More than a hundred years later the Sacramento Valley’s unique combination of water, land and sun are still the essential ingredients for bountiful life and the amazing biodiversity of our region.
But what about a century from now? With the everchanging climatic conditions growers face it pays to not only be vigilant but to be proactive. For that reason, water resources managers in the region work diligently with landowners to ensure the water supplies delivered to growers is high quality and will support soil health and strong agronomic yields.
In 2021, NCWA and the Sacramento Valley Water Quality Coalition (Coalition) advanced An Accelerated Regional Salinity Management Approach to Protect the Beneficial Uses in the Sacramento River Basin, a regional salinity management approach with a detailed Characterization of Salinity in Surface and Groundwater that will accelerate and focus proven salt management practices in the Sacramento River Basin for beneficial uses under the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Act and the Basin Plan Amendment. This regional approach builds on the culture and strong partnerships in the region with water suppliers, local governments, landowners and conservationists—all working together with state and federal agencies to ensure safe drinking water, healthy aquatic life and reliable water supplies for farms and ranches as described in Ensuring High Quality Water in the Sacramento River Basin for Communities, Ecosystems, and Farms.
As part of this approach, the Coalition committed to the Regional Board that it will provide water resources managers and landowners annual updates on salinity conditions to determine trends and prioritize areas where enhanced management practices would protect agricultural and drinking water beneficial uses. This annual forum also provides an opportunity for water districts and companies to highlight and share any local salinity conditions they are seeing. At the annual forum this week Daniel Cozad, Executive Director of the Central Valley Salinity Coalition, provided water managers an overview of the Regional Board’s Basin Plan Amendment for Salinity Management, including the elements of the first phase of the Priority and Optimization Study.
Additionally, Aaron King of Luhdorff-Scalmanini Consulting Engineers detailed the results of groundwater quality monitoring results conducted by the Sacramento Valley Water Quality Coalition (Coalition) as part of the Groundwater Quality Trend Monitoring element of the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program (ILRP) and other (USGS, DWR, DPR, SWRCB) wells in both the upper and lower zones. As the results show almost every well sampled since 2000 continue to meet drinking water and agriculture water quality objects in the upper Sacramento Valley and the east side of the valley, with some signs of higher salinity on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, coming from the natural geology in the Coast Range and near the Delta.
The Coalition and water resources managers are closely watching trends of decreasing water quality as shown in these graphs and will explore the best options to address salinity in these areas to ensure farming and high-quality drinking water.
If you have any questions or other observations that will help the Coalition, please share them with me at info@norcalwater.org.
