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The scene at Phillips. DWR photo
It's April 1, meaning the winter is behind us. Barring a real surprise, the snow year is over for California. This morning, Gov. Jerry Brown used the prop of a bare Sierra meadow to announce the first-ever mandatory water use restrictions in California. Where Brown went with the media, at 6,800 feet near Phillips in the Sierra Nevada, the state's snowpack testers found "no snow whatsoever." That's the first time it has happened since guys from the Department of Water Resources first went out with sticks to measure the snowpack at Phillips in 1941. Four years ago today, the snowpack at Phillips was at 124 inches.
The snowpack statewide is estimated at 5 percent of the historical average, obliterating the previous low of 25 percent, set in 1977 and reached against last year.
The quote — "California's meager snowpack has set a terrifying new record low, just 5% of normal" — comes from Slate meteorologist Eric Holthaus. At his presser today in the Sierra, Brown said "We are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of snow. This historic drought demands unprecedented action." He added: "This is the new normal. We will learn how to cope with this.”
This monumentally low amount of water stored by nature in the Sierra Nevada snowpack is the worst news yet in four years of drought in California. Worse yet: This past winter was the warmest in the state’s recorded history, according to the Department of Water Resources, and the temperatures have been warm to hot, and the air dry, across much of the state the past month. So the demand for water is already higher than in a normal year, when spring begins with the streams high and the ground wet.
Here is a summary of Brown's executive order. Read the whole thing.
For the first time in state history, the Governor has directed the State Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions in cities and towns across California to reduce water usage by 25 percent. This savings amounts to approximately 1.5 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months, or nearly as much as is currently in Lake Oroville.
To save more water now, the order will also:-Replace 50 million square feet of lawns throughout the state with drought tolerant landscaping in partnership with local governments;
-Direct the creation of a temporary, statewide consumer rebate program to replace old appliances with more water and energy efficient models;
-Require campuses, golf courses, cemeteries and other large landscapes to make significant cuts in water use; and
-Prohibit new homes and developments from irrigating with potable water unless water-efficient drip irrigation systems are used, and ban watering of ornamental grass on public street medians.The Governor's order calls on local water agencies to adjust their rate structures to implement conservation pricing, recognized as an effective way to realize water reductions and discourage water waste.
Here's some highlights of a briefing by the Department of Water Resources. Read the whole thing.
In what were considered normal precipitation years, the snowpack supplied about 30 percent of California’s water needs as it melts in the spring and summer. The greater the snowpack water content, the greater the likelihood California’s reservoirs will receive ample runoff as the snowpack melts to meet the state’s water demand in the summer and fall…. Little precipitation has fallen in Northern California since early February….
California’s historically wettest winter months have already passed, and the drought is now firmly rooted in its fourth consecutive year.[skip]
The major water supply reservoirs are storing more water this year than last but are still far below the historical average for early March. Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s (SWP) principal reservoir, now holds 51 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity (67 percent of its historical average for the date). Shasta Lake north of Redding and the federal Central Valley Project’s (CVP) largest reservoir, is at 59 percent of its 4.5 million acre-foot capacity (73 percent of its historic average). San Luis Reservoir, which serves both the SWP and CVP, holds much more water than it did one year ago due to recent water deliveries to the reservoir as a component of the agencies’ drought management strategy. San Luis holds 66 percent of its 2 million acre-foot capacity (73 percent of normal for the date).
Holthouse, the media meteorologist, writes today that Brown's new water restrictions let agriculture off too easily.
Brown’s unprecedented actions are surely necessary, and welcome, but they don’t go far enough…Though California’s agriculture industry is also feeling the drought’s pinch—hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland have gone unsown, and thousands of jobs have been lost in the last year—the industry is still mostly getting its way. This year almond farming is using more water than ever—about 11 percent of the statewide supply devoted to agriculture—while lobbying to weaken groundwater legislation.
Though actually, about 400,000 acres of California farmland were left fallow last year and that might double this year.
“More impacts to farms where supplies will be shorted,” predicts [DWR head] Cowin, “more local communities where wells will run dry, and we’ll have to help assist them in some sort of emergency response, and more impacts to fish & wildlife, which is of course, very important.”Groundwater resources will be stressed even more, as water-constrained farmers turn up the pumps to offset cuts in allocations from state and federal water projects.
Though Cowin hastens to add that “the vast majority of our citizens will not run out of water,” some already have, mostly in rural areas where wells have gone dry.
Urban water restrictions are bound to tighten this spring, though it remains unclear by how much. Despite recent intervention by state regulators, it remains largely up to local water districts what conservation measures to take. In a recent statewide poll, 66 percent of respondents said that not enough was being done in their area in response to the drought.
