Water levels dip

It should come as no surprise to many that California, Butte County included, is experiencing a pretty serious drought. To look at precipitation charts comparing the 2013-14 “water year” (Nov. 1-Oct. 31) with previous years, it’s darn close to the driest on record. That has resulted in lower than normal groundwater, which in turn affects the wells that Chico and other Butte County communities rely on for water.

“We’re certainly seeing unprecedented dry conditions,” said Christina Buck, water resources scientist for Butte County’s Department of Water and Resource Conservation. “The 2013 calendar year was the driest on record in parts of the state.”

Buck presented her findings at a meeting Monday (May 19) of the Butte County Drought Task Force. Among them: Well and reservoir levels are low. As we head into the dry irrigation season, they will only get lower. In addition, Sacramento River runoff is expected to be the fourth lowest on record, with water levels at just 34 percent of normal.

One of the measurements Buck pointed to in studying well levels is the “depth to water,” meaning the distance between the ground level and the water in the well. In some areas of the county, such as Richvale, Biggs and Llano Seco, that depth to water hovers between 2 and 10 feet and is within 1 1/2 feet from where it was a year ago. Other places, like the Chico urban area, Durham/Dayton and Vina, are showing bigger variances. Chico, for instance, has an average depth to water of 90 feet, 9.1 feet below last year. Durham/Dayton is at 69 feet, 7.2 feet below 2013, and Vina’s average is 59 feet, 6.3 feet below last year.

“Water levels typically reach their highest point in spring and then, at the beginning of irrigation season, people turn on their pumps and water levels decline throughout the summer,” Buck explained by phone. “Water levels in wells give us an indication of how things change over time.

“In Chico, the change is bigger than what we have seen around here in the recent past,” she continued. “But compared to other places in California, it’s small. Some parts of the Central Valley … are seeing changes in the area of negative 50 or 100 feet. So, hey, it’s not that drastic, we’re not falling out the bottom, but it is a bigger change than what we’ve seen recently.”

Additionally, communities in the foothills are at a greater risk of losing access to their well water during a drought.

“There are small water systems in jeopardy of losing supplies, particularly those in fractured-rock areas,” said Kristen McKillop, program development manager at Butte County’s Environmental Health Department. She pointed to two mobile-home parks, one in Berry Creek and the other in Butte Creek, that lost access to water last year and had to truck in bottled water for a time.

“The most vulnerable areas always are the foothill and mountain areas,” Buck confirmed.

Not everything is doom and gloom, however. Relatively speaking, Butte County is sitting pretty this drought year. A few good rains in early spring were enough to raise the water levels in Lake Oroville sufficiently to ensure we get all the water we’re used to getting for things like our homes, businesses and farms. And that was reason enough for the Drought Task Force to opt against recommending the Board of Supervisors to declare a drought emergency.

“Generally speaking, we only want to declare an emergency when there’s really an emergency,” said Sang Kim, deputy county administrator. “We’ve been prudent. If we cry wolf, we won’t be taken seriously in the future.”

The rest of the room agreed, based mostly on the fact that Butte County’s water disbursements from the Department of Water Resources, previously expected to be less than usual because of the abnormally dry winter, were approved in April at 100 percent. Buck explained that because local water districts were in existence before the creation of Oroville Dam, their agreement is that as long as the Lake Oroville water level reaches a certain threshold—which it did this year only after the late spring storms—Butte County will receive 100 percent of its allotment. If it had not reached that threshold, she added, that percentage could have gone down to as low as 50 percent.

Still, it’s all relative.

“Most of the Central Valley, down to L.A.—municipal and agricultural districts south of delta—are looking at 5 percent allocation,” Buck said. “They’re essentially out of luck this irrigation season.”

As of May 11, Lake Oroville was 52 percent full (that’s 63 percent of its normal level) which is about average for most of the reservoirs in California. The exceptions are Castaic and Pyramid lakes in Southern California, which are at 72 percent and 92 percent of capacity, respectively.

“Southern California is actually sitting in a better position than a lot of the rest of the state,” Buck told the room full of mostly county personnel. “They’ve done a great job of conservation.”

Buck said many communities in the southern part of the state have taken it upon themselves over the past 20 years to conserve water and even build additional storage to avoid future problems.

“They realized their vulnerability in the ’90s drought, that, ‘A huge chunk of our water comes from Northern California, and if there’s another drought we’re in huge trouble,’” she said. “They diversified their water-supply portfolio, and now they’re sitting in much better position than they were in then. It’s better for the whole state, too.”

Butte County, while it’s not in dire straits now, should be looking at similar conservation measures. “Even though Chico is not in a crisis situation water-supply-wise, it’s still really important to use water wisely,” she said. “The rainy season is pretty much over and we’re anticipating a long, hot, dry summer. We’re moving into fire season and that’s a big concern.”