Planning for Dry Times: The West Considers More Reservoirs and Aquifers

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — As parched California receives much needed rain and snow this winter, some local water officials are calling on state leaders to invest in new infrastructure projects that will store freshwater for inevitable dry times to come.

The worst megadrought in 1,200 years is devastating the water supply in the Western United States. It’s drying up the Colorado River basin, a major North American river system, while also depleting reservoirs and underground aquifers and forcing communities to make drastic cuts to their freshwater use.

Western states can no longer rely on snowmelt and rain to supply their communities in a drier, more arid landscape caused by climate change, say water experts.

Environmental groups have called for increased conservation efforts, such as pushing people to limit watering of ornamental lawns and upgrade to more efficient appliances. And they want officials to invest more in wastewater recycling or desalination projects. But some local water officials in California and across the West see a massive opportunity in storing rainwater in new or expanded reservoirs and groundwater aquifers.

“We can’t just keep conserving our way out of this,” said Gary Arant, general manager at Valley Center Municipal Water District, which serves communities throughout San Diego County. “Our supplies are becoming less and less reliable, our population is growing, our economy is growing. We’re at a point where we need to make investments in the statewide water system.”

Arant is one of several dozen local water officials, along with cities and business associations, that are part of the Solve the Water Crisis statewide coalition. The group is calling on California leaders to invest more heavily in water infrastructure and better coordinate the response to the drought, including by creating new ways to store freshwater.

With $8.3 billion in new federal money designated for drought resilience nationwide, as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law Congress passed earlier this year, now is the time to make those investments, Arant argued.

But critics say the water shortage requires other solutions. Needed actions include water recycling, cutbacks, desalination, wetlands restoration and more efficient use, especially by agriculture, said Heather Cooley, director of research at the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based think tank focused on water issues.

“Adding more to storage isn’t really doing much,” Cooley said. “It doesn’t create more water. We’ve really met our limits of traditional supplies.”

In recent years, the drought has meant less snow in the mountains of California. When that snow melts in the spring, it replenishes reservoirs statewide. But snowpack has been unreliable in this three-year drought.

Without snowpack, precipitation instead has come in the form of sporadic and brief periods of heavy rain and atmospheric rivers — regions in the atmosphere that carry water vapor that can drop massive amounts of precipitation. The West’s water systems were not designed to handle such intense downpours, said Andrew Ayres, a research fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank.

But with the right stormwater capture projects, that water not only can be stored in above-ground reservoirs but also injected underground to recharge depleted aquifers, especially in agricultural parts of the state that have over-pumped to meet their needs, he said. Local water officials also can divert rainwater to recharge ponds, where the water will slowly seep underground.

“Our success in managing the really tough dry times is going to start depending more and more on how we manage the wet times,” he said. “Increasingly, we’re going to have to do more deliberate planning, not only for new projects, but effective management of existing projects to get ourselves set up for dry times that are coming in the future.”

Despite recent heavy snows in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, the past three years have been the driest on record in California. As of last week, 85% of the state is still in severe, extreme or exceptional drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, which is operated out of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in partnership with the federal government.

With these ongoing drought conditions, the state cannot rest easy when it gets a brief reprieve of precipitation, said Kimberly Thorner, general manager of the Olivenhain Municipal Water District, which serves parts of San Diego County. The state must act now to invest in its water reserves, she said.

In October, U.S. Interior Department officials allocated $210 million throughout the West for new water infrastructure. This includes three projects in California that would raise dams and create a new reservoir off the Sacramento River that would capture rainwater. That new Sites Reservoir is set to break ground in 2024.

California lawmakers also have earmarked $8 billion in new water infrastructure over the next three years, which includes hundreds of millions for storage projects. The statewide water strategy, which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom released in August, outlines several ways the state could expand storage opportunities through a “streamlined” permitting process.

Thorner, who is also part of the Solve the Water Crisis coalition, applauds these commitments from federal and state officials. However, she said she will continue to press state officials to make historic investments in water infrastructure, including new or raised reservoirs.

“A plan is great, but we need action,” she said. “We need to do something different.”

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