Editorial: Uttering the 'D' word?
Dry January brings on worries of drought
Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, January 25, 2007
In California, the rainy season is over whenever Mother Nature says it is over. Sometimes that is May. Sometimes that is, for all practical purposes, December. Who knows what coming weeks will bring? for the moment the weather is bone dry, although there's a chance of rain at the end of the week. State Department of Water Resources chief Lester Snow says he plans to convene some drought planning meetings, just in case the wet storms in the Pacific continue to miss the state.
It has been many years since the state suffered a major drought. The real test may not be this year but next, if both were to prove dry.
California has a remarkably interconnected system that allows water to move among hundreds of water districts, thanks to dams and canals and the nation's two largest pumping plants (both in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta). But pain in a drought isn't spread evenly. Shortages are already appearing in some of the weakest links in the system.
In Tuolumne County, for example, the Lyons water supply reservoir is at its lowest in 15 years. To keep water flowing to customers, the local water district is relying on Pacific Gas and Electric to spill water from Pinecrest, a reservoir higher in the Sierra. This is a drought scenario. And it's only January.
Farmers throughout the Central Valley are nervously wondering how much water they will get from those Delta pumps that feed the big state and federal water projects. The state is now estimating to deliver half of full supplies. If the lack of rain continues, it is conceivable that this estimate could shrink.
