Blog

A recent story in the Los Angeles Times deserves repeating. Although the fourth consecutive dry year in California is serious and needs attention, there is no need for panic and we should all guard against over-reaction.
As the story provides: “The crisis has led many to wonder whether the state has lost its historic resilience. But the drama hides reality and for those who have studied California’s long relationship with its water, the drought is serious but hardly a disaster.”

On May 29, the Natomas Mutual Water Company (Natomas) hosted a dedication ceremony for the Pritchard Lake Pumping Plant Replacement that is part of the company’s American Basin Fish Screen and Habitat Improvement Project. A fish screen is designed to allow the diversion of water while protecting salmon and other fish as they migrate in the river. This is the latest fish screen project to be completed, adding to the passage improvement effort for salmon that has been occurring in the Sacramento Valley for more than two decades (see earlier blog on this program). Water diverted by Natomas serves the farmland north of Sacramento, as well as the Natomas Basin Conservancy, which provides important wetlands habitat for birds, giant garter snakes and other animals.

Water supplies in the Sacramento Valley have been reduced more than 25 percent in every part of the Sacramento Valley this year—with many areas having their surface supplies reduced 100 percent. Importantly, these cutbacks will have a negative impact on all the water uses in the region, including cities and rural communities, farms, fish, birds and recreation.

For more than a decade the Sacramento Valley Water Quality Coalition (Coalition) has brought together farmers, ranchers, wetlands managers, conservation organizations, water resources managers, resource conservation districts and Agricultural Commissioners to implement a “Regional Plan for Action” that focuses on improving surface water quality…