deteriorated, and the precipitation deficits continue to build.
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Spectrum News 1, 03/04/21
Talking about drought conditions in California has become commonplace, but did you know there are several types of drought?
The drought you hear discussed on T.V. is meteorological drought — which is based on rainfall deficit and the length of the deficit — but drought also affects water resource management, farmers, and even everyday people like you and me.
The four types of drought are:
- Meteorological Drought
- Hydrological Drought
- Agricultural Drought
- Socioeconomic Drought
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The Los Angeles Times, 03/03/21
Efficiency is not a newfangled concept, as you probably know if you’ve ever purchased an Energy Star-certified dishwasher or asked about the gas mileage of a car. Across the United States, per-person energy use has fallen since the 1970s even as overall demand has risen, according to the Energy Information Administration. …But there’s plenty more energy to be saved. And as often as I write about the importance of building clean power infrastructure to fight climate change, the cheapest, easiest way to reduce emissions is to use less energy in the first place. And in Los Angeles, at least, one of the cheapest, easiest ways to use less energy is to use less water.
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CA Public Radio, 02/03/21
Northern California was walloped at the end of January by the winter’s first big storm, which poured heavy rain and loads of snow across the region. That was great for the snowpack in the Sierra, which supplies around a third of California’s water needs.
The most recent survey showed the snowpack is 70% of normal for this time of year statewide, a big increase from the 52% a month ago.
But that storm was not nearly enough to get the state out of drought trouble, according to Sean de Guzman with the California Department of Water Resources.
“It looks like we're just going to continue to be chasing average conditions for the foreseeable future,” explained de Guzman, DWR’s Chief of Snow Surveys and Water Supply Forecasting.
For California to avoid another prolonged drought, the state needs more storms in order to build the snowpack and increase the groundwater supply. While It could be months before the state sees the condition of the snowpack, others in the state are actively working to strengthen the groundwater basins.
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INFASTRUCTURE / CONVEYANCE |
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CNN, 03/04/21
The scorecard -- which the society has released every four years since 1998 -- is the first time the nation's infrastructure has scored outside the D range in 20 years, the group said.
Despite the upgrade, society Executive Director Tom Smith contends this year's ranking still misses the mark.
"While that is an incremental, small improvement, it still is not something to write home about. It's certainly not a grade that you'd be proud of," Smith told CNN.
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Public Policy Institute of California, 03/01/21
California’s rivers, wetlands, and other freshwater ecosystems are in poor health. Water management practices, pollution, habitat change, invasive species, and a changing climate have all taken a toll, leaving many native species in dire straits. And the current approach for managing freshwater ecosystems is not working.
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Times of San Diego, 02/25/21
The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors Thursday announced a plan to distribute a rebate of $44.4 million to its 24 member agencies across the region.
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GV Wire, 03/01/21
Agricultural water service contractors south of the Delta were allocated 5% of their contract supply by the Bureau of Reclamation. Central Valley lawmakers think the state needs to do better.
“It’s not enough. It’s just not enough,” says state Senator Anna Caballero, D-Salinas. “We know we need more.”
“It’s not enough. It’s just not enough.”–Senator Anna Caballero, D-Salinas
The Westlands Water District responded to the Bureau of Reclamation’s announcement last week.
“A 5% allocation, although better than zero, will result in a human and economic disaster for families on the westside of the Valley and could result in major strains for the nation’s food supply,” said General Manager Tom Birmingham in a statement.
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The Guardian, 02/27/20
For the first time in history, the state is regulating the groundwater that fuels its massive agriculture industry. Now the smallest farms face the biggest threat.
Nikiko Masumoto began her farming career in the summer of 2011, just as California was entering its worst drought in recorded history.
Masumoto is the fourth generation of her family to farm this land in Del Rey: 80 organic acres of stone fruit in eastern Fresno county in California’s fertile Central Valley, its most perfect peaches bound for the epicurean Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley.
For four years in a row, the farm survived only on the water it could draw from underground. And as the drought persisted, the perfect peaches grew less perfect – smaller, malnourished. The farm lowered its wells and pumped more so Masumoto could keep the trees alive.
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Cronkite News, 02/23/21
Climate change and extreme weather events are forecast to further reduce water supplies in the American Southwest, and a new futures market could allow water users to recoup losses if the price of water spikes. The futures market is the first of its kind, allowing investors and farmers alike to bet on how much water in California will cost on a future date.
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Hemp Industry Daily, 03/01/21
The nation’s state agriculture departments have joined the call for raising the THC limit in hemp from 0.3% to a full 1%.
But the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture did not say in its policy statement how states propose making that change.
The platform was adopted Thursday during the group’s winter meeting.
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Earth Institute Blog, Columbia University, 03/04/21
“To be poor means that you are living in environments that you don’t control,” said Donna Givens Davidson, president and CEO of Eastside Community Network in Detroit, and a new faculty member in the Earth Institute’s Master of Science in Sustainability Management program. “And it means that people who have more power and money have a way of using those environments for dumping, using those environments for waste. And then, because you don’t have political capital, you don’t even have the means to say, ‘Let’s create buffers and protect ourselves.’”
The recent winter storm and subsequent blackouts and water issues in Texas left over four million homes without power and running water. Not surprisingly, low-income and communities of color were hardest hit. When a crisis hits, people in marginalized communities with substandard and neglected infrastructure do not have the money to buy a generator or check into a hotel; they suffer the worst impacts of natural disasters and climate change. The Texas crisis is just the latest example of environmental injustice.
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