I was happy to see it too. Decades ago, for a university course in rhetoric, not even in the state of California, I wrote a senior thesis on groundwater management in Southern California. I loved digging around in libraries, and in the course of my completely enjoyable research I uncovered, among other prizes, a set of reports on that very subject from the RAND think tank in Santa Monica, as well as a quote from John Wesley Powell in a very early issue of National Geographic Magazine stressing the importance of wise development of water resources in the arid southwest. My rhetoric professor was, of course, a non-scientist, but he absolutely LOVED how, with thorough and creative research, I turned an analysis of utilizing, conserving, and recharging ground water resources into a multi-disciplinary social study, with a framework of geology and hydrology holding it together. Should I have pursued the topic into a career? Nah -- then it would have become WORK!
As a landscaper, whenever we get jobs where we have to divert water from the gutter from the house and away from the foundation, we try to keep that water on the property instead of making it flow into the street. We would make “dry creek beds” or depressions in the landscape where water can percolate into the soil rather than run off and be wasted into the storm drains. Every little bit helps!
In Germany you now need to have a way to seep rain water into the ground. Letting it run into the street would be illegal and connecting it to the sewers too. This law is for new homes as many old houses still dump their rain water into the sewers. A sponge city is the new concept of rain water management.
When I converted my California front lawn to plants that don't need irrigation, I added a swale to hold rain water from my and my neighbor's roofs and slowly percolate into the ground. A rough calculation of roof area and the inches of rain my city receives indicates that I'm recharging 2x the amount I use. Note that I only use about 10 gallons a day.
What I find fascinating are the low tech methods of permaculture being used to build the Great Green Wall in Africa and many other examples around the world to store water in ground. Slowing down the runoff, allowing the ground and plant life time to absorb the water is not only storage, it also makes forests resistant to wildfires. In Arizona there are stones zig zagging creeks and streams called check dams to slow the water. Beavers can also be valuable partners in creating water storage and fire resistant wetlands.
@@agodelianshock9422 This is true. I still think some swales, check dams and retention ponds would work well in pastures though and provide some drinking water for herds.
They actually do that here in Southern California where the 605 frwy and 210 frwy meet up especially during Atmospheric Rains they let water run and fill these basins up that run along the San Gabriel river happens year round also even in the summer I've seen.
The reason the focus on reservoirs instead of replenishing aquifers was because how our water laws were written. In the past reservoir water could be charged for. Ground water was considered a property right to the land. Like just pump it up, it's yours right? Will not really. That underground water is connected to all the other water. You pump water on your land and you dry up someone else's water. Of course no incentive to pump water back into the aquifer since someone else will simply pump it out. Finally this has been realized and water is now somewhat being treated as a public resource that needs to managed. Of course some big guys are resistant but the cat is out of the bag now and logic is now forcing the issue. Most likely more law changes will be needed but it appears that CA is on it's way to using it's vast underground water storage ability to deal with droughts and floods.
@@RICDirector problem with reservoirs that have good permeability is the dams that hold these reservoirs have a tendency to fail. This happened with the St Francis dam that Mohan built in Ventura county California. This little oops killed like 3000 people. So far I have not heard of any ground water injection wells killing anyone. Yes it is not as simple as make it. The water injected needs to be filtered and not contaminated. Takes some infrastructure to do this. Still because of the vast quantities of water that can be stored it is worth the investment. Like enough water could be stored for a 20 to 30 year drought which have historically occured in California as well as floods greater than what we have recently experienced.
@@RICDirector and yet no one talks about plugging the hole with big AG using 70% of California water..but lets talk about how much water we dont have...plug the leak first people stop growing unsustainable crops....but its about the money..and I am a 5h generation farming family member..I do know something
And Orange County. Not much of the Santa Ana River, which drains the San Bernardino Mountains, reaches the ocean. Can't imagine many counties have not been doing this. Glad to see advancement continuing. It'll take massive tech to corral the Sierra runoff.
Hasnt been done as much in agriculture until more recently. I remember seeing uc davis do a pilot project where some fields were partially flooded to recharge groundwater. The issue is finding which crops can tolerate a standing water and which cant
@@-fred It could be they brought this out in the news as many people keep on criticizing the fact the water still flows out to the ocean. Which has to happen for rivers to flow and to maintain the Delta.
You can’t compare LA to Northern California, LA border line desert, the Sacramento/ Northern California is California water support forest, grass lands and tons of lakes, not to mention the mountains, for the longest lakes and reservoirs is all we needed. If Northern Cali cut off water support to So Cal than we wouldn’t be needing to take these measures.
The best news I have head in a very long time and I’m from Connecticut where you don’t have a water problem. We still must conserve water the best we can.
California has millions of miles of agricultural drainage ditches and cannels. Why not fill them all to the brim during the rainy seasons instead of letting that water go back out into the ocean?
I like how the media always shows homes as water users..when residents and businesses in California and in most of the west use only 7% of the water, and AG uses 70% growing water thirsty crops that are unsustainable over time as we have seen, and the state does nothing to limit the types of crops grown, plug the leak first, before worrying about storage, but its all about $$ we will never have enough water for AG, we dont have a shortage of water we have mis management...
Don't forget about these Morons that think Desal plants are the solution. Homeowners would be paying a premium for that water while Ag would just add extra acreage for that "new water" desal plants would create.
That's a skewed way of looking at water usage... Who is consuming those products from the farms? No one? Maybe those people in the houses? Food production in this culture is misunderstood and abused by many people.
l like how you snivel about everything and blame gummint at the drop of a hat... If you have a better idea or improvement, by all means, bring it forward to be implemented.
My compliments to Richard Sharp for an important and informative news segment. I learned quite a bit about ground water recharge in California... that illustration with the bucket and the trash bins was inspired. Also I didn't know about that helicopter borne soil permeability radar... cool! .
Guess they can't do that in parts of the central valley where farmers have over pumped the aquifers so much that the land has sunk, some areas as much as 20 feet, over the years.
Thank you! I live in the Central Valley. The water is being stored under their land so now they own the water. They plant crops that literally have to sit in flooded fields while the smaller towns surrounding the area dry out. The reason why they plant so water intensive crops is because they have an abundance of water.
Um, the state has been withholding water from the central valley farmers, causing drought conditions trying to force them out. You heard the report, there is plenty of water!
@@jaminova_1969 There's plenty of water... NOW. There hasn't been plenty of water for the past few decades. You have a very tiny fraction of the population using up a vast majority of water, then yeah those people (farmers) are going to end up getting cut off first.
@@Mike__B Yes. We had a good start this season. We didn't run the reservoirs down last year after the rainy season finally ended. That huge amount of snow made a tremendous difference.
The Department of Defense pretty much controls all of the farming industry out in California. Sad what they did to all the smaller farmers that were not good enough to be invited into the Department of Defense Gang. Also, with the earth’s temperatures rising, we are going to see more precipitation in California. The days of Droughts for California may be coming to an end soon. The state needs to work on its management of storm runoff. People in California often forget that 30 days or more of continuous light rain causes massive landslides, debris flows, properties sinking and so on. It might be a good idea to put this groundwater recharging on the back burner and just letting the Aquifer fill up naturally the percolation method filters the water, That way we can make sure the ground water doesn’t get contaminated by pumping dirty water straight into the aquifers.The truth is there’s plenty of groundwater all over the state to supply Southern California water needs.
All California Cities & Counties should learn from ORANGE COUNTY! They pioneer under ground storage & have been able to store huge amount of water for the use of county & preventing water shortage during drought season!
CA doing a lot, money pouring in, no pun intended California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) unanimously approved direct potable reuse (DPR) regulations. Wastewater treated to meet the new DPR regulations can be served directly to customers without a temporal, spatial, or mixing buffer. Now California has the most comprehensive water reuse regulations in the nation and, on paper, regulations that protect public health while providing the public, agriculture, and industry with a reliable source of water.
💐 This water conservation is intelligent conduct and has positive impacts on the California environment and future water resources for thousands of people of California, this is good thinking ! Thank you for not wasting highly valuable water resources ! Thanks again 😊
What an interesting story and it is great to see that there are smart, creative individuals working for the people of California. It is amazing the solutions we can have for serious problems when we use scientific tools, research and engineering to address issues.
It's about frickin time, I moved to another state 3 years ago, and a few years before I moved, California had much flooding, so much so, a dam in northern California cracked and had to be fixed. They had to let mega tons of water out into the ocean. I thought, we have more drought seasons than too much water, why on earth, would this water go to waste. So glad some parts of California has now erected a plan to save much needed water. 👍👍
I think Orange County CA where I live has been doing this for years, both by using the Santa Ana River bed as a very long settling pond and by pumping water into the aquifer. California is routinely bashed in the comment sections of many water related videos. The basic idea of the bashing is that California isn't doing enough to stop water from flowing into the ocean. Most of those comments ignore the fact that California has one of the most sophisticated water storage and distribution systems in the world. And that most of California's water is used for agriculture which takes place mostly in what is a desert. They also ignore the increased use of water storage in the aquifers and the recent introduction of using flood waters to flood orchards which helps recharge the ground water under them.
Just build dozens of diversionary reservoirs alongside rivers to hold floodwaters that would otherwise (a) create millions of dollars of damage to downstream communities and (b) be pissed out into the ocean. Build dozens of mini-Sites Reservoirs alongside some of California’s biggest rivers. Create thousands of jobs. Use the stored water for (a) groundwater replenishment, (b) source for helicopters to pull water for wildfires, (c) extra water for agriculture during low water seasons, (d) bottom-release cold water back into the rivers during summertime to maintain flows for steelhead and salmon, (e) wildlife habitat, and (f) recreational opportunities for tax-paying citizens and tourists.
Direct injection into clean aquifers is a BAD idea. All it takes is some minor amount of chemical, bacteria, etc. and you can ruin an aquifer. It is best practice to let the water percolate through the upper strata to get naturally filtered and cleaned on the way to the aquifer. Geology and Hydrogeology 101.
Awesome story the question I have is is it UV treated to kill bacteria and such? Wouldn't want bacteria coming up in people's wells after we recharged the aquifers with water that has surface bacteria in it making people sick.
What happens when you keep injecting and taking out groundwater in huge quantities from these layers? Wouldn't the layers underneath us weaken over time?
Great idea to pump water back underground but what are you going to use to clean the water with hopefully not no chemicals you need to put the water into the ground with no chemicals in it purifier clean it so there's no dirt or water best if you would distill the water and put it in that way with no chemicals for anything that way then it will not mess up the aquifer with chemicals there is already chemicals and everything else that is good from nature
How do you keep the fresh water your pumping into the aquifer from becoming contaminated from the old Aerojet facility and the old Union rail yard downtown
Thank a Democrat during a drought. They spent billions on a fast train no one wants!!! Did you know? California spent millions on a desalination plant but never completed it!!!
San Diego gets 10% of its water from DeSal and more plants are going online soon. The California Department of Drinking Water (DDW) issued its approval for the Carlsbad Desalination Project to produce drinking water prior to the plant coming online December 2015.
Yes. They've been there but the we didn't really hear much about the replenishing of the underground aquifers last year. There was a bit of news about how some water was diverted to let it soak into the ground. But the example the news showed in this news clip wasn't done before.
Excellent beginning to the awareness that Mother Nature has a billion ways of interconnectedness to sustain life... Let us become part of that solution... It's called 'Permaculture', and is gathering momentum every year... Farmers are intimately connected to the Earth. Urban city dwellers, not so much. So this is for them.
some of that is from oil and gas extraction and the diverting of water. The Army Corps of Engineers is working on all three dams upstream of Tulare County.
Here’s what Should be built massive aquifers linked east and west coasts! Able to move millions of gallons of water across this nation. The aquifers would store trillions of gallons of water. Help control flooding and provide drinking water nationwide. Help create thriving forests nationwide!
SoCal has underground storage with more capacity than Shasta Lake called Bunker Hill Basin, nearly 6 million-acre feet of capacity. A recent funding is working to make that storage more useable.
Uhhhh. Yes... So? Humans have shit on Mother nature since the dawn of civilization... Long past time to wake up and get with the program to become a partner, and not an enemy.
It’s not different. Orange County and Santa Clara county have had infiltration systems for decades. I grew up swimming in percolation ponds in Campbell
“Now looking at the whole water picture”…why weren’t they already. Other places have been doing this for yrs. You can recharge an aquifer in other ways. Oh wait the dude that’s been studying for 42 yrs is getting paid with grants/tax money. Just another feel good propaganda piece.
thats what needs to be done California is learning from Idaho and Nebraska on how to stop water properly. There are two ways you do this 1. Injection well take all your city water flush out the bad stuff and reverse the pumps the water will flow into the aquafer and it will be fresh the next time you use it. 2. is Groundwater Drainage Basins send all the water into a field over the aquafer get it wet and plant grain on top. The water goes into the soil and the plants use the rest and it is always fresh and recharged. What not to do send it into an alfalfa field that will draw all the water out and the ground will be parched, send it to the sea everything will be wasted, and the biggest no no not to do is send it to Salton if that water goes to Salton you are wasting water and creating red tide Salton Sea is a terminal sea which means it is a cesspool don't send your water there send it underground.
Treated water is sewer water , For those who don't know where you city sewer water goes , it goes through the sewer plant , get strained , then sterilized, and then put back into canals and rivers. No thanks , that just plain gross.
I thought it had to go down stream. Just as nature let's it, so we must too. There's something called the rock cycle and hydrological cycle that we may mess up.
IF YOU WANT TO DO THIS ON A LOCAL LEVEL, BUILD ONE 2 ACRE POND FOR EVERY 20 ACRES OF LAND YOU OWN. THAT 2 ACRE 15 FOOT DEEP POND CAN IRRIGATE YOUR FIELDS FOR A YEAR. WHEN YOU GET EXCESS WATER IT WILL SEEP INTO THE GROUND, AND REFILL THE GROUND WATER
2024, years of understanding CA weather water & now DUH; how do we capture rain water🤣😝🤪😜🫵🏼😂🤣😝🤪😝😜🤪😝🤣😂🫵🏼⁉️⁉️no wonder our country’s failing w have remedial people running things
This is a far more worthwhile effort to pursue than desalination or "toilet-to-tap" technology. The latter two are FAR too expensive and they rely on captive rate-payers to make them pencil out. The former raises costs as well, but not as much. Australia built a billion dollar desal plant that sat idle for seven years. Taxpayers paid through the nose for something that wasn't even needed initially! California has MORE THAN ENOUGH water. We have a water USE problem. We encourage CA agriculture, which uses 80% of CA's developed water, through subsidized water rates so they can grow water-intensive crops for profit. 10 gallons per walnut and they're sold abroad. See the flooding of fields throughout the hot, dry, summer CA months and you realize there's no shortage. Much of Californians flush their toilets, water their lawns, wash their cars and fill their swimming pools with pristine Sierra snow melt. Excellent, top-notch drinking water to flush down the toilet? Makes little sense. And what about decentralized rainwater capture programs? Ever notice how NO ONE in the media reports on this? Why? THERE'S NO MONEY TO BE MADE! When you put water (& public) policy in the hands of profit motive, you get questionable results. Why on earth can't Californian households each capture a few thousand gallons of rainwater each winter to use in the summer? Because there are no big corporations to profit from never-ending monthly water bills, that's why! Just misuse and caving in to moneyed interests. Farmers LOVE to complain about Congress as they slurp down gubermint' subsidized water paid for by you and me ratepayers!
California's dams & water projects provide two vital functions: 1) Water storage 2) Flood control Kind of sad to hear the reporter start off with a CLEAR misunderstanding of our water infrastructure's intent from the start. It's NOT wasted water when it's released in a controlled manner and NOT inundating a city. Additionally, aquifers are VERY DELICATE resources. There are very, VERY strict rules about well drilling and water usage. Generally, pumping water INTO an aquifer is something that isn't done, as risk of contamination and destruction of the aquifer is just too great. Santa Clara Valley Water has been recharging its aquifers for over 50 years, so this is nothing new whatsoever. That said, caring for and safeguarding aquifers are indeed a worthwhile endeavor. Depleted aquifers have caused irreparable aquifer damage and land subsidence in the Central Valley. Unfortunately this is the result of a water resource that was not properly regulated and over-pumping was not prohibited.
There already is, the canal system, many reseviors that can take in more water, and in Nor Cal there is an huge overflow in Red Bluff, Wiskeytown, and resivours in the Mountains,................Newsom can forget about his Water Rationing Sorry Mr Greese God gave us this water and you arent gong to let it go into the ocean.....and NOTHING he can do about the Ground Water Wells that are filling up. This is a Gift
2000 acre feet is not much. The DWR LIDAR mapping is great. Now, I identify the locations from water recharge. Build the canal to deliver excess seasonal runoff to those locations. Build the "spreading grounds" to accept the water for percolation. There are model sites in CA that have been spreading and recharging water for at least 100 years. My home water district in VenturaCounty spread well over 100,000 acre feet of water last year into about these ~100 year old spreading grounds above sand and gravel formations along the Santa Clara River. The Davis/Woodland Water District has also been designed to pump filtered/treated water into the aquifers at significant nt volumes as water is available. Just flooding a fields is not effective unless there is a geological permeation zone that connects with the aquifers used for water wells.
Wow took them long enough. Bet people would rather have cheap clean water than soggy straws. Build aquifers not reservoirs. Release the beaver. That's is the dumbest thing California is trying yet. That water needs to FILTER into aquifer. Not put dirty into an aquifer and pollute it.
If you expect applauds to starting to do what should have been done 50 yrs ago or more, not coming. This isn't even being implemented currently. One tiny water co did it themselves, one or two farmers have recharge basins. This would be news if you could report 300 water co a yr are adding recharge, 100s of farmers and industrialists, golf courses, military bases adding 200,000 acre feet of water back to depleted aquifers a week
A genius innovation of 1 king of Asean country....i think Sri Lanka....will he constructed number of manmaid marsh where water can be stored naturally and produce another form of biodiversity. That old innovations was discovered through series of mud and stone walls over a long distances...resulted to looks like a small river and ponds. And by this, this ancient kingdom never experienced drought
Kalifornistan has REFUSED to build more reservoir capacity for decades. They are being forced to try storing more because their poor policies created a problem they knew was coming. If they built more dams, they would also be able to generate more electricity.
My Farms doing it into a gravel bottom pond goes right to wells in the area. They came up quite a bit last year. With weeks of running. Now, with our runoff and canal water running 24/7. Turned off during storm as pond was going to flood out. Now is running again. Boss has great.pics and is water dist. Pres. Knows exactly what's going on too.
We’ve been doing this in the Central Valley for a long time. Especially here in Fresno County. There’s hundreds of reservoirs around the Fresno/Clovis/Madera that are used to store rain wanted and then pump water underground. We have some MASSIVE aquifers and wells around here. When hit we are sadly the first to be told by the state government to be frugal with water so that water can go to SoCal
Yes. Too often the water is used to go to Southern Cal. The government wants to keep the economic engine going by having Southern Cal continuing to grow.
😂lol. All you need to do is build the Auburn damn🎉🎉. It would be more than enough water, it would be the deepest man-made lake in California 👀 but there are politicians stopping it from happening mainly Folsom California does not want to lose out on how much they can charge for water😮. If the Auburn dam was built their water would be worthless.
They should use some of that excess to refill the salton sea. MOre than enough water and there is in place the infrastructure to do it. The opposing forces are international companies (one is Australian) that have or are trying to purchase politicians and mineral rights. So of course they don't want the Salton Sea to remain a viable body of water. This stupid pseudo debate about how "we don't know what to do with the Salton sea" as it evaporates is completely designed by politicians and business interests. Fill the thing up, use it as it was used before, for recreation. This also eliminates the dust hazard that Calfornia is spending milliions per year to abate around the sea using hay bales, AND, unbelievably, irrigation. If you have visited the area they are irrigating the beach around the sea, with piping infrastructer, instead of just usin the California Aqueduct extensions here in Southeaster CA and the Colorado river adquecut water to fill the Salton Sea. And, further, why to they throw "treated" water back into the ground. Chlorine and Chloramines kill all life, not just the bacteria in the water before we drink it. This kill off includes fish, plants, and over time, humans. Treat that water with ascorbic acid, Vitamin C, neutralize the chlorine, then inject that water into the ground. All forest service collected water that is treated is reintroduced back into the wild this way. If you are gonna do it, do it correctly.
Ground water basins are best as they don't require electricity. Pumps do. Keep building solar panel farms, please. Land subsidence due to overpumping was not addressed. We can't recharge where the ground has collapsed. Let's outlaw overpumping.
Its not complicated...just as there are streams creeks brooks rivers ponds and lakes above ground there are thousands more underground....in Napa valley 12 feet below highway 29 is a gravel stratus water underground sheds from north to south....
Acre feet???? What on earth are you lot talking about. I’ll never understand why the US fought a war to shake off the oppression of the imperial yoke. Yet so vehemently retains the old imperial measurements system. That being said, it’s a great initiative and should be lauded a lot more.
Injection wells! We, especially agriculture, have been depleting for years. Also, this reduces ground substance, sinking of the surface! There is evidence of Ancient Peruvian cultures (Wari) creating soil indentations to catch rain water that would then percolate into the ground for future use!
Citrus growers in the Inland Empire of So Cal have been recharging the local aquifer for well over a century. And hey dude - you could also build more reservoirs.
These techniques are important and useful, but these are still like treating the symptoms than the root problem. I got a bit excited when they said they are looking at the big picture of water. But that fizzled out when they brought out the solution. The way we are trying to solve the water cycle imbalance that we are experiencing is the same way our healthcare system handles diseases. Primarily because both of these systems are profit driven, they always optimize for solutions that keep the problem active while treating symptoms. If a business really solves the root cause of a " problem" they no longer will have a costumer base, so they cannot really solve problem, they just help alleviate its effects. The healthcare business needs people to stay sick but comfortable enough with minimal symptoms so they stay life long costumers, that is just the nature of business systems, not pointing fingers here. Similarly, saying that we solve the water crisis by refilling the aquifer through a mechanical system , makes the whole state and all homeowners life long consumers of the water reverse pumping company. But what these business solution really does is keep the rot active , so that the problem never gets sustainably solved for good. We as a community have found ourselves with this drought / fire cycle because we have altered the land that we use without some much needed foresight. We kind of went ahead and concreted the life out of most land we put our feet on, leaving water with very little opportunity to go into the soil and aquifers. We have replaced most functional landscapes( watersheds, wetlands, rivers , streams and every which way that water naturally moves into the ground ) with aesthetic ones( think turf grass, exotic thirsty plants and trees, agricultural land where there used to be lakes and wetlands, other unsustainable land management practices) and we have down right used water like there is no tomorrow. With these mechanical short term solutions we are just buying some extra time, not really solving the real collection of problems that have originally lead to this situation that we face. @waterstories has some great info on understanding the root causes of these water cycle imbalances for those who want to know more about meaningful sustainable decentralized [ people lead] solutions for the water cycle problem that we face. I don't believe a human right core resource like water should be regulated or handled by profit oriented organizations. To sustainably handle and solve these core basic resource problems , we need it to be handled by people and organizations that are invested in people's wellbeing , only then will the root cause be investigated and resolved.
It sounds too good to be true. Where I live in the Central Valley, we have so much subsidence that whole communities have been lost. I hope this will work. We have also had to close city wells because of agricultural contaminated runoff. I dont know how replenishing the aquifer will be affected by those contaminates.
I love hearing good news about progress. America is far from dying!!!!! I do think it would be good to build more above-ground reservoirs as well... It creates habitat that was lost due to the overdevelopment.
Why didn't the politicians like Newsomm do this years ago? In fact why didn't this get done by politicians multiple decades ago? I guess Newsomm couldn't see making money on ground water storage.
