CALIFORNIA, USA — Is California wasting its water? The state had a historic winter and the ABC10 Weather Team is investigating where the water is going and if we're wasting it. In Part Three, Meteorologist Carley Gomez takes a closer look at groundwater.
It's been a struggle farming with no water. Daniel Bays, like thousands of other farmers, has had to deal with drought.
"I would say the stress is probably the hardest part. Part of it being in the office looking at the numbers, part of it just being out in the field with our employees and the other people that depend on this for a job, but a lot of them enjoy what they do and take some pride and ownership in growing a crop and feeding the world," said Bays.
The situation of drought isn't new. In fact, the Central Valley Project began in 1933 during the Dust Bowl to deliver water from Northern California to the valley by way of canals.
As decades go on, the seriousness of drought has increased, leaving farmers to look for alternative ways to save water.
About 400 miles of California's valley is home to more than 500 underground water basins and communities are hit hard when there's not enough water underground.
“We’ve drilled new wells to replace old wells and find more water," said Bays.
But overpumping in California has led to big problems and has never been regulated until recently.
"If more groundwater is pumped than is replenished, there could be something that's called subsidence where the land aqua surface will actually sink, and so there are areas in California that has occurred," said Steven Springhorn with the Department of Water Resources.
Once the ground sinks, there's no going back to fill it up.
In 2014, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) was formed, giving local water agencies about 10 years to make plans and find solutions to conserving water.
“They have to develop long-term plans or how they're going to look at the numbers. First of all, what's the nature of their problem? Are they in overdraft? Or are they in balance? If they're not in balance? What's their solution," said Ellen Hanak.
She works with farmers and water managers in the San Joaquin Valley to assess the extent of the water problem.
"What we find is that, in a worst-case scenario, agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley could be losing about 20% of the water that it now uses for irrigation in a typical year. That's a really important input for agriculture," said Hanak.
Since SGMA, many are calling out the state for their lack of effort, especially in the most recent dry stretch.
"It's a failure of leadership. The Democratic supermajority and the governor have failed to make investments in water infrastructure and what's more, we passed a bond 10 years ago, almost 10 years ago now in 2014. Not one piece of infrastructure has been built yet," said Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City).
Although no major reservoirs or infrastructures have been built, the state says they've been working on awarding millions in grant money for drought projects and resiliency. The Woodland-Davis Clean Water Agency is one example.
"The city of Woodland had originally been on groundwater for about 100 years. We switched to Sacramento River surface water in June 2016 and as part of that project the city embarked on an aquifer storage and recovery program," said Tim Busch with the agency.
Woodland-Davis has been ahead of its time in starting ASR wells. They used low-interest loans from the state water resources control board and more recently applied for a state grant for a fourth water well.
"The aquifer storage and recovery program is a really good way to kind of balance winter supply with summer demand," said Busch.
Also known as ASR wells, the system of pumps and pipes funnel water from a clean water source like the Sacramento River. A small amount of chlorine is added and then the water is stored underground.
"We started injecting water for the first time in 2018, so we're now in our fifth year of water injection. [The] combined capacity of the wells is about 4.5 million gallons per day injecting water into the aquifer," said Busch.
With the abundance of winter rain and flowing rivers, they stored more than 450 million gallons of water by the end of March.
"The aquifer layer that we are using is 500 feet down, 50-foot thick layer. At every wall site we have in the city, both native drawn water walls and even farmer walls outside of us... that layer exists kind of everywhere around here," said Busch.
The big question is if there's that much aquifer storage, why isn't the state doing more to store excess water underground? The answer is fairly technical but with more research scientists are beginning to see a clearer picture.
"AEM is the airborne electromagnetic surveys that we're conducting across California. Think of it as MRI for the subsurface, so it's a way that a helicopter carries a large hoop about 100 feet off the ground and it flies about 60 mph. Along certain lines are transects and it sends electrical information into the ground, which bounces off different layers below the ground surface," said Springhorn.
The technology is finding where sands and gravels are in comparison to clays and silts. Water is easily able to seep deep underground where sand lies, but a buffer is created with clay.
Springhorn says finding the clay and sand layers is critical to knowing where the state can keep groundwater.
There's even more help on the way, too. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says it's been working on a mission to help assess soils and topography underground.
"What we really get from satellite information is the ability to see the big picture. So contextually, we can kind of tie the whole story together and we can say it's not just this farm, or this that's changing... it's the entire southern portion of the Central Valley," said scientist JT Reager.
Reager works with the joint operation between NASA and India on synthetic aperture radar (NISAR). The mission will launch a satellite into orbit next year, feeding back data on the Earth's crust, depths, ice sheets and ecosystems.
"For vegetation and ecosystems, NISAR should be able to monitor changes in fragile ecosystems around the planet and how they might be changing due to various stresses, like human development and population growth," said Reager.
Stanford geophysicist Rosemary Knight has spent 30 years working on groundwater management in California.
"I think there's a real opportunity here to help the water agencies now work with this data and see how this data can help them improve and inform their planning," said Knight.
Knight and her colleagues out of UC Davis are working alongside the Department of Water Resources. What they've found is something out of the Ice Age.
"They drew an area on a map and said, 'One of these incised valley-filled deposits, one of these ends of the last glacial period Paleo valleys has to be here.' We took the airborne EM system and flew back and forth to see if we could find it with the airborne EM system, and we could. It was right there in the data," she said.
The old Paleo rivers were formed when glaciers during the last glacial period started melting quickly. Moving at a high rate of speed, the water carved pathways from the mountains to the valley moving large amounts of rock and granite material.
"It's like a fast path where if we can connect with it at one location, we can actually move water down deeper within the groundwater system of the valley," said Knight.
"We're going to be expecting more intense droughts, more intense floods and a quicker transition from one to the next," said Springhorn. "So this managed groundwater recharge is really important."
While progress for storing the excess water may be held up through water rights, ecosystem concerns and legislation, Hanak says the time to act is now.
"Our goal is really to try to bring the best information and analysis to the public, to decision-makers. That — in this case — includes growers and local water managers, local communities, and folks in the valley that are really going to be on the front lines of addressing these challenges," said Hanak.
As for third-generation farmer Daniel Bays? His hope is his kids may have the option to continue farming in California.
"My hope would be that if this is where they want to live and they want to continue farming that's an option for them. That it's feasible and there's a long lifetime ahead of them where they can do that and pass that on to the next generation if that pleases them," he said.
Watch Part Two: Water Wasted | How does California store its water supply?
