You can also use it to monitor only the reservoirs you are most interested in. Are they releasing water to relieve the pressure in anticipation of more water? There doesnt seem to be any site that shows the impact of each storm. Thats up more than 400,000 acre-feet since early December, before the unrelenting series of atmospheric river storms blew through California between Christmas and mid-January. This is a marimekko (or mekko) graph which may take some time to understand if you arent used to seeing them. Our flagship blog features analysis of news from our staff and announcements of upcoming events. Previously, Kellie covered dining news and trends, visual arts, events and nightlife for the Arizona Republic, and freelanced for the former Contra Costa Times. the Hetch Hetchy Valley to its natural state. Units are in kaf, thousands of acre feet. There is something strange about the data over the last two days (Jan.17 to Jan. 19): https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/11275500/#parameterCode=00054&period=P7D. Some want the city to leave more water in stream channels for threatened salmon while others continue a longshot bid to shut down Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite altogether and return the area to its natural state. It has no natural inflow or out flow. Greetings from Mount Laurel New Jersey. looks like the CDEC website is the cause of the issue unless it actually dropped 90% in a day: In response to the Bay-Delta Plan, the SFPUC and the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts have proposed the Tuolumne River Voluntary Agreement, a combination of flow and non-flow measures sufficient to improve all life-stages of native fish populations in the lower Tuolumne River. A diverse mix of sources protects us from potential disruptions due to emergencies or natural disasters, provides resiliency during periods of drought, and helps us ensure a long-term, sustainable water supply as we address issues such as climate uncertainty, regulatory changes and population growth. The SFPUC gets the bulk of its water from a network of reservoirs in the central Sierra Nevada that have long altered flows of the Tuolumne River and its tributaries. BAWSCA Board of Directors Meeting, March 16, 2023, 6:30 PM. HETCH HETCHY RES A HETCH HETCHY CA. Usually with warm ARs, you get a dramatic increase in inflow, which can fill even very large reservoirs relatively quickly, like Oroville in 2017. Ill pass it along to friends. What rates am I paying? For example, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park provides 85 percent of San Francisco's total water needs. This site is a great tool, especially as we try to climb out of these drought years. O'Shaughnessy Dam is a 430-foot (131 m) high concrete arch-gravity dam in Tuolumne County, California, United States.It impounds the Tuolumne River, forming the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir at the lower end of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, about 160 miles (260 km) east of San Francisco. This was helpful to project seasonal trends & storm impacts. That said, most of its outflow makes its way down Feather River (via Rock Creek Reservoir) and ultimately into Orville. has a graph which shows how the historical avg changes throughout the year (oscillating between ~15000 and ~21000). It could be the 180% of historical average of snowpack, which will be melting in a couple months. While constructed and owned by San Francisco, the water system was in fact planned to benefit the greater San Francisco Bay Area population.
Great URL. mandate within The Mokolumne River, which originates in the high Sierra, provides more than 90 percent of the East Bay's water and the Owens Valley in the eastern Sierra serves as a key source of water for Los Angeles. ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. I would turn this graph, 90 counterclockwise, and start the capacity along the bottom axis from left to right, with the biggest reservoirs on the left and the smaller ones on the right. As it is, at first glance, it looks like shasta is at the top because its 28000 instead of 4552. very nice product overall. Waterfalls gushed at Hetch Hetchy after an atmospheric river event in October 2021. Thank you so much for the hard work! Even with all the rain and floods, still a long way to fill them to capacity. Construction of the regional water system proceeded over the following 20 years, with water first delivered in 1934. https://cdec.water.ca.gov/dynamicapp/QueryDaily?s=HTH 7 days 30 days California drought: Charts show where reservoir levels stand after a dry January, Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area. Super frustrating. All rights reserved. More about the Tuolumne River Voluntary Agreement can be found athttp://www.tuolumnerivermanagementplan.com. 2022 All Rights Reserved. Eighty-five percent of the water comes from Sierra Nevada snowmelt stored in the Hetch Hetchy reservoir situated on the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park. Its currently listed on this page as 29kaf full, but the usgs.gov page below says Hetch Hetchy is at 299.7kaf full. Current and Historical Visualization, https://cdec.water.ca.gov/dynamicapp/QueryDaily?s=HTH, https://cdec.water.ca.gov/dynamicapp/QueryDaily?s=SHA, https://engaging-data.com/ca-reservoir-level/, https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=RES, Visualizing Californias Water Storage Reservoirs and Snowpack, Interactive California Reservoir Levels Dashboard. But tearing down O'Shaughnessy Dam in order to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley would be a disaster. The 1913 Raker Act authorized the unprecedented dam inside the park and also set the fee that the city pays to rent the entire valley in which the dam sits: $30,000 per year. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander. The recent spate of storms lifted the statewide snowpack to 190% of average for the start of the month, and more snow is on the way. All of this work is nothing short of brilliant. Nice! Folsom is like an overflow tank. Congress had to approve the project because it was If you are on a computer, you can hover your cursor over a reservoir and the dashboard at the top will provide information about that individual reservoir. The Department of Water Resources, which manages the state's water supply, said in a statement that there are several possible reasons for the difference in inflow amounts between the two reservoirs. Python is used to extract the data from this page hourly and wrangle the data in to a clean format. For perspective, water demand across the SFPUC's service area of 2.7 million people was about 205,000 acre-feet last fiscal year. Francisco Bay Area. To reach Hetch Hetchy, you have to exit Yosemite National Park and re-enter it. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS Upcountry and the Bay Area. The main goal of this visualization is to provide a quick overview of the status of the main reservoirs in the state and how they compare to historical levels. For the class we based all our designs on the USACE spillway design manual. Lock Instructions: During the winter months, they let water out of the reservoirs in anticipation of large storms. I have to agree with many people here what a great job making such a clear graph of whats happening. Current conditions of LAKE OR RESERVOIR WATER SURFACE ELEVATION ABOVE NGVD 1929 and RESERVOIR STORAGE are available. No it is correct. That includes the Tuolumne River, which provides water via Hetch Hetchy Reservoir to Bay Area customers. Lock Also, do they provide inflows and outflows for locations? sends student to hospital, Heres how much rain and snow is on the way this weekend, Your Privacy Choices (Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads). San Francisco will be in great shape going into 2023, said Spreck Rosekrans, executive director of Restore Hetch Hetchy Its unfortunate that too little is being done with these flows to recharge groundwater basins to help cities and farms and even restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley., Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. It is also the amount of water in a cube that is 352 feet per side (about the length of a football field). Great work. diversion of water? Restore Hetch Hetchy claimed the phrase had }
I dont know if weve seen anything like this in October before.". The trail includes spectacular views of Tueeulala and Wapama Falls. It looks like the red and blue lines are backwards on Folsom. A small portion of the citys water comes from local reservoirs. window.addEventListener("orientationchange", function() {
The BAWSCA agencies are therefore key stakeholders in ensuring the system serves as a reliable source of high quality water. It used to be full (and beyond). It would be really interesting to visualize whether were able to replenish ground water this year after all the precipitation. Central Valleyfarms have installed enough drip irrigationstrips to reach the moon and back, an improvement that also enables more efficient application of fertilizer and pesticides. pertained to water that was wasted, and there was no claim that Hours: Year-round, but only accessible by car when the Hetch Hetchy Road is open. This local water is captured in reservoirs located in San Mateo and Alameda counties. Remaining Capacity text in the legend should be brown? Is that a good thing? The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir that supplies San Francisco, seen here in February, is among those that have refilled after two months of storms. In Yosemite National Park, the Hetch Hetchy reservoir relies. Curious why Shasta lake seems to be making big gains in water coming in and Trinity not so much? The tremendous inflow to city reservoirs during the recent storms, mostly in and around Yosemite National Park, has lifted San Franciscos total water storage to near capacity. Current conditions of LAKE OR RESERVOIR WATER SURFACE ELEVATION ABOVE NGVD 1929 and RESERVOIR STORAGE are available. Restore Hetch Hetchy. I see many of the local canals flowing with lots of water. The soaking was welcome in a drought-plagued state with a diminishing water supply. During most years, there will be a 30-day shut down of the Hetch Hetchy source in the winter months. It can take several days to see the full impact on reservoirs as water continues to run through watersheds and into streams in the days after a storm. document.getElementById('globes').contentWindow.location.reload();
We own and operate the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System which serves 2.7 million customers. Several cities and water agencies that are now part of BAWSCA urged Congress to pass the Raker Act in 1913, the law that allowed federal lands in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, to be used to build the water system. What happened to the Hetch Hetchy level? scenic mountain valley in a national park. Lake Shasta, the state's largest reservoir, rose 2.9 feet and added 31,020 acre-feet of water. . California reservoir levels: . A lock ( a minimum, according to the San Francisco Public Utilities their water supply would cost hundreds of millions of dollars at a broad meaning that had been previously applied in an function resizeframe(){
United States. Our drinking water comes from a variety of protected sources carefully managed by the SFPUC. Yoohyun Jung is the Deputy Data Editor for The San Francisco Chronicle. Maintaining this variety of sources is an important component of our near and long-term water supply management strategy. After record snowfall in December was followed by a dry January, there are renewed concerns of drought. Im curious: Lk Almanor is the 8th largest reservoir in CA. Last week, I paid a visit to Hetch Hetchy. Visualization was done in javascript and specifically the D3.js visualization library. This file photo shows Shasta Lake. Hetch Hetchy is Monitoring location 11275500. "Soils that have become hydrophobic due to wildfire can also contribute to increased runoff because the water is less able to penetrate the burned soil," the department said. Water storage facilities include watersheds, dams, and reservoirs including: Calaveras, San Antonio, Crystal Springs, Pilarcitos, and San Andreas. The name Hetch Hetchy is derived from a Sierra Miwok lawsuit, saying Restore Hetch Hetchys arguments were preempted Hetch Hetchy is one of nine reserviors in a water system that serves San Francisco and other Bay Area communities. setTimeout(function (){
I like the comparisons of last year, and the historical average. word for a type of wild grass. It wont be full until Spring snowmelt. Occasionally the source water will shift to local reservoirs during routine maintenance to the conveyance system. We provide water directly to customers in San Francisco and wholesale through 26 Water agencies in Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties. If you are on a mobile device you can tap the reservoir to get that same info. Restoring Hetch Hetchy will require some changes in how San Francisco moves and stores water. 1 kaf is the amount of water that would cover 1 acre in one thousand feet of water (or 1000 acres in water in 1 foot of water). ) or https:// means youve safely connected to the .gov website. Monitoring location 11277500 is associated with a LAKE, RESERVOIR, IMPOUNDMENT in TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. During late summer and early fall, it will be necessary to move stored supplies from Cherry or Don Pedro Reservoirs into the pipeline. It certainly looks dry at least until the last week in February, he said. This is the first state (of 6 I have lived in) that has had water police and restrictions. While forecasters can predict the likelihood of future rainfall over large areas, they cant pinpoint it to the degree needed to determine whether a particular watershed/reservoir will overflow and cause damage and loss of life. If you are reading this, its probably the winter rainy season in California again, and time to check on the status of the water in the California reservoirs. do so. Id only be interested in the totals from Oroville and Shasta. Rizzardo said there was a decent amount of flow into the reservoirs into January, even though weather-wise it was bone dry, a result of lower elevation snow at 4,000 to 6,000 feet making its way into the reservoirs. Due to its high-altitude location at 3,900 feet above sea level Good info to know. Ive been meaning to search for aquifer levels. and maybe another vertical axis to the right of that with reservoir capacity. "It was a very healthy shot in the arm. San Francisco maintained the phrase only There are many very small reservoirs (relative to Shasta) so the bars will be very thin to the point where they are barely a sliver or may not even show up. Also a little nit. Great graphs and very useful. City officials have touted their efforts to help salmon, for example by timing water releases to assist with migration and restoring breeding grounds. The main reason for the discrepancy, the department said, is that the focus of the atmospheric river was generally between the Golden Gate and Mount Lassen, meaning that the Feather River watershed received much more rainfall than the Shasta Lake drainage area. She is a University of Washington graduate. The SFPUC has also raised concerns over the fishery benefits of the States Plan. The judge also noted the provision of the state Im curious why the percentage of capacity has stayed almost flat for the past 6 weeks or so and below historical average. They have restoredMono Lake,improved stream flows on the North Coast and in theCentral Valleyand diminished the threat to native fish in the Bay Delta. This is of particular interest as the self-imposed restrictions deadline is approaching and the federal government may have to step in and mandate restrictions across the 7 states, including California. The Hetch Hetchy Valley today with the dam seen in the lower right. Flood control agencies (not DWR) have the most say in regard to releases. Only improvement I would suggest is an improvement of the display of the smaller reservoirs so the names are readable. November 10, 2022 - BAWSCA Statement on State Water-Policy Officials, SFPUC, and Districts Sign MOU for Tuolumne River to Help Recover Salmon While Protecting Water Reliability. I am grateful for all that you have done here to open our eyes to what is happening, what has happened, and even what might be on the horizon. currently, there is a lot more water coming in than going out. . California boosts water deliveries to highest level in years, thanks to storms, California reservoir levels: Charts show water supply across the state, Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area. The citys water system also includes a water bank at Don Pedro Reservoir along the Tuolumne River, which was full as of Feb. 1. the issue, including those under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Not only does it supply 85 percent of the water for 2.6 million people in San Francisco, controlled releases via the O'Shaughnessy Dam are helping preserve downstream specieseven in dry . Therefore flood control agencies take the more conservative route and order the release of water. Thank you for a beautiful job. rejected by an appellate court and the California Supreme Court Could you also do the same for the Colorado River reservoirs to see how they are fairing? While it may seem that Decembers production could get us through the rest of the season, Rizzardo explains that in hydrology, you need consistent water shed to keep soils happy. He fears that without more precipitation this season, well enter our third very dry year. You can sort the mekko graph by size largest at the top to smallest at the bottom or by reservoir location, from north to south. **new combined California reservoir and snowpack visualizer**, made a bar graph showing the overall level of water in the major California reservoirs, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Data Exchange Center. Have you looked into that side of the water management equation? Californias snowpack slips below average after dismally dry January, renewing concerns about drought, Busting water limits wont cost you in Marin County: Penalties canceled as rain fills reservoirs, California snowpack hits highest level this century for March. I realize there we dont want to reservoirs overflowing, but why are we still below historical average? Hetch Hetchy has generated controversy since it was first At the beginning of this water year, which started on October 1, 2022, the state's largest water reservoir, Lake Shasta, was a third full, at 33 percent. Thanks for providing it for public information. "Some weather monitoring stations in the Feather River drainage received as much as 12 to 19 inches during the period of the storms," the department said. The data on water storage comes from the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Data Exchange Center. I hear from the farmers that we waste 80% of the water by flushing it into the ocean. I also hear the environmentalists say, the streams and wildlife need water, so flush it into the ocean. Its an interesting dilemma. You can find the charts below from the California Department of Water Resources website. Yep. Very nice work. Similar findings are described in theUC Davis studyRe-Assembling Hetch HetchyandUS Bureau of Reclamation study. Then it has the appearance of something filling up, while still providing all the detail. John Muir and the Thanks for the prompt reply! The water transmission system in the Bay Area and Peninsula includes the Bay Division, San Andreas, Sunset Supply, and Crystal Springs pipelines. Great stuff. Hi, I started by using this page (https://cdec.water.ca.gov/reportapp/javareports?name=RES) to determine which reservoirs to include and for some reason Almanor isnt on the list. System for more than 60 percent of their drinking water. But I would never have imagined how to put all the important information into a single plot. Hetch Hetchy water travels 160 miles via gravity from Yosemite to the San Francisco Bay Area. globe.height = globe.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+40+"px";
It was my first time using D3 and it took me a long time to get up to speed. Especially for small ones it is hard to identify them and click on them. I believe the spillway was designed by the State. The advocacy group Restore Hetch Hetchy took its case for How do I pay my bill? located in a national park and it passed the Raker Act in 1913 to CHERRY LK NR HETCH HETCHY CA Important Legacy real-time page Monitoring location 11277200 is associated with a LAKE, RESERVOIR, IMPOUNDMENT in TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. Impounded by OShaughnessy Dam, Hetch Hetchy Reservoir water passes through hydroelectric powerhouses before it enters the San Joaquin Pipelines, the Tesla Ultraviolet Treatment Facility, and the Coast Range Tunnel on its journey to the Bay Area. The windfall of water is welcome news for households and businesses in San Francisco, which use less water on average compared to the rest of the state but nonetheless have faced calls to cut back since 2021 because of water shortages. Monitoring location 11275500 is associated with a LAKE, RESERVOIR, IMPOUNDMENT in TUOLUMNE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. environmental context. Official websites use .gov And while one storm didn't come close to ending the drought, some reservoirs in Northern California, especially those that fell right in the path of the storm, saw significant gains. Hetch Hetchy is the only reservoir above its average storage of 63%, and is 82% full. The cities of Burlingame, Hayward, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Redwood City and San Mateo, along with the Alameda County Water District, were among Bay Area communities whose support was influential in persuading Congress to pass the controversial Act, and President Woodrow Wilson to sign it. I appreciate the information you are providing. Your email address will not be published. Copyright Barry Rokeach, 2014. If we reach 100% after the current rains and then it stops raining for the season, then our percentage will start going down. Other California water agencies have done far more to reduce the impact of their system on Mono Lake, the Trinity and San Joaquin Rivers, and the Bay-Delta. One of the big challenges in water management is controling the release. Sometimes this is well done sometimes it is poorly done. The height of the row indicates how much water the reservoir could hold. For most of the year it will still be possible to divert the flow of the Tuolumne River into the pipeline just downstream of the National Park boundary. Thanks. construction in the 1920s, various groups have lobbied to restore A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the Yes, and why is Twitchell Dam also not listed? In fact, thanks to a little snowmelt, water levels were up for all reservoirs from December to January. How can I apply to SFPUC? The snowpack acts as a natural reservoir and slowly releases water..
So while that is kind of good news, he said, things start to look more grim after January produced paltry rainfall and, so far, February has also been dry.