Average snowpack could prolong California water conservation

A nearly average spring snowpack in the Sierra Nevada likely will prolong tough water conservation measures in drought-stricken California – although the restrictions could be loosened in some areas after an El Niño storm system drenched the northern half of the state this winter, officials said Wednesday.

“The message is still very strong: Conservation measures are still going to be important,” Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Survey Program, said after he trudged through the snow to manually measure the snowpack at nearly 95 percent of normal.

A year ago, Gov. Jerry Brown stood on the same spot – then a dusty patch of ground with no snow – to announce that the dire drought required residents to cut back water use by 25 percent.

In the Lake McClure watershed, the Ostrander Lake snowpack at an 8,200 feet elevation was 96 percent of average, with about 31 inches of snow. Just below that at Gin Flat, the snowpack was about 72 percent of average. Last year at this time, neither location had any snow.

“All in all, you can see there’s a huge difference this year compared to last year,” said Hicham Eltal, Merced Irrigation District’s deputy general manager for water supply, at a meeting on Tuesday.

The snowpack in California – now in its fifth year of drought – is typically at its deepest on April 1 before the snow melts in the warm months, rushing down streams and rivers into lakes and reservoirs.

The melted snow provides roughly one-third of the water consumed by thirsty cities and farms in the nation’s leading agricultural and most populous state.

Northern California has seen the most rain and snow this winter, lifting its three largest reservoirs to above-normal levels. Southern California, meanwhile, saw relatively little precipitation, leaving most of its reservoirs low and threatening to further deplete dwindling groundwater.

Lake McClure is about 30 percent full, compared with a historical 50 percent average at this time. The Merced Irrigation District’s governing board on Tuesday voted to allocate 275,000 acre-feet of water to farmers for irrigation, essentially bringing the reservoir back down to its lowest level. The MID’s staff made the decision to use all of the surface water from the reservoir in an effort to reduce groundwater pumping.

Californians are under orders to use at least 20 percent less water. To comply, many have let lawns turn brown, flushed toilets less often and taken other measures aimed at saving water.

Merced County cities varied in meeting water restrictions over the summer. Merced, for instance, exceeded its June target by conserving 42 percent. In the same month, Atwater fell short of its target by about 12 percent, and Los Banos came close to its mark, saving 26 percent. Livingston, however, conserved 3 percent compared with its 32 percent target. City officials blamed Foster Farms, which must use water to clean and process chicken.

George Kostyrko of the State Water Resources Control Board said officials will consider the varying rain totals while setting conservation targets in the months ahead.

San Joaquin Valley farmer Shawn Stevenson said the nearly average snowpack provided a bit of encouragement after five tough years forced him to cut his farming operation by nearly half.

“It’s certainly not the kind of news where we can breathe a sigh of relief and think the drought’s over,” Stevenson said. “It’s going to take a number of years to recover.”

Strong El Niño storms in early March led some water districts to question whether a drought emergency still existed and if residents should still be required to live under conservation orders.

Eltal from MID said the McClure watershed did not receive the “miracle March” the district hoped for, but “March was a good month for us.”

Leaders of local water districts say the state needs to save the emergency declaration for the true water emergencies, fearing they will lose credibility with the public the next time drought hits and they are asked to conserve.

Tracy Quinn, a senior policy analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the state should keep some conservation mandates in place in the south and make other measures permanent.

“It’s important to remember we’ve had several years of exceptionally hot and dry weather, and it’s going to be a long road to recovery,” Quinn said. “We don’t know what the next year and several years will bring.”

John Sweigard, general manager at MID, said farmers should consider this water year the new norm: “This is what a typical year might look like in the future.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2016 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Average snowpack could prolong California water conservation."