San Joaquin Valley Subsidence Continues; Bridges, Aqueducts, Roads, Power Grid All At Risk
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Today’s drama is only the latest chapter in a long-running saga of sinking. Three generations ago, so much groundwater was pumped from aquifers that half the valley sank like a giant pie crust, sagging 28 feet near Mendota and inflicting damage to irrigation canals, pipelines, bridges, roads and other infrastructure.
What stopped it were two massive government-funded irrigation efforts – the federal Central Valley Project and California State Water Project – that flooded the region with water from distant California mountains, relieving pressure on the area’s natural underground water supply. But the fix was temporary. Today, drought, climate change and other forces have unleashed a new era of groundwater pumping, triggering some of the worst land subsidence ever seen in California. Near Michael’s farm, the valley is predicted to drop 17 feet by 2060.
“Subsidence is really Mother Nature telling us we can’t continue to do what we are doing,” said Peter Gleick, a water policy expert and president of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland-based think tank. “It is a physical manifestation of the irrationality of our groundwater system.”
While dramatic, valley subsidence is only part of a larger catalog of trouble tied to unrestrained groundwater pumping across California, from water shortages near Paso Robles to dried-up springs and meadows in the Owens Valley. “You have too many straws in the glass, using too much water – mining the water,” said Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank in San Francisco. “This cannot be sustained indefinitely.”
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http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/06/6299023/san-joaquin-valley-sinking-as.html
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