Operation Unite is about bringing people together to solve water problems. Chime in and contribute to uniting efforts to solve problems.
Ultimately, water that is available and water that has been promised needs to come into balance. Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, shares his perspective on solving California’s water challenges:
We live in a world of limits;
Most people are good and
We all need to tighten our belts.
Lack of water can create a domino effect of changes in social and economic conditions. Mayor Silva in Mendota, California has seen, first hand, the impacts to his citizens. Limited work equates to minimal income available for buying food for farm worker families. The food bank and other resources make life bearable through this summer in Western Fresno County but it is not the chosen life circumstance of the farm workers or farmer. They are used to sixteen hour days of farm work and find satisfaction seeing the fruits of their labor manifest into sustenance for communities across the country.
They feel their work is important and recognize that working together will help all of us adapt to a healthy future. It starts now.
Effective rainwater harvesting can be successful in California if we learn to reduce our outdoor water needs in rural and urban residential settings. The greatest drawback is the length of the dry season in California. Adapting to more focused irrigation methods, choosing outdoor vegetation that use less water and supplementing outdoor watering with water reuse can produce a victory for all Californians. The added benefit is on-demand water that can be used to fight fire. Incorporating rainwater harvesting can be a game changer that erases today’s domestic drought casualties.
It takes a committed effort to build capacity within a public that thrives in changing water conditions. Growing a commitment by the public requires an investment that makes the impossible possible. Time and consistency for growing resiliency is key. Choose a program that facilitates cooperative and adaptive efforts for managing collective and personal water supplies. Elected representatives will benefit by a supportive and engaged public. We all will.
The water user is a main stress on groundwater aquifers or any water resource so the water user is a fundamental player in both mitigations and responses that will return the resource to its sustainable level. It doesn’t matter if the drought goes another year or longer. Drought will always be visiting the western U.S. and we need to do things different. Let’s get together. We can do this.
Drought monitoring started in 1999 and is reported on a weekly basis for the entire U.S. This data is an “eyes and ears on the ground” monitoring program that is illustrated through maps made available to the public and scientists for studying drought across the country. Drought slowly creeps up on us. We need to respond to drought as soon as possible. Delayed responses to drought usually generate more pain for a community. Mark’s Drought Monitor program is an effective tool for managing drought.
Steve emphasizes everyone to learn to use less water. We in the U.S. can save a lot of water and still be very comfortable. Rainwater harvesting is a main tool that can help us supplement our groundwater supplies. Australia was very successful in applying rainwater harvesting to specific regions of the country.
The most intensive water use room in the house is the bathroom so install low flow toilets, taps and shower heads (27% of domestic water use). Repair any leaks occurring on your property (1.5% of domestic water use) and reduce your outdoor irrigation (usually half a property’s water use, at least). Lastly, pay attention to your farmers. Our food is the largest part of our water footprint. Pay attention to the issues that farmers are experiencing when producing the essential fruits and vegetables that you eat. California provides an enormous percentage of food to our country and parts of the world. Support their efforts to provide the necessary water in a manner that safeguards the water resources of the region. Responsible growing, responsible stewardship to the natural resource.
Adapting water demand to water availability is the keystone behavior that dials in groundwater sustainability. If you change one parameter (water use, time of use, location of use), everything else changes to reach a new equilibrium. It’s dynamic! That’s why we need a dynamic groundwater management program. Working together makes this easy. Let’s talk.
Making groundwater decisions cannot be made blindly. Water quality and water levels are important information that is needed to guide water users in making good groundwater decisions. Ground truth our groundwater conditions and let the data drive our management responses. It’s more than possible. It’s fundamental. Let’s do it now.
Enhanced groundwater recharge accompanied with groundwater storage monitoring is more than half the solution. It is simple. It is fundamental! Give your aquifer a big gulp. Ahhhhh, that’s satisfying! Now, it’s time to balance the equation!
The American Groundwater Trust came to Stockton, California to educate groundwater users in the Central Valley on protecting the integrity of their wells through effective maintenance of old and new wells. Important stuff considering the cost of a new well can easily exceed a million dollars.
Longevity of a healthy well starts with its design criteria and construction. Once it is built, the well must be developed. Well development is an often under achieved step in maximizing a well’s ability to pump clean, clear and abundant groundwater at the least cost. Equally valuable is the commitment to complete a time-based maintenance approach instead of a “let’s wait until our well barely pumps an adequate discharge rate”.
The mantra that I repeatedly heard was, “Complete maintenance on your well at a frequency that removes incrustation, biofilm and siltation before it has time to harden.” The return on investment will be easily demonstrated in your pocket book when you see your electricity bill reduced and your pump living all nine of its lives.
The groundwater utilizing public will only sustain its water management adaptation skills by continuous public facilitation focused on water conservation, rainwater harvesting, aquifer recharge, aquifer reporting and sharing public management successes every year. The bonus years will be the water abundant years. Droughts will be easily managed. Get ready and go, rain or shine. It makes all the difference in the world.
The water utilizing public will work together most effectively when there is a simple common goal that is approached through common community values. We will always have water working together. Say that three times and then call Operation Unite®.
What is it worth to have a warning method that tells you that the stock market is about to drop? I thought so. It’s worth a lot to me too.
It is also worth knowing if your groundwater supply is going dry before it happens. Manage your water supply by starting a Know Your Water® program membership and a Neighborhood Water Alliance program in your community. Managing your groundwater supply can make a bad situation just go away. Pick up the phone.
The U.S. Geological Survey is really on it in California. The Groundwater Ambient Monitoring and Assessment (GAMA) program will provide many benefits to State, local, and community participants and to individual well owners. This program focuses on assessing groundwater resources used for shallow and deep aquifers used for public supply by water purveyors and domestic well owners. Opportunities like the U.S. Geological Survey program work because people are willing to work with each other. There we go again; “We will always have water working together.”, another example of good things happening in our communities.
A water using public that has opportunity to apply its resourcefulness to solving real water problems regards the opportunity as a contagious adventure that brings social currency and visibility. This enhances the desire for even more resourcefulness. It’s just plain fun. Let’s share. Everyone wins.
Make your public the “Success Story” of the day. Make it worth it for the public to make good water choices; empathize, recognize and spread the success to everyone. Seize the moment. All good efforts deserve a pat on the back.
There will always be potential arguments when managing water during limited times. This is because there are many relationships with water and sometimes they are in opposition with one another. It takes an effort by everyone to exercise the value system that our communities are built on when resolving our water predicaments. Our success in solving water availability issues, including water shortage, is guaranteed if we remember this one principal; “We will always have water working together.” It’s more than a sound good cliché. It really works.
November 17, 2015
The best water solutions move the most water the least distance. Sustainability does come at a price; dependability, reliability and predictability. That sounds good to me! Let’s talk.
We ought to know! Operation Unite conducted a 10-year groundwater study on fractured rock aquifer behavior in rural residential and small agricultural environments in Placer and Nevada counties.
Our study confirms that water wells are vulnerable in different ways and can be remedied with proper mitigation strategies. The answer is a lot like only flossing the teeth you want to keep. The water user needs to monitor and build resiliency. Prudent well owners that monitor their well’s water levels have a significantly greater success in avoiding the experience of a failed well. Know Your Water® and enjoy a healthy well. Call Operation Unite® and ask to become a member.
Designed to aid counties, cities, water agencies, groundwater districts, home owners associations, road associations, neighborhoods, real estate groups and associations and individual groundwater users.
Societies have generally considered groundwater to be a renewable resource. This has been demonstrated by water strategies that treat groundwater as a primary source or a back up source of water when surface water is not available. A recent study has quantified the degree of renewable groundwater that is available in the world. There is only 350,000 cubic kilometers of water less than fifty years old. You can find approximately 6% of groundwater within the topmost 6,300 feet of the mantle that is renewable within a single human lifetime.
No wonder the Ogallala aquifer, the aquifers beneath the Central Valley of California, the Denver Basin and so many other locations are experiencing severe declines in aquifer water levels. These old aquifers filled with water during long time periods when glaciers were melting over 10,000 years ago. Today conditions are different.
Today’s drier climates don’t provide enough water for recharge back into deeper aquifers. We need to match our water demand to what the aquifer actually receives each season, naturally and mankind enhanced. These regions require a different kind of water strategy; percolation fields and other artificial recharge systems that enhance natural groundwater recharge.
Groundwater is renewable in certain regions like mountainous areas of the Sierras, CoastalRange and Cascades in California or the Rockies of the western U.S.. Knowing this suggests different water strategies for different ages of groundwater. Operation Unite® outreach programs are designed to support these more renewable areas. The best part is Operation Unite® engages the water user into the management solutions; bringing people together to solve water problems.
