Lights out for the drought, but destruction in rain’s wake

When you called the Santa Clara Valley Water District—even during this week’s rains—and were put on hold, this is what you heard: “It may not seem like it, but we’re still in a drought.”
That recording is about to change.
Even the federal government says the drought is over in South Santa Clara County.
Joel Casagrande, a biologist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the drought is over “for this year” at least in South County.
And he was citing rain figures from two weeks ago, around Feb. 8. At that time, the gauge at Uvas County Park, the headwaters of Uvas Creek and “the wettest spot in the [Pajaro River] watershed,” according to Casagrande, had registered 76 inches of rain since the season began in October
That’s one of two gauges that Casagrande pays very close attention to. The one at Uvas Creek typically registers the most rainfall in the area.
Another, at the Church Avenue percolation ponds in Gilroy, on the valley floor, typically has the lowest readings in the area.
Earlier this month, Church Avenue had tallied 29.6 inches. By Wednesday, it was up to 34.25.
Casagrande said he was “reticent” to say the drought statewide is over, or that it’s over for good here, because no one knows Mother Nature’s patterns for sure.
“It’s like flipping a coin,” he said. “Every year is different, next year could be a very dry year and we could be right back where we were last year.”
And, he said, underground aquifers still aren’t back to pre-drought levels, although they are being replenished.
On Wednesday, Feb. 22, the same gauge read 86.26 inches of rain.
The recent storms began punching the region, flooding homes and roads, felling trees, swelling waterways to overflowing, scrambling traffic and prompting boat rescues from homes near Guadalupe Creek in San Jose.
The strong President’s Day weekend storms also threatened local crops.
“In the long term, the surge of storms should bring an improved water outlook,” California Farm Bureau Federation President Paul Wenger said in a press release, “But it has definitely brought worries to farmers and ranchers whose land is inundated or whose crops may be at risk. We remain hopeful that weather in coming days will minimize any problems.”
Wenger noted that many reservoirs have filled and have had to release water, which underlines the need to enhance California’s water storage capacity.
“Believe it or not, there are people who think we don’t need more water storage, and that we should even tear down many of the facilities we now have,” he said. “These activists don’t care how many people suffer from devastating floods in winters like this. They don’t care how many people suffer from water shortages during droughts.”
Wenger said California must move as quickly as possible to allocate money from the 2014 water bond, Proposition 1, to create more storage both aboveground and underground.
According to the Farm Bureau farms could suffer.
Gilroy garlic was fine, so far, according to Christopher Ranch marketing director Patsy Ross, who said the company has fields all over the state.
“So far most of the fields are draining adequately and the garlic crop should be OK,” she said. “Fields that are near creeks or levees are in danger of larger flooding which in turn could cause damage in those locations. We do need the rains to slow down to allow the ground to dry for cultivation and adding of nutrients to the soil.”
Other crops the Farm Bureau is concerned about:
• Almonds—The storms hit just as almond trees were blooming. Bees that pollinate almond blossoms don’t fly in the rain and prefer temperatures higher than 55 degrees. In addition, a number of almond trees were blown down by strong winds during the weekend. But farmers said the tree losses weren’t as bad as feared, and expressed hope pollination would still be successful.
• Berries—The rains delayed strawberry harvest along the Central and Southern California coast. Production may be temporarily reduced as farmers wait for waterlogged fields to dry and discard rain-damaged berries.
• Field crops—Fall-planted grain crops that have germinated could take on too much water, which could ultimately reduce yields. Hay fields have also flooded. Soggy or flooded fields will delay planting for a number of crops.
• Grapes—Vineyards in various grape-growing regions have been flooded. Farmers say that could leave vines vulnerable to root-rot damage if they remain flooded for too long.
• Vegetables—Rains and muddy fields slowed vegetable harvest and delayed planting in the Salinas Valley. Rain generally benefited vegetable crops in the Imperial Valley.
• Walnuts—Flooded orchards that remain waterlogged for too long could be vulnerable to root diseases that can kill trees.
Marty Grimes, official spokesman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, said Tuesday that the on-hold message that callers to the district hear, and which claims “we’re still in a drought,” will soon be changed to reflect one that talks more about continued conservation.
The change, he said, “will be made just to make it a little more reflective of our current situation and to focus on saving water as a way of life.”
But the valley water board’s plan to move forward in the wake of recent storms and as their reservoirs continue to spill over was unknown as of early this week.
“We will be reporting back [to the board] as the winter progresses to let them know how conditions have changed,” Grimes said.
“We really want to make the point that conservation is a way of life in California and that we should continue to utilize this precious resource wisely even if we are in a rainy year,” said Marty Grimes, official spokesman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
Water conservation measures, he added, are still in effect.
As much as it is needed, the rain has caused havoc for residents all over the state who have had to deal with flooding, power outages, landslides, road closures, rescue efforts and, in several cases, storm-related deaths.
But the riparian habitat and steelhead trout that Herman Garcia and his group, CHEER, help protect are also vulnerable when storms hit, he said.
“Right now, we have had so many big storms come through repeatedly that raised the water level in the [Uvas] creek from about 3 feet deep to 11 or 12 feet deep,” he said.
The fast-moving storms, he said, “blow out all the wood debris from the creek channel,” but when the storms stop the water levels drop quickly, depositing the debris in massive plugs in the creeks, “Like giant beaver dams,” according to Garcia.
“That causes flooding because those dams push the water off to the side and onto the ag land. That is why the lower Uvas is like a lake now.”
And the plugs also make it impossible for the steelhead to migrate and spawn or return to the ocean, a condition that has plagued the waterways since the last significant spawn in 2013, Garcia said.
But this year’s different. Volunteers from CHEER last summer removed more than dozen major plugs, and two weeks ago the steelhead began to slowly reappear in spawning tributaries near Uvas Dam.
“As of yesterday when I got my latest report,” Garcia said Tuesday, “In Dave’s Creek we now have 32 spawning fish, 32. So we have had a tremendous bounce-back this season for the fish.”
See rainfall tallies here: http://alert.valleywater.org/pgi.php