Climate change to make California water storage harder: Fleck's water news, March 16, 2016

John Fleck's water news

Climate change is likely to make California's water storage problems more difficult as some winter snow shifts to rain and spring runoff comes earlier, according to a new study by the US Bureau of Reclamation: "Increased earlier seasonal runoff cause(s) reservoirs to fill earlier, leading to the release of excess runoff and limiting overall storage capability for water supply and Delta exports." (Big pdf here.) This is an unsurprising result, but in a year in which Californians are already arguing about how much water they capture for later use and how much they release to the ocean, this highlights a critical issue facing the state in the future.

Water news

Could there be a more California water story than celebrity drought shaming? It's not clear to me how Amy Poehler's water use fits into the big picture of California's problems, but hating on the palm tree bedecked rich and famous seems like great sport.
Meanwhile in the here-and-now, California's big reservoirs are filling for the first time in five years.
OK, maybe Southern California's Metropolitan Water District buying a bunch of land in Northern California - in the Sacramento Delta no less - maybe that's a more California water story? Displeased Northern Californians? Check.
Meanwhile on the Yampa in the Upper Colorado River Basin is something that gets less attention that celebrity water wasters but may be worth more - the 197-acre Carpenter Ranch, where a fallowing effort is leaving water in the river.
Good Sunday piece by Ian James of the Desert Sun about defeat Paso Robles vote on the creation of a new groundwater management entity is a reminder that developing these new governance thingies California is trying to build is going to be hard. (If you've not been following it, Ian's groundwater coverage is must read.)

From the wonks

People were calling the big desalination plant in Melbourne, Australia, built during the "big dry" and then mothballed, a boondoggle. Stephen Gray argues that as drought returns, it is proving its worth.
Alastair Bland at Water Deeply takes a deep dive into what might be needed to come up with more liquidity in California water markets. (Sorry about the pun. I'm well below my quota for the year.)

Stuff I wrote

I'm fascinated by the critical linkages between the Colorado River Basin and watersheds outside it that depend on interbasin transfers. We've built a super-watershed of interlocking, polycentric water and institutional arrangements. The South Platte in Colorado is one example.
Albuquerque's on track for a historically dry February-March (though after I wrote that this morning, the new European model runs suggested maybe a storm track headed our way next week - happy to be wrong!)
And on a personal note, I hit "send" on the copy edited version of my book's manuscript Monday. One more milestone down, a book you can hold in your hands (and, more importantly, buy!) now looks like a thing that will be real in September.

My blog: jfleck at inkstain

Picture of the week: I do love this river. Colorado River, Black Canyon, 2016, by John Fleck