Two years ago, I published a diary on Daily Kos suggesting that California was facing a severe drought. At the time, California water managers pooh-poohed the idea. Today, I am posting a diary suggesting that the return of prodigious rains and snow has eliminated the need for the extreme water measures enacted by the Bureau of Reclamation last week – including a zero allotment to agricultural users.
http://water.weather.gov/
Current water conditions no longer justify such a position. Not only will loss of water devastate the agricultural economy in California at a time when the state’s larger economy is teetering on the brink, but it will also lead to significantly higher food prices nationwide when consumers are least able to afford them. Unfortunately, like two years ago, it seems as though California water managers are the last to know.
Make no mistake about it. In January of this year, the water situation in California was extreme. After a two-year drought and extremely low winter precipitation – the season with most of California’s rainfall – it appeared that water stocks would be a near-record low levels – rivaling the droughts of 1977 and 1991.
http://drought.unl.edu/...
Notice that the heaviest precipitation - up to 20 inches and more, fell in those areas most impacted by the drought.
Now, look at the six largest reservoirs in the Central Valley watershed –
Map by Johnnygunn
Shasta – 4,552,000 acre-feet capacity
Jan 31 Average 3,133,011 af – 01-31-2009 1,416,145 af – 45% Percent of Normal
Feb 28 Average 3,370,379 af – 02-28-2009 1,960,458 af – 58% Percent of Normal
Oroville – 3,537,600 acre-feet capacity
Jan 31 Average 2,383,975 af – 01-31-2009 1,020,262 af – 42% Percent of Normal
Feb 28 Average 2,522,987 af – 02-28-2009 1,360,570 af – 54% Percent of Normal
Trinity – 2,447,700 acre-feet capacity
Jan 31 Average 1,762,671 af – 01-31-2009 981,678 af – 56% Percent of Normal
Feb 28 Average 1,850,773 af – 02-28-2009 1,032,710 af – 56% Percent of Normal
New Melones – 2,420,000 acre-feet capacity
Jan 31 Average 1,391,726 af – 01-31-2009 1,167,778 af – 83% Percent of Normal
Feb 28 Average 1,440,073 af – 02-28-2009 1,207,877 af – 84% Percent of Normal
Don Pedro – 2,030,000 acre-feet capacity
Jan 31 Average 1,384,996 af – 01-31-2009 1,098,972 af – 79% Percent of Normal
Feb 28 Average 1,435,430 af – 02-28-2009 1,199,959 af – 84% Percent of Normal
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
And we’ll add Folsom Reservoir just outside of Sacramento. Folks at the Bureau of Reclamation and California Dept. of Water Resources can bicycle out to see it.
Folsom – 977,000 acre-feet capacity
Jan 31 Average 516,410 af – 01-31-2009 245,599 af – 48% Percent of Normal
Feb 28 Average 553,588 af – 02-28-2009 422,261 af – 76% Percent of Normal
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
And if you want to see the increase in Folsom since January 1st -
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
And Shasta Reservoir - the state's largest -
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
The numbers were terrible in January, but they have made a dramatic recovery in February. The total additions to storage capacity in these six reservoirs alone was more than 1,200,000 acre-feet of water. To understand what that means, this represents more than 10% of total reservoir capacity and 15% of 15-year norms. That's a lot of H2O.
The Mid-Pacific office of the Bureau of Reclamation predicted that California’s major reservoirs would only be at 43% of capacity. (The six reservoirs above plus San Luis which is an off-stream reservoir)
San Luis – 2,039,000 acre-feet capacity
Jan 31 Average 1,625,503 af – 01-31-2009 701,877 af – 43% Percent of Normal
Feb 28 Average 1,758,768 af – 02-28-2009 820,771 af – 47% Percent of Normal
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
Adding San Luis to the above data
Feb 28 Average 12,931,998 af – 02-28-2009 8,004,606 af – 62% Percent of Normal
If BuRec meant percentage of total capacity –
Total Capacity 18,003,300 af – 02-28-2009 8,004,606 af – 44.5% Percent of Capacity
Which is the better measure, percent of normal or percent of capacity? The reservoirs south of Sacramento have rarely reached capacity. Is it appropriate to judge this year's water deficit based upon a rarely used capacity?
Even if one used capacity, BuRec was off by 1.5% - more than a quarter million acre-feet of water. Since these calculations are based on Feb 28th – not March 1 -
(CDEC calculates monthly reservoir averages at end of month – other data at beginning) -
they were probably off by about 2% or 360,000 acre-feet of water.
More than what was in Folsom Reservoir at the beginning of February.
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Then there’s the issue of continuing precipitation. The February rains and snowfall were badly needed; however, much of what fell as rain soaked into the ground reducing runoff into the reservoirs. Fortunately, the February rains were moderate and steady in most places – the best kind of rain to receive after a prolonged drought. But now the ground is saturated north of Sacramento after 3 weeks of rain. Future rain will have much higher runoff rates because of ground saturation.
You can see that in the following graph –
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
The late February storms had much higher inflow rates than early storms. It is reasonable to expect March storms to have runoff rates closer to those of late rather than early February since the ground is and will remain saturated.
Here are some recent inflow rates in cubic-feet per second (03-02-2009 11:00):
Shasta – 60650 cfs
Oroville – 41982 cfs
Trinity – 14051 cfs
New Melones – 3129 cfs
Don Pedro – unavail
Folsom – 8926 cfs
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
To give you an idea of how much this is – 60,000 cubic-feet per second is 120,000 acre-feet per day or almost a million acre-feet in eight days. 8926 cfs is 17,700 acre-feet per day. Six days of such flows would increase Folsom Reservoir by 100,000 acre-feet. Thus, the major reservoirs have had a dramatic increase in water storage during the month of February and are seeing very high runoff well into March.
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But wait! There’s more!
The precipitation that is not coming down as rain is coming down as snowfall in the Sierras and the northern mountains. In feet. The March snow course readings are just coming out and they show that the snowpack has recovered from 62% of normal in February to 76% of normal in March. Many of the readings were conducted before the last major snowfall. It is likely that the snowpack will be normal or greater by April 1.
March 1, 2009 – readings from Feb 23rd through Feb 28th
Percent of March 1 Average – River Basin
TBA – Upper Sacramento River
98% - Pit River
75% - Feather River
77% - Yuba River
88% - American River
85% - Mokelumne River
87% - Stanislaus River
90% - Tuolumne River
84% - Merced River
92% - San Joaquin River
82% - Kings River
92% - Kern River
http://cdec.water.ca.gov/...
Some of these readings did not include the last major February snowstorm. Thus these percentages are underreported compared to actual March 1 readings. In addition, early March storms are already dumping feet of snow on the Sierras with more storms to come.
So the California reservoirs have had dramatic increases in water storage over the month of February. The ground in most of central and northern California is saturated – meaning that a larger percentage of future rain events will be runoff. Current inflow rates at the major reservoirs suggest a rapid replenishment of millions of acre-feet of water. And the forecast calls for yet more rain.
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I just call it as I see it. I favor neither the Bureau of Reclamation nor California agribusiness. Just because state and federal water managers in California missed the proverbial boat in early 2007 and reacted slowly to the onrushing drought doesn’t mean that they should now act with undue caution at the cost of the California agricultural economy.
More importantly, those who take exception to the recent water allocation ruling of the Bureau of Reclamation should not attempt to get this agency to revise its figures upwards – i.e. beg for the 10% maximum offered as a sop. Critics of the recent BuRec allocation should question the validity of a flawed process. A zero allocation is in no way justified by events on the ground. If this ruling is allowed to stand, it is likely that California agriculture will suffer serious damage while the reservoir storage capacity surges. Such a combination of events is intolerable. If such were to happen, then those responsible should be held fully accountable.
So why is there a zero allocation? Why?