Kamyar Guivetchi said the Department of Water Resources' Flood Managed Aquifer Recharge program is looking at strategies to capture, move and store water during infrequent periods of excess rainfall.
After decades of over pumping groundwater, California faces declining water tables and stark choices ahead – a future so challenging that a collective “moonshot” effort is needed to preserve water supplies and viable agriculture in many parts of the state.
That message was the theme among experts participating in a panel at the Almond Board’s The Almond Conference 2019 focused on the state’s landmark 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, or SGMA. SGMA requires many areas to balance supply and demand for groundwater, leaving local regions scrambling to develop plans to ration pumping while figuring out how to return more water to aquifers during times of plentiful rain.
Jesse Roseman, principal analyst for Environmental and Regulatory Affairs at the Almond Board of California (ABC), led the panel. Roseman said ABC is conducting research, education and outreach to help almond growers understand their opportunities for shoring up water supplies through efforts like recharging aquifers.
“We’re looking very closely at how we can do recharge in a way that doesn’t harm our trees,” he said. “We’ve got an optimistic goal. The Public Policy Institute of California said that in the San Joaquin Valley we can recharge up to 500,000 acre feet of water per year, addressing about a quarter of the overdraft. So, let’s work together to make that happen.”
Kamyar Guivetchi of the Department of Water Resources said an unprecedented level of collaboration is needed to capture, move and store water during infrequent periods of excess rainfall. This will require cooperation at the local, regional and state level, including the public and private sector, Guivetchi said. DWR’s Flood Managed Aquifer Recharge program, or Flood-MAR, is looking at strategies ranging from re-operating reservoirs, increasing storage and creative efforts to increase water transfers and banking and innovative methods of cultivating crops.
Perhaps most important, he said, is building conveyance infrastructure to carry water during the rare times when it is in oversupply, and identifying ahead of time the best places to send it in hopes of storing it underground.
“Everyone has a part to play in advancing Flood-MAR,” Guivetchi said. “This is a moonshot for California. Getting all these water sectors and agencies to work together is going to take work, but it really is something we need to do.”
Several panelists emphasized that when surplus water becomes available, it often comes in huge amounts over very short periods, sometimes with little warning. But getting ready for those sporadic events can take years of diligent planning, effort and investment.
“The flood flows come fast and they come hard and you need to capture them fast and spread them around,” said Don Cameron, vice president and general manager of Terra Nova Ranch southwest of Fresno.
Terra Nova has made tremendous progress in preparing for and implementing recharge, but it hasn’t been easy, Cameron said. He pointed to a $5 million grant the ranch received toward building a pipeline, canal and recharge project that will cost upwards of $12 million when finished.
“This takes patience,” he said. “We started in 2012 and we are not going to finish until 2020.”
But Cameron and other farmers on the panel said the efforts are not only worth it but essential to the future survival of many farms.
Matt Efird, a fifth-generation farmer, advised growers to be ready to cooperate with their irrigation districts, make capital investments in their operations so they can take extra water when it is available, learn which of their soils are right for on-farm recharge and be prepared to adjust their other orchard management practices as needed to accommodate recharge events.
“We’ve got to do what we can to keep that water from going to the ocean,” Efird said.
