Category: Water Conservation

March 3, 2010

DWR Announces Third Snow Survey Results Of 2009-2010 Winter Season

SACRAMENTO – Manual and electronic readings today indicate that water content in California’s mountain snowpack is 107 percent of normal for the date. This time last year, snow water content statewide was 80 percent of normal. “Today’s readings boost our hope that we will be able to increase the State Water Project allocation by this spring to deliver more water to our cities and farms,” said Department of Water Resources (DWR) Director Mark Cowin. “But we must remember that even a wet winter will not fully offset three consecutive dry years or pumping restrictions to protect Delta fish so we must continue to conserve and protect our water resources.”Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s principal storage reservoir, is recovering slowly after three dry years. Despite recent storms, its storage level today is only 55 percent average for this time of year. It is also expected that dry soil conditions will absorb much of the snowpack’s water content that otherwise would help to replenish streams and reservoirs during the spring and early summer melt.

On February 26, the State Water Project allocation was increased from 5 to 15 percent of requested amounts. If wet weather continues, the final allocation this spring likely will be in the range of 35-45 percent of requested amounts. The figure will partially be determined by how the fishery agency restrictions on pumping are applied, which will determine how much flexibility DWR has to export water from the Delta.

In 2009, the State Water Project delivered 40 percent of customer requests. The federal Central Valley Project in 2009 was only able to deliver 10 percent of contracted amounts to some agricultural areas in the San Joaquin Valley. The reduced deliveries were due both to dry weather and fishery agency pumping  restrictions to protect fish species; principally Delta smelt, salmon, and longfin smelt.

The average of final State Water Project allocations over the past 10 years has been 68 percent of the amount requested by the 29 public agencies with long-term contracts to purchase SWP water.

Results of today’s manual snow survey by the Department of Water resources off Highway 50 near Echo Summit are as follows:
Location        Elevation        Snow Depth     Water Content  % of Long Term Average
Alpha                   7,600 feet      74.3 inches      26.2 inches        94
Phillips Station      6,800 feet      76.3 inches      25.1 inches        102
Lyons Creek          6,700 feet      79.4 inches      26.9 inches        105
Tamarack Flat       6,500 feet      77.8 inches      26.2 inches        112

Electronic sensor readings show northern Sierra snow water equivalents at 126 percent of normal for the date, central Sierra at 93 percent, and southern Sierra  at 109 percent. The sensor readings are posted at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgiprogs/snow/DLYSWEQ.

Importance of Snow Surveying
Snow water content is important in determining water supply. The measurements   help hydrologists prepare water supply forecasts as well as provide others, such as hydroelectric power companies and the recreation industry, with needed data. Monitoring is coordinated by the Department of Water Resources as part of the multi-agency California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program. Surveyors from  more than 50 agencies and utilities visit hundreds of snow measurement courses in California’s mountains to gauge the amount of water in the snowpack.

The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Contact the DWR Public Affairs Office for more information about DWR’s water activities.

I have been a proponent of water conservation for 25 years and am more active than ever in promoting the proper use of irrigation in our community.  I have found that most people are conscious of the need to be conservative water users, but there really is no incentive for many others not to save water.  In these cases, stricter restrictions may be necessary.  However, those of us that have been saving water for years, should not be penalized for not being able to save more than is reasonable.  The City of Los Angeles is proposing a law that would require us to save more water when it is raining than nature itself can.

Los Angeles may require storm water recapture beginning in 2011, but the proposed law may have gone to the extreme.

The fairly new approach to managing storm water and urban runoff is designed to mitigate the negative effects of urbanization by controlling runoff at its source, which is parking lots, rooftops, driveways and streets, with small, cost-effective natural systems instead of treatment facilities. These “natural” systems would be rain gardens for small parcels and holding ponds for larger areas.  But  “larger” areas that have no land for holding ponds will have to install not so natural underground holding and or dispersement systems.  And these systems are not small or cost effective.

The proposed law would require new homes, larger developments and some redevelopments in Los Angeles to capture and reuse runoff generated in rainstorms. Reducing this runoff improves water quality and recharges groundwater, which is a great thing.

The proposed ordinance approved in January by the Department of Public Works could go into effect by 2011 and would require such projects to capture, reuse or infiltrate 100 percent of runoff generated in a 3/4 -inch rainstorm or to pay a storm water pollution mitigation fee that would help fund off-site, low-impact public developments.

With a project I am consulting on right now, the developer will be installing a system sized to his water needs.  100% of the water necessary to irrigate his landscape during the dry season will be captured and held for use from the rainfall captured over the course of the entire winter season.  It is not realistically possible, either physically or financially to catch more than this on the available land, nor is there a reason to do so.

I do not understand how we should be forced to capture the 3/4 inch rainfall amount to be mitigated if it is more than nature itself can save.  Runoff in our local foothills can occur with as little as 1/4 inch of rain. And what do you do if you have a 3/4 inch rain event followed closely by a second event?  It is unreasonable to have to trap 1-1 1/2 inches of water under ground until it can infiltrate into the ground or be used.

LA Board of Public Works Commissioner Paula Daniels, who drafted the ordinance last July, said the new requirements would prevent 104 million gallons of polluted urban runoff from ending up in the ocean. Under the ordinance, builders would be required to use rainwater storage tanks, permeable pavement, infiltration swales or curb bump-outs to manage the water where it falls. Builders unable to manage 100 percent of a project’s runoff on site would be required to pay a penalty of $13 a gallon of runoff not handled there—a requirement the Building Industry Assn. has been fighting.

Some building projects, such as those in downtown L.A. or areas where the soil is high in clay, would have difficulty with the 100 percent retention rule and that the $13-a-gallon mitigation fee is too high. A one-acre building on ground where runoff could not be managed on site, Schroeder said, could pay a fee as high as $238,000.

Realistically, storing water for our use during the dry season, installing rain gardens to hold water so that it can infiltrate into the ground naturally and being conservative with the use of our water is what we should be doing now.  Being penalized for mother nature raining ¾ inch at a time is unrealistic.