Water Wasted | What happened to all the water from California's historic winter? 

The 3 wettest years on record were 1983, 2017 and 2023. So we had two of the wettest years just in the last 6 years. We missed a huge opportunity for storing water because the last reservoir built in California was finished in 1979. In '79 California had a population of 23 Million now we have 39 Million. That's a population increase of almost 70% but we have not increased our capacity to store water. That's absolutely ridiculous. Water is a vital necessity for life. The politicians in California have done a horrible job ensuring the supply of such a vital resource.

Newsom sat on projects for years to store more water. His approach was completely focused on conserving water. He finally approved the projects and then had to cut their budgets because of the budget shortfall. If you control the water, you control the behavior of people. That is what this is about.

The best place to store water is in the ground/aquifer. The government spent a lot of money on huge centralized dams and ignored small decentralized water slowing structures that reduce flood damage, prevent silting up of the big reservoirs and put more water back in the aquifer. I guess some Senators were more interested in having their name on something.

Native Californian here. California hasn't built any new reservoirs in over 50 years because of completely made up environmental reasons. Despite having collected billions of dollars through Prop 1 (passed in 2014 for the purpose of funding the construction of more reservoirs), we're still stuck in a man-made drought. A more important question than where did all the water go is where did all the money go?

If you are releasing water to the ocean, then your reservoir system is not big enough. It shouldn't be designed for 3 years, but should be designed for a much longer drought period like we saw in the runup to 2023.

Every idea we have has to sit in court for years or decades so none of them get accomplished. Literally anything we do will require a scorched earth philosophy on our legal system.

Tax revenues or water, the government knows how to waste in an epic fashion. BTW, voters were fooled into voting for several propositions that banned new reservoirs or made it more difficult to build them. Stop only reading the title and the ruling party's summary before voting on a proposition.

CA is just keeping water profitable for certain companies.

The title says it all "Wasted Water." That's the preconceived notion - water is wasted when it flows in a stream channel to the ocean. Thank God I am not a fish in CA.

They need to build reservoirs in Southern California. California will always have a problem, and will get worse since Southern California relies on lake Mead 400 miles away. I think this is one of the worst problems of California, and it will not change, they are NOT doing enough period!

The last 10 years California has removed about 4500 viable dams, most were agricultural in use.

Downstate NY has manipulated upstate NY for decades. It's not surprising that Southern California doesn't respect Northern California's concerns. Needful respect goes a long way.

The maintenance of river flow is essential to management of the entire system without an objective zero of water quality at the Carquinez Straits the entire system is crippled into corruption.

Plant forests, improve soil pH, go with natural lawns, allow line drying at home, line streets with canopy, increase both elevated high speed rail and elevated commuter rail networks, cover reservoirs with floating solar panels, and flood orchards and fields annually to allow more water to percolate to groundwater depths.

Yes, the Federal government needs to limit the water California gets from Colorado River to force California to be more efficient like Arizona and Nevada.

Newsome didn't take advantage of the gift of floods and screwed up a once in a lifetime opportunity. Please keep him in California and don't release him on the country.

“Rely on every single drop” get we can’t even collect our own rain water… what an absolute joke of a gov

The governor of California and half the local politicians should be in jail.

maybe turning that lake into farm land was a bad idea

Building extra reservoirs should definitely be considered and done. They will not however be the single solution. The agricultural sector should consider farming less water-intensive crops and stop wasting water with cotton and almonds. Homeowners can also deliver a significant contribution to reducing water use by reducing the number and size of all the lawns around their homes. These use a significant part of the water. No single solution will be the golden bullet and all parties will have to do their part.

We need a groundwater capture system to replenish the aquifers. Another good idea is to put solar panels over aqueducts greatly reduce evaporation and produce green energy that's a win-win you don't have to use up new land

The water isn’t wasted it just does what nature intended and not what California’s farmers want.

what we really need to be asking is why we've been removing dams all across teh west coast for the past 60 years

It all boils down to 3 problems: 1. Too many politicians 2. Too many scientists 3. Not enough engineers and actual construction

The Central Valley communities of California for the last Decade or so, wanted to build a water storage project above Millerton Lake at Temperance Flats, but because of Democrats it was never built.

Claiming that the Delta is a saltwater marsh is disingenuous establishment of water quality. Martinez and Benicia used to pump fresh water directly into their water systems. The Carquinez Straits is the geographic end of saltwater intrusion and salt marsh. If we don't have this clear established zero then we don't have a realistic idea of water management for the water shed of the San Juaquin and Sacramento rivers and the aquifers.

You can't use water that you haven't stored from the winter. They think we should just divert water until the river is dry instead storing enough water to use and keep the river flowing.

"WE're gonna have to let that water go, so we have room for potential floods next winter"....... how about you wait and see if the flood actually ARRIVES before you let the water go?

We should be pumping excess water into underground basins and or into the San Joaquin Valley which has loss 30FT+ of elevation over 100 years due to pumping.

If they admit it's not a drought but a mismanagement of resources akin to national sabotage, someone would need to be held accountable.

Californians freely elect their leaders, and so they have the government they deserve.

this problem has been obvious and communicated to our leaders (obvious, to those who dig) since the late 1800s - and no one listened, one fact you seem to have skimmed over - the ground water/aquafer in the San Juaquin valley took damage from over pumping, in other words it started to collapse or compress - i also noticed you don't explain all the places we steal water and the effect on those areas, and the most important fact - California government, so concerned in saving "the planet" THEY COMPLETELY LACK THE COMPASSION, TO ADDRESS PEOPLES NEEDS AS A PRIORITY - have put it off for so long THEYD would have to at least, double what we already have to put a dent in this storage issue - ya need to do more research to impress anyone ABC!! handful of reservoirs ain't gonna do it! this why i don't watch ABC, not really the whole truth, just tidbits... good luck with that!!

They should just actually do Nawapa. We are so afraid to do mega infrastructure in today's day and age, even though the America of today is impossible without them.

Storing water at the base of the mountains is a good idea. They do same thing in ID and MT.

They allowed TRILLIONS of gallons to run to the ocean. They haven't built a new reservoir since 1976 ... and their population has DOUBLED since then.

If winters are unpredictable you build reservoirs for the dry years.

Bad farmers abusing legacy water rights and blocking solutions is why farmers get blamed. Lake Tulare is another. It's a perfect natural reservoir that dwarfs man made storage but instead of expanding it we keep building entire new ones.

Thank you for an in-depth report!

This program talks about the issues with "meteorological" drought all the way back to the 1920's, yet at the same time, state... "things are changing"... the weather is less predictable. It seems like so many subjects today, people talk out of both sides of their mouth.

I was betting California was going to dump the water.

Maybe they would have water if they didn’t drain tulare lake

"If we fail..."? As if the problem just arose because of last winter? No. California already failed. For the past 50 years the leadership and "environmentalists" treated citizens' water needs as the problem. Multiple reservoir projects were stopped and now there is a bill to pay. I love the idea of replenishing aquifers. CA has to do that AND build the reservoirs. Good luck to you getting that done. One of the many reasons I left CA after 60 years.

We need to look to desert regions for open space to build reservoirs! We need to pump the water from flooded areas to dry areas. Like, Egypt is currently building a mega project for desert farming. These people have their heads so far up their...... come on man!

As a water professional, the unwavering adherence to respective agendas is what impedes progress. Each interest group should strive to understand the contextual perspective of those who appear to stand in their way. Solutions come from innovative thinking, open mindedness, and willingness to compromise.

Problem is, the system was designed for a 5 year drought cycle, not 3. More people means you need more storage.

Thank you for sharing!! good info !!

You should investigate how San Diego County and it’s comprehensive water management system is implemented.

The entire premise of this is that rivers don't need water to stay healthy. Rivers and fisheries are important.

It happened the same thing like everywhere else in the world where it snow. It melted. It's surprising. I thought it was special snow because it fell in california but no, it was just normal snow.

How can the "atmospher is taking water away from us" be true when all this time we've been told we live in a closed system. You know the terrarium effect.

The average Consumers and Households only make up a TINY percentage of the total water used in California. 90% of the water used in California is used by the Agricultural Industry. 6-7% of the water used in California is used by Non-Agricultural Industries (manufacturing & production). 3-4% of the water used in California is used by Average Consumers & Households. Regular people could TOTALLY STOP using water & it would only amount to a 3 or 4 percent saving! So ANY effort that targets regular Consumers is nothing but a money grab or guilty trip.

They talked about water but not the core problem, our growing population. You can build more reservoirs, use water more efficiently etc, and a growing population will outstrip it all. It is politically incorrect to state the truth, a growing population is our problem and there is NO political will to stop it. IN spite of not just our water infrastructure pushed to the max so is our transportation infrastructure. California burns 40 million gallons of gasoline daily and 8 million of those are wasted in traffic. Gavin Newsom and Biden 100% believe more people is the solution to our shortages. Biden is delivering with 7 million more people as of July 2023. Math says different, math says we cannot do what we are doing. "you cannot have continued growth in pop and you can't have continued growth in the consumption of resources." We as a society seem intent on growing our pop until nature says NO more, so much for history, math and human intelligence.

Department of Water resources should also make efforts to: (1) Educate and enable farmers on rain water harvesting. It will also help in ground water recharging. (2) DWR should also make efforts to convert residential and commercial outdoor spaces to water efficient lawns. Most of them are still water intensive with grass esp. Applying permaculture principles and bringing public upto speed with current reality and limited time to act is necessary. (3) Why does a water pipeline has to be an emission intensive operation. Are there alternatives to the current design of water pipelines that are not as harmful to the environment? Note that (1) and (2) - by shear volumes- will add up to great benefit in water conservation.

The drought was a great advertisement for climate crisis. This is the way government works. The military make a point to always run out of ammo so they can ask for more next year. School districts always make sure classroom supplies and other high-visibility items are in permanent shortage. The homeless crisis can never be solved because it is so profitable to those tasked with solving it. And California must always, always be out of water. If that means draining it out to sea, watering crops only during the heat of the day, and putting restrictions only where they are ineffective and annoying to as many people as possible, they'll do all of it.

There wasn’t a drought in California in the 1930s, the “Dustbowl” was in the Mid-West from North Dakota to Kansas and Texas. The newspaper shown is BISMARCK, ND.

Raising existing dams is the low hanging fruit.

How about routing the release water to the lower central valley farmers so it seeps into the ground to replenish the aquafirs? Those farmers can activate lands for falll crops.

California should be cut off from the Colorado River Supply completely for it's lack of foresight in building proper water retention reservoirs when they had the chance. Perhaps then they would learn that fish are not as important as humans.

If CA built their water storage system to the level of what is in Nevada and Arizona, CA would be much more resistant to drought. CA politics make it almost impossible to execute needed projects.

I lived in Woodland, CA in the 90s as a kid. All our city parks had wells in them basically. I was back in 2016 but didnt go through the parks. Interesting to know those wells were being phased out. I live elsewhere now and dont really miss it.

About time someone investigate

We have two huge reservoirs Lake Powell and Lake Mead that will never fill up. We don't need more reservoirs, we need more canals to send the water to LA. During a wet year Southern CA should get all its water from the Sierras and not from the Colorado. We can bank the water in Lake Mead for dry years when we really need it.

We should build more reservoirs, at least 4-8 more.

As all this excessive rain and snow was building up i was thinking "are they really going to let all that freshwater resource they've needed so much, just flush out to the ocean and waste it all. Which keeps them all in a state of water instability in the local ecosystem and environment" I don't understand why we aren't utilizing our creativity and motivation more? We could do so much to improve our quality's of life's but we here in America just keep on Not Doing anything...

the problem with california's water is in the state capital building in sacramento,ca.

They shouldn't let water out of those lakes now. Not yet. Because what if they have a dry winter this year?

You can capture more water when California has not built a new reservoir in the last 50 years. If you want to store more water, need to build more dams but that is 4 letter word to the eco-nuts of California. The real solution is to cut off LA and San Diego until those regions actually meet state standards for consumption.

Excellent video. The "environmentalists" don't seem to want any solutions to mitigating California droughts. Their concern about air pollution during the delta tunnel construction is laughable. They're throwing excuses and objections like monkeys hoping something will stick.

If the snow pack is a vital part of state then why are they not making more snow. The bigger the snow pack the longer it lasts over spring and summer. The deeper you can make it the longer it will last. In Norway or some place like that there is a snow dump site that still holds snow even into late late summer and some even sticks around till the winter comes again. In theory if you build a massive snow pack and keep adding more feet the longer the water would last. The other thing is CA once tried to pass a bill for many billions of dollars to build a pipe line from one area to another to bring in water. At the time the largest desalinization plant ever built could have got 4 of them built for the price of that tunnel system. Flood control is key. When the floods come you pump that water and divert it via a pipe line to areas that are short of water. All of those fires that CA has is because of poor forest management and lack of water. CA is going to have to pass a 1 trillion dollar budget bill which will put all of these project in the works to be finished in just a few years and they will effectively fix a lot of the problems. Also all of those reservoirs should be hydro dams and produce energy to the grid. All of the excess energy produced from solar and wind should be used to pump water back up in to the reservoirs to keep them topped off at all time. There should be no reason to dump a bunch of water. Everything should have a steady stream coming out. Reservoirs have a capacity limit and a max limit. If the reservoirs is at max then you release water. You should only release enough water to keep it full. Not to empty it just in cause. If rains come and it starts getting to the max level fast then you bleed off just enough to slow it down, not dumping it all.

Agriculture in CA uses 80% of all water used in California as compared to households' 20%, even though CA is the most populous state in the USA. Households in CA have cut back water usage considerably through low-flow toilets, low-flow shower heads and faucets, and through heavy increases in pricing over the decades. Please analyze and present what water-saving methods have been employed by the farmers to reduce water usage over these same decades and how much water has been saved through these methods.

Quit tearing dams down!! Also, time to re-look at the court ruling to send water into the delta. This practice has been done for enough years now to determine if it is a worthwhile endeavor.

From time to time I wonder if the state needs for us to remain in a drought as crazy as it sounds. It basically goes with the global warming naritive and how we are on the verge of things getting really bad. There has been to many times where for crazy reasons they have released insane amounts of water during the drought and with low rain fall. I would hate to think this is actually going on. But another thing is population in California is not going up it is going down as there are more people and businesses leaving than coming to California. In the above video they claim we have all these people coming to California but the truth is there has been record number of people leaving the state!

This was really well done. Not a huge fan of any mainstream media today. Keep putting out videos like this to keep viewers.

This has a production quality of a college freshmen group project.

Trying to limit farmers water while irrigating thousands upon thousands of lawns across a drought prone state is ridiculous.

I think there's merit in trying to restore the water ways of Colorado and Utah's Great Salt Lake as well as other tributaries like the Powell Resevoir before figuiing out how to serve Californian's more water. How about focusing on Smart Growth? How about creating a more efficient water mangement sewage system? How about seeing how to create individual water management built into each home?

Farmers are the biggest crybabies while planting Tree nuts like almonds, pistachios, walnuts, and cashews are actually some of the most water-intensive crops grown today

I would have thought that we would have mastered storing and transporting water by now

Winters are not becoming more unpredictable

They don't seem to be able to do anything right.

if you want water to spare simply make having lawns illegal

If "California" has a water shortage, why do we allow farmers add more orchards only to use "our" water to grow product to sell to other countries? Farmers don't grow produce just for our country, they grow solely to the highest bidder. In essence, farmers are using "our" water for their profit only. In other words, farmers are using our water to sell product to other countries.

Reusing wastewater treatment plant streams would be another avenue to build out storage, or orchard or off harvest field aquifer recharging. I would agree that the industrial waste attitude, is in for an upgrade.

Growing population? People are leaving California!

As long as we leave the southern ports and border wide open, our water supply will never be enough.

40% of the water going to SoCal, evaporates before it gets there! But that's a good thing because it helps support billionaire farmers like Stuart Reznick.

you guys missed one of the biggest issues, that the US Gov through the army control 50% of reservoir water and dumps it whenever they want. not the EPA is forcing them to release water all the time for "special projects"

Great report meteorologist team!

Easiest solution there is. Everyone who gets less than 30 inches of rain a year in California has to have desert landscaping. Simple solution that would save millions upon millions of gallons of water a year. Also farmers using efficient methods for irrigation too.

Environmentalists don't allow anything to be built these days. Say no to housing, say no to industry, say no to nuclear power, windmills kill birds, no reservoirs, no pipelines, no mining. What are you supposed to do as a country? Where do people work if we just delay every project by 10 years for environmental review?

California had the best Water plan development, to serve over 60 million residents designed back in the 1950's and this did include Multiple Desalination plants, then somewhere along the line an Bureaucrat figured out they can make good money through taxes fines levees and fees controlling distribution instead of storing

Never too late to start, we can always improve our water infrastructure. I'm pretty sure all that water wasn't wasted for the wildlife and plants and trees.

This is what Trump was saying in 2015.

Recall Newsom!!!

Blame the increased use of thirsty perennial, such as almond treese (which are using ~8% of California's yearly water supply), instead of seasonal crops. Also planting farm feed and grass in the desert for harvesting (and often shipping overseas) does not help the water equation. Shifting crops for profit while disregarding the overall environmental impact does not make you a sensible environmentally conscious producer.

liar's !!!!!!!!!

Democrat politicians never allow anyone to build ponds and they don't allow cities to build lakes. Building Lakes and Ponds is the ANSWER To Helping the Environment.

If we can ship gas and fuel nationwide, how come we can't with water

These farmers must have forgotten something called Tulare lake. They are the same ones whining about how their crops this year are being destroyed by the floods while at the same time whine there isn’t enough water while welling without limitations.

if you are releasing water to the ocean, you are replenishing sand on the beaches, providing water for farmers and cities, allowing fish to live…