The Official Drought Thread

[falafel]

What's the word on California reservoirs after the last few weeks of storms? I remember seeing lots of depressing photos from boaters in California showing their local lakes down 20-30 feet this summer.

[Joe Public]

What's the word on California reservoirs after the last few weeks of storms? I remember seeing lots of depressing photos from boaters in California showing their local lakes down 20-30 feet this summer.

Still low . . .

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/res...phsMain.action

[PaloAltoCougar]

Still low . . .

http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/res...phsMain.action

It'll be interesting to watch those graphs change over the next couple of days. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the reservoirs start approaching their historical average very quickly. There's going to be a lot of runoff from the current deluge.

[bluegoose]

What's the word on California reservoirs after the last few weeks of storms? I remember seeing lots of depressing photos from boaters in California showing their local lakes down 20-30 feet this summer.

Our lakes up north are way more than 20-30 feet down this year. Shasta is still about 80 feet below last year, which was also quite a bit below normal.

We are getting dumped on this week, and the lakes are filling up more than a foot a day. but it is a pretty warm storm and the snow levels are way too high right now. Something like 8,000 feet. Supposed to drop to below 5,000 by tonight, but by then most of the storm will have moved.

[smokymountainrain]

Our lakes up north are way more than 20-30 feet down this year. Shasta is still about 80 feet below last year, which was also quite a bit below normal.

[bluegoose]

We had a little pineapple express blow through California the last few days. The rain really only lasted about a day and a half, but it was a pretty steady rain for most of that time.

Redding picked up about 3.5 inches of rain, with some of the surrounding foothills picking up 8 inches. Shasta Lake, which is still well below normal, rose 18 feet over the last 3 days.

Snow levels are still pretty high, as it looks like the snow in the mountains right around town is right around 5500 feet.

[cowboy]

This is an interesting article about the cessation and destruction of water infrastructure in California. Here is the opening paragraph:

In mid-December, the first large storms in three years drenched California. No one knows whether the rain and snow will continue—only that it must last for weeks if a record three-year drought, both natural and man-made, is to end. In the 1970s, coastal elites squelched California’s near-century-long commitment to building dams, reservoirs, and canals, even as the Golden State’s population ballooned. Court-ordered drainage of man-made lakes, meant to restore fish to the 1,100-square-mile Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, partly caused central California’s reservoir water to dry up. Not content with preventing construction of new water infrastructure, environmentalists reverse-engineered existing projects to divert precious water away from agriculture, privileging the needs of fish over the needs of people. Then they alleged that global warming, not their own foolish policies, had caused the current crisis.

I did some feasibility work for the state of Montana on some reservoir refurbishment projects about ten years ago, and the state water engineer told me at the time that reservoirs are important, but that flood irrigation and dirt canals and ditches were the cheapest source of water storage there is. In our valley, this seems true, as the leakage from the ditches and subbing from flood irrigation regenerates our aquifers and keeps what used to be just seasonal streams running all year. That theory is the reason that pivot sprinkler irrigation was not promoted by the state on the Yellowstone drainage, because their models showed that the Yellowstone river would dry up in August on dry years if everyone used sprinklers to irrigate. JL is the expert on this, but that is what I've understood, and this is an interesting article regardless.

[Jeff Lebowski]

This is an interesting article about the cessation and destruction of water infrastructure in California. Here is the opening paragraph:



I did some feasibility work for the state of Montana on some reservoir refurbishment projects about ten years ago, and the state water engineer told me at the time that reservoirs are important, but that flood irrigation and dirt canals and ditches were the cheapest source of water storage there is. In our valley, this seems true, as the leakage from the ditches and subbing from flood irrigation regenerates our aquifers and keeps what used to be just seasonal streams running all year. That theory is the reason that pivot sprinkler irrigation was not promoted by the state on the Yellowstone drainage, because their models showed that the Yellowstone river would dry up in August on dry years if everyone used sprinklers to irrigate. JL is the expert on this, but that is what I've understood, and this is an interesting article regardless.

I don't have time this morning to give the article a thorough analysis. However, I have a couple of comments on your post. Your discussion of sprinkler irrigation may be true. There is a valley in Idaho that switched to sprinklers from flood irrigation years ago and all of the springs at the downstream end of the valley dried up, causing major problems for the Idaho trout farms that were located there. Turned into a really interesting water rights battle.

Building new reservoirs is extremely difficult and has all kinds of secondary impacts. For that reason it is becoming increasingly common to use "aquifer storage and recovery". Basically, you take your excess runoff in the spring (or whenever) and inject it into the ground for later extraction. Cheap and effective.

[hostile]

I don't have time this morning to give the article a thorough analysis. However, I have a couple of comments on your post. Your discussion of sprinkler irrigation may be true. There is a valley in Idaho that switched to sprinklers from flood irrigation years ago and all of the springs at the downstream end of the valley dried up, causing major problems for the Idaho trout farms that were located there. Turned into a really interesting water rights battle.

Building new reservoirs is extremely difficult and has all kinds of secondary impacts. For that reason it is becoming increasingly common to use "aquifer storage and recovery". Basically, you take your excess runoff in the spring (or whenever) and inject it into the ground for later extraction. Cheap and effective.

Sounds like what my younger brother does. He works in LA county as a civil engineer focusing on water storage and delivery. As Mark Twain said (allegedly), "whisky is for drinking. water is worth fighting over."

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Did you guys know that there's just as much water on the Earth today just as there was 6,000 years ago when there were dinosaurs?

The more you know.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Warm temps are nice, but the Western US is in serious trouble:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...-say.html?pg=1

Utah in bad shape, and California even worse. Highly unlikely that we will be saved by some storms. Also:

In January, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and NASA released a study that found that globally, 2014 was the hottest year since record keeping began in the late 19th century.

[Mormon Red Death]

What is stopping a big desalinazation from being built? I why aren't their plants line this one http://www.mercurynews.com/science/c...t-goes-up-near
Going up all over?

[Jeff Lebowski]

What is stopping a big desalinazation from being built? I why aren't their plants line this one http://www.mercurynews.com/science/c...t-goes-up-near
Going up all over?

I take it that you didn't read the article?

[Shaka]

Warm temps are nice, but the Western US is in serious trouble:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/8...-say.html?pg=1

Utah in bad shape, and California even worse. Highly unlikely that we will be saved by some storms. Also:

Yes this sucks. I may have to budget extra money for prop repair.

[Mormon Red Death]

I take it that you didn't read the article?

Yeah not before I posted it. .. Wah wah