The lasting impact of recent rains has not yet been determined as California continues to gauge best practices to make use of significant precipitation.
Efforts to capture stormwater have been ramping up and the near-record rainfall this year has brought more urgency to the issue, Richard M. Frank, Professor of Environmental Practice at UC Davis School of Law, told the Northern California Record.
“The recent so-called atmospheric river events in California certainly provided a substantial amount of rain, but the key takeaway is it doesn’t resolve or end the drought,” Frank said. “That’s a long-term problem.”
For that, the state needs to have more water storage. But the $7 billion that California voters approved in 2014 to build storage and improve water quality isn’t yet implemented.
“We are incrementally in a better place than we were,” Frank said. “When we're talking about water storage options in California, we have to look at two things. One is human engineered storage solutions in the form of dams and reservoirs and aqueducts, and then we also have to look at Mother Nature’s form of water storage in the form of groundwater aquifers.”
Pushback from environmental interests has slowed down building more surface storage as the state has sought to develop engineering plans for smaller scale projects. But the longer it goes on, the more water that could be stored instead gets washed away.
“Planning and submitting engineering studies and feasibility studies is a lengthy and detailed process among several deliberative bodies here in California,” Frank said. “So those are all concerns and potential impediments to more surface storage.”
Groundwater supplies have been used extensively for the state’s agriculture; still, it’s estimated the drought caused $1.2 billion in losses to that industry in 2022 alone.
Meanwhile, Frank noted, concerns have heightened about sustainability of the Colorado River. The U.S. Department of the Interior has ordered the seven states in the river basin to reduce their water consumption, but the states haven’t agreed on how to do so.
“Those who feel particularly disadvantaged are likely to pursue litigation, which has the potential for delaying any on the ground reforms and fixes to address this really chronic water shortage in the Colorado River system,” Frank said. “The tougher issue is how the needed cuts in water deliveries to the states is going to be allocated.”
If the states’ proposals aren’t feasible, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation would have to make those decisions.
“The Colorado River crisis is exacerbating the water shortages in California that already existed,” Frank said. “The Colorado River deliveries to California are made to Southern California, the Imperial Irrigation District, and then the metropolitan areas in Los Angeles and in San Diego. So those parts of the state are going to be particularly hit hard with respect to any cuts to the Colorado River delivery system.”