Discovery Ramblings - June 18, 2021
Discovery Ramblings - June 18, 2021
Randy Hooper - Discovery Organics
Ramblings will be short and sweet for the next while – it’s transplanting time at my little farm and every hour counts.
And while this chapter is all about water – we can’t ignore the fact that this spring (April / May) was one of the driest on record here in BC as well. Except for the glorious downpours last week that gave me over 50 mm of rain on the weekend and over 100 mm from Monday morning to Tuesday night. The seasonal creek at the north of our property has usually stopped flowing in May but was roaring for a few days this week.
And a few weeks ago I promised I would quit talking about climate etc. but I just can’t help myself today.
The drought in California, fueled by not only record low rainfalls but, for June, insanely high temperatures and record low humidity, simply goes from bad to worse.
There are new water restrictions announced in the last couple of weeks that will likely impact areas that grow onions in the Bakersfield area, and the industry already talking about shortages next April and May.
Here is a sad note from a grower just a few days ago:
Good Morning,
The excessive heat has impacted all the melons with the exception of the OG MIni's. We have very heavy vine cover on the Mini's and so far they are making it through. Temperatures are running up to 120 degrees this week. It caused us to lose our Cantaloupes and Honeydews.
We still have load volume of Mini 8's and 9's.
What WE watch for, in the produce world, as we study the weather daily, is which farms are going to be affected by heat – because severe heat causes heat stress on plants, which can either destroy them, or destroy their shelf life.
Like, for example, there is no broccoli coming out of the southern deserts. And here’s the forecast for Sue Heger in El Centro today: And as I snipped this off the chart, the current temp is 49C, which I believe is friggin’ hot!
As opposed to Salinas / Watsonville (Coke Farm, Martinez berries etc) – perfect growing weather:
California warns farmers about water cutoffs as hot, dry summer looms
The seriousness of California’s drought is being driven home to thousands of farmers in the Central Valley, with new restrictions being implemented this week as a hot and dry summer looms.
State regulators warned 6,600 farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed on Tuesday that they’re about to lose the right to pull water from the estuary’s rivers at some point this summer, The Sacramento Bee reports. The watershed covers a major swath of the Central Valley.
The written warnings from the State Water Resources Control Board don’t require the growers to stop taking water right away — but they serve as a likely precursor to the severing of water rights in the coming weeks.
“This is how dry things are,” water board Chairman Joaquin Esquivel was quoted as saying. “The hydrology that we’re seeing is not there .... There will not be enough natural flow.”
Most farmers who rely on the two big government water-conveyance systems, the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project, have already been told they’ll get little to no water this year. Now the state water board is warning those growers with direct, legal water rights that they are likely to get cut off.
It’s not clear when their water rights would be curtailed, and some farmers will get cut off earlier than others, depending on where they rank in California’s convoluted water rights system, the publication reports.
Most of the farmers receiving the “notices of water unavailability” hold so-called junior rights and would be first in line to get curtailed, possibly in a matter of weeks. But farmers with more senior rights also were warned of the likelihood that they might lose water this summer.
The restrictions come amid reports that California's reservoirs are shrinking quickly as a drought grips the western United States. Dangerously hot temperatures across the U.S. southwest are set to continue to climb this week, reaching higher than 120F (49C) in some areas.
Reservoirs should be full this time of year as the sun melts snowpack from a wet winter, according to ABC News. But this past year was the third driest on record in terms of precipitation.
California's reservoirs are about 50% lower than they should be, and it's only expected to get worse as the summer drags on.
According to state data, not a single reservoir in the state is meeting its historical average, as of June 14. In the region, reservoirs like Don Pedro, Folsom, New Melones, and Lake Oroville are all below the historical average.
And Reuters reported last week that the reservoir created by Hoover Dam, an engineering marvel that symbolized the American ascendance of the 20th Century, has sunk to its lowest level ever.
Lake Mead, formed in the 1930s from the damming of the Colorado River at the Nevada-Arizona border about 30 miles (50 km) east of Las Vegas, is the largest reservoir in the United States. It is crucial to the water supply of 25 million people including in the cities of Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson and Las Vegas.
Lake Mead shown below – note the traditional high water line!
We will be polling growers affected by this and potential water shortages in the desert growing regions where our winter vegetables come from to get some take on what that season will look like – normal or not?
Norma Galeana reported this on Reuters newswire.
"Consumers should be worried about garlic and onions and other crops, because come this time next year, they're going to be very scarce and the cost is going to be higher," he said.
‘Mega-heat wave’ is peaking in the West, breaking records and intensifying drought, fires
One of the most extreme heat waves ever observed in the western United States this early in the season is near its climax. The punishing blast of heat, which began Sunday, has set hundreds of records while simultaneously worsening a historically severe drought, intensifying fires and degrading air quality.
Forecast highs Thursday in Southwest U.S. from the National Weather Service. Boxed temperatures would be record highs. (WeatherBell)
About 40 million Americans have endured triple-digit heat and more than 50 million have been under excessive-heat warnings this week.
After focusing in the northern and central Rockies earlier in the week, the core of the heat has shifted into the Desert Southwest and California’s Central Valley, where scores of additional records are predicted to fall through Saturday.
This isn’t just about agriculture – this is water that supplies tens of millions of homes across Nevada and California. We have no idea, as a civilization, how the world’s sixth largest economy (California) and adjacent Nevada will deal with having no water for 25 million homes, much less the farms that feed them.
And finally this article from CNN yesterday:
The shocking numbers behind the Lake Mead drought crisis
The United States' largest reservoir is draining rapidly. Plagued by extreme, climate change-fueled drought and increasing demand for water, Lake Mead on Wednesday registered its lowest level on record since the reservoir was filled in the 1930s.
Lake Mead, a Colorado River reservoir just east of Las Vegas on the Nevada-Arizona border, is poised to become the focal point of one of the country's most significant climate crises: water shortages in the West. Millions of people will be affected in the coming years and decades by the Colorado River shortage alone, researchers say, with some being forced to make painful water cuts.
It's not a threat on the horizon; new projections show the first-ever water shortage along the Colorado River is all but certain to be declared later this year.
"Even without climate change, we would have a problem because we're taking more water out than the river could provide," John Fleck, director of the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico, told CNN. "But climate change has made the problem much worse by substantially reducing the flow in the river."
Lake Mead is around 143 feet below 'full,' a deficit roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty
The water in Lake Mead on Wednesday reached a new low — 1070.6 feet above sea level — since it was filled in the 1930's, according to data provided by the US Bureau of Reclamation. More precisely, every day for the past eight days has been a record as rapid evaporation and human use siphon water from the reservoir.
The lake has fallen around 143 feet below its 2000 level, when it was last considered full. What's left is a "bathtub ring" of white minerals as tall as Lady Liberty along the lake's steep shoreline.
As water drains from Lake Mead, a "bathtub ring" of minerals is left on the shore, showing its decline. The height of the ring in June was roughly the size of the Statue of Liberty without its base.
About a century ago, representatives from seven U.S. states — Nevada, California, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico — struck a deal to divvy up the Colorado River. Hydrologists warned that officials were promising more water than the river could give, according to Fleck. But in an era driven by power and politics, their warnings were largely ignored and plans moved forward.
25,000,000 people rely on Lake Mead water
That's more than the population of Florida.
Snaking its way through the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California, the flows of the Colorado River are dwindling due to climate change-driven heat and drought.
Among the hardest hit in the first round of water cuts will be agricultural communities, particularly those in central Arizona. With less water, farmers say they will be forced to fallow land.
This area of dry, cracked earth used to be underwater near where the marina was once located in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
Native American communities are also impacted, Fleck said: "A number of tribal communities across the Colorado River Basin have been promised some water that they don't have yet."
The last time Lake Mead was considered full was 2000
Twenty one years ago Lake Mead peaked at an elevation of 1,214 feet. The highest recorded level was in 1983 when it was 1,225 feet above sea level.
Experts say it may never be full again. Lake Mead is now at 36 percent capacity — a number that will continue to fall as the reservoir's rapid decline continues to outpace projections from just a few months earlier. Water levels are projected to drop another 20 feet by 2022.
"This [rapid decline] scares me," said Fleck. "It's dropping so fast that it may be overreaching our ability to cope with the problems. I did not anticipate the bottom to drop this quickly, and we're only talking about Lake Mead."
Lake Mead has lost 5.5 trillion gallons of water since then
That is more than 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools lost every day for nearly 22 years.
When Fleck visited Lake Mead 10 years ago it was 13 feet higher than the current level. Even then, he recalled being terrified by the rapid water loss.
He visited every year since then and has seen the physical changes around Lake Mead firsthand. The "bathtub ring" is a visible reminder of where the water levels once peaked.
The lake loses around 6 feet of water to evaporation each year
And climate change is making that worse.
As temperatures warm, the snowmelt that supplies the river decreases and more water evaporates, especially during extreme heat waves like the West is experiencing this week.
Six feet of water is an average loss of 300 billion gallons per year on top of the water withdrawn for human use and power generation. About 40 percent of the annual evaporation occurs in June, July and August — enough to supply water to 75,000 Las Vegas Valley homes for 12 months.
Excessive heat waves can easily account for more than 10 billion gallons of evaporated water this week alone. That's enough water to fill 15,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Hoover Dam power generation is down 25 percent due to low water levels
The Hoover Dam, which forms the Lake Mead reservoir, produces about 2,000 megawatts of hydropower — enough electricity for nearly 8 million Americans.
The Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s to create Lake Mead. The dam's generators provide power for public and private utilities in Nevada, Arizona, and California.
But with less water flowing through Hoover Dam, its capacity has been closer to 1,500 megawatts in recent weeks, a drop of roughly 25 percent.
The decline affects several states, including California, Arizona, and Nevada, all of which get their energy from the Hoover Dam.
If the lake loses another 175 feet, water will no longer flow through the Hoover Dam
Experts say the "dead pool" level is at 895 feet, at which point water no longer passes through the Hoover Dam, thus cutting it off for everyone downstream.
"What we need to do is recognize the science behind this reality and that this does not get better," Fleck said. "We're all going to have to deal with less and collaborate on a new set of numbers that reflects the reality of the science today."
90 percent of Las Vegas's water comes from Lake Mead
Las Vegas has been preparing for the worst-case scenario for years. The city draws water from two underwater intake structures near the western shore of the lake. But they are becoming unusable as the water level drops beneath them.
Pipes from an abandoned water intake tower are shown at Lake Mead on June 12, 2021.
In 2015, the city built another intake, also known as the "third straw," as a last-ditch effort to keep Lake Mead's water flowing. The more than $800 million structure is essentially a three-mile long tunnel that would suck water directly from the bottom of Lake Mead.
"There's a risk when [water managers] cling to the hope of a big snowpack bailing us out," Fleck said. "We need to recognize that there's going to be less water to work with."