Analysis: Why California Groundwater Should Be Regulated

Undoubtedly, Groundwater plays a significant role in California water supply. During a normal year, 30% of the state 's water supply comes from groundwater. In times of extreme drought, groundwater consumption can rise to 60% or more. Even though groundwater is more evenly distributed, over half of the groundwater is unable to be extracted due to the high pumping cost. The largest groundwater reservoirs are found in the Central Valley, with the majority of the supply existing as runoff that seeps into the aquifer.

California has always had a warm climate, yet its supply of water has rarely been affected. In 2014 California’s water shortage issue truly began. Due to low amounts of snow in the winter in recent years, California has tried to equal out these shortages by drilling water from underground aquifers. Yet, underground aquifers recharge much slower than surface water sources. California has already made significant drawbacks to attempt to limit the amount of water they use, so these aquifers can recharge. But still resources continue going down and the Central Valley Aquifer’s water level is rapidly declining. Luckily, on April 7, 2017 the drought stage of emergency in California was ended. Yet the issue isn’t truly resolved. Glen MacDonald

Envision yourself, about to complete a straightforward, everyday thing such as washing the dishes, suddenly to your surprise there is no water coming out of the faucet. Well for the civilians of East Porterville this is their reality. California has always had very lenient and ineffective groundwater regulations. Today, this has become a major issue, especially with California's severe drought. The regulation of the aquifer is a necessity because cleanliness is a basic human right and by not regulating the groundwater and leaving civilians with no working water, that right is taken away. The right to bathe, wash your hands, and have a working toilet is simply no more. Furthermore there are scientific statements, proving that excessively pumping groundwater will lower the water levels, which will likely lead to the land level sinking as well.

Water rights policies have been an important topic throughout the history of California, as the resource is perpetually

Overall, California should pass laws to manage the misuse of aquifers to be able to get the drought situation under control. This four year drought should have created some laws by the California government after this long. The citizens are suffering and need water, and the only way they’re going to get it is by California creating

Should California regulate groundwater? In my opinion, I think that farmers shouldn’t be able to get water from underground because other farmers are sucking up all the underground water. I had read an article that was talking about if they should let farmers be able to get water from underground. The article’s that I have read was that they think they shouldn’t because farmers would get gallons of water from underground. The state should regulate groundwater.

Due to the lack of rain in the past few years, and particularly in the last few months, California faces severe drought. This is the worst drought in more than one hundred years. The impact of California drought affects community, agriculture, organic ranchers, and dairy farmers. Because of these facts, the United States must rethink the way it uses water. Californians alone are asked to reduce their water usage by twenty percent to prevent water waste.

“The crippling drought is expected to cost the state $2.2 billion in 2014 and put more than 17,000 farm workers out of a job, according to a July study partly funded by the state’s department of food and agriculture” (Source2). There should be laws to manage groundwater because I don’t want to take a shower once a week and I don’t want to have to pay to drink good clean water because water should be free to drink.

Currently California is facing a water shortage. The issue has been addressed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in February. He called for all state agencies to find the way to help in the statewide water shortage. This is California’s third consecutive year of drought and last spring and summer was the worst of the season because it had the lowest amount of water recorded and California’s reservoirs were at their lowest point as well which did not help in the water shortage. Many agencies have been acquired to find possible solutions to the water shortage, the Department of Water Resources has been directed to find solutions to the problem as well as asking people to conserve water.

Change is coming to California, whether you like it or not. We are in the period of necessity. There are a lot more people than there were 50 years ago and our water system is not prepared for it. This drought is causing a lot of things, and people are not taking it seriously. Sixty percent of water in California is used for irrigation and agriculture, and forty percent is used for the actual people.

“Scientists are already sounding alarm bells about pumping too much groundwater. State water managers estimate that water tables in some parts of the Valley have dropped 100 feet below historical lows. As the water levels sink, the land can sink, too — in some places by about a foot per year. Groundwater pumping could also put more stress on the San Andreas Fault” (Source 3). After reading this quote it lets us understand that slowly we are affecting the state. In fact, California is a tremendous state of agriculture. Therefore, if we establish everything together, we are slowly affecting furthermore sinking California due to how much the state uses aquifers. As we all know if there is disturbance among the San Andreas Fault, consequently it can lead to a significant earthquake. “We are a one-way trajectory towards depletion. Toward running out of groundwater in the Central Valley,” warns Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at UC Irvine. He points out that California is the only western state that doesn’t really monitor or supervising how much groundwater farmers and residents are using”(Source 3). This is another immense reason why we need to administer the aquifers because eventually at the pace we are going by not monitoring the aquifers, we could eventually use all the

From the groundwater basins it is estimated that 16,500 TAF of groundwater are extracted annually, which accounts for 38% of the water supply in the state (California Department of Water Resources California's Groundwater Update 2013: A Compilation of Enhanced Content for California Water Plan Update 2013). Despite the number of basins in the state, each basin is somewhat unique but, have been classified into the Central Valley aquifer system, the coastal aquifers, the Northern California basin-fill aquifers, and the eastern Sierra Nevada and the California Desert aquifers (California Department of Water Resources California's Groundwater Update 2013: A Compilation of Enhanced Content for California Water Plan Update 2013). In Figure 1, the location of the major groundwater basins and subbasins in California have been identified as the areas shaded in

Up to 2014, there had been no coordinated effort on how to manage groundwater throughout California. This widely used water resource had no formal groundwater law or policies governing its use. If anything, the predominant way in which it has been managed has been through water districts that have groundwater management programs and court adjudications. The groundwater rights that exist in the state have been correlative rights, appropriative rights, mutual prescription, and notions of equitable appointment (Profane).

. “California is home to one of the most extensive water supply systems in the nation.” The state’s water supply system consist of over 1,000 reservoirs, hundreds of groundwater basins and many local and regional water conveyance systems. It is a system that is quite remarkably engineered to say the least (California's Water: California Water Systems)

The state of California has been undergoing continuous severe droughts, with 2013 being California’s driest year ever (USGS, 2014). On August 1, 2014, Santa Clara local reservoirs contained only 69% of the historical 20-year average water levels. The drought presents short-term issues such as decreases in hydropower production, adverse impact on recreational activities, and the destruction of habitat for aquatic species. If groundwater is used to compensate low streamflows, there will be a decrease in water availability and deterioration of