SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — Caught in one of the driest two-year stretches in state history and with long-range weather forecasts coming up mostly empty, the key players battling California’s drought have plenty to be concerned about.
Whether it’s plunging reservoir levels, crumbling canals, empty wells or salmon die-offs, the water woes that have plagued the state for decades have returned forcefully during the pandemic.
Droughts come and go routinely in the Golden State, including the last which stretched from 2012 to 2016, but long-term solutions rarely seem to follow. Once the atmospheric rivers finally return to mercifully fill up Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville, the thirst for change evaporates. Politicians turn their attention elsewhere, funding streams go dry and blueprints are tabled.
But one thing is glaringly different this time around: California’s coffers are overflowing, creating an opportunity for the nation’s most populous state to renovate and prep its outdated water systems for climate change.
“Now, we’re lucky, we have money all of a sudden in the state of California,” said Celeste Cantu, chair of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board. “We have the ability to really address a 21st century challenge.”
Vanishing snowpack
Last winter wasn’t exceedingly dry across the main watersheds in the northern part of the state where most of the rain and snow falls, but what followed in the spring shocked the federal and state agencies that jointly manage most of California’s water supply.
Heading into the spring, California’s snowpack was an estimated 60%-70% of average — not great, but not enough to cause alarm. In a typical year that amount of snow in the Sierra Nevada would have slowly melted in the spring and at least partially replenished the state’s critical reservoirs.
But scorching temperatures in April and May dissolved the snowpack at an incredible rate, rendering 100 years of data on snowmelt useless. Instead of reaching streams and riverbeds, the precious runoff soaked into the dry mountain soils or evaporated. By June 1, the statewide snowpack was completely gone.
The very disastrous scenario scientists warned would become more common with climate change came to fruition as only 20% of the snowpack was captured. The meager runoff and scheduled water deliveries to farmers dropped reservoir levels to record lows, causing Governor Gavin Newsom to declare a statewide drought emergency as the state plunged into the summer.
With global temperatures continuing to rise, what happened this past spring in Northern California will almost certainly occur more frequently. Officials are now publicly sounding the alarm that California’s water system simply can’t keep up.
“We got pretty smoked,” admitted Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.
In the pipeline
Nemeth is one of the many people striving to advance Newsom’s grand vision for California’s water future. She and an assortment of water managers, farmers and environmentalists discussed infrastructure and policy changes this week during a Public Policy Institute of California forum.
While the state’s so-called “Water Resilience Portfolio” contains over a hundred ideas, including big-ticket items like new dams and tunnels, Nemeth said a variety of improvements are already underway.
To improve forecasting abilities and make state data more accessible to local agencies, the state is working with the Scripps Institute and others on technology updates. In addition, Nemeth said California will debut its own drought monitor by the end of the year that’s intended to give water managers more accurate, instant information.
“It’s going to be an important new tool in communicating with the public around the role of drought in our lives,” Nemeth said.
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