Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the San Joaquin Valley Category
Click here to view all posts

NASA report highlights urgent need to retire drainage impaired land

Posted by: Maven on December 16, 2009 at 8:15 am

From Dan Bacher at IndyBay.org, this commentary:

“Alarming new space observations reveal that the aquifers for the Central Valley and the Sierra Nevada have lost nearly enough water combined to fill the Colorado River’s Lake Mead, America’s largest reservoir, since October 2003.

The findings, based on data from the NASA/German Aerospace Center Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace), “reflect California’s extended drought and increased rates of groundwater being pumped for human uses, such as irrigation,” according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

The data was released as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, corporate agribusiness and southern California water interests are pushing for the fast-track construction of a peripheral canal and more dams. The water policy/water bond package passed by Legislature in November will clear the path to the construction of the canal and Temperance Flat and Sites reservoirs.

Combined, California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin drainage basins have shed more than 30 cubic kilometers of water since late 2003, said professor Jay Famiglietti of the University of California, Irvine. A cubic kilometer is about 264.2 billion gallons, enough to fill 400,000 Olympic-size pools. The bulk of the loss occurred in California’s agricultural Central Valley. The Central Valley receives its irrigation from a combination of groundwater pumped from wells and surface water diverted from elsewhere. … “

Read more of Dan Bacher’s commentary by clicking here.

December 16, 2009 · Filed Under San Joaquin Valley

Comments

Leave a Reply