Storm warnings, high wind advisories, flood watches, evacuation orders pending – what a week. For some, this week’s weather is foreboding and dreary, perhaps even a sign. But for me there’s something holy, even righteous about it. It’s been a long time since I felt this at-home in California.
At first, when it was just the
prospect of full reservoirs for the first time this decade, the water watchdogs
warned not to get too hopeful that our five-year drought is over. “There’s still the groundwater table in
overdraft,” they chided, reminding us that the big boys’ long straws have been
oversucking from it so long there might be no replenishment possible.
Then the reservoirs had to start
releasing water just to keep the bounty from breaking the dams and to maintain
some semblance of flood control.
Oroville, one of the newer dams in California’s massive water
development system, reminded us that facilities age and that infrastructure
must be maintained to be of true value.
Then levees broke in the Alpaugh Irrigation District as the flood flows
of multiple creeks in the Tule and Kern River watersheds accumulated and ended
up where they belong, in the old bed of Tulare Lake, which they do every once
in a while, come hell or high water (literally.)
To the north of us, levees along the
length of the mighty San Joaquin are promising a similar replenishment. Old valley communities like Vernalis,
Stevinson and Tranquility are likely not so tranquil right now, as the attempt
to keep flood flows off the farmland threatens to drown out the farmworker
communities. It’s a trade-off we still
haven’t found a way to make correctly.
"It’s too bad,” a friend who grows
olives told me Sunday, “all this water going to waste. LSID cut us off completely the last two
years, and yet now, here’s all this water….”
His voice trailed off into the mystery of the moment. “It’s not going to waste,” I wanted to cry,
though I kept my protest to myself since I don’t farm. In fact, when it spills out onto the land, it
brings life to the soil as well as improving the groundwater supplies. In fact, it’s doing what it’s supposed to do
in God’s holy hydrologic cycle. Here all
this time we’ve been praying for rain, and now we’re going to complain about
where He puts it?
Down in Alpaugh, when the levees
broke this time, the big boys hired helicopters to drop 3,000-pound sandbags on
the break, stemming the flow for now.
But it’s kinda like working on old cars:
installing a new part often puts pressure somewhere else, causing
another part to break. The history of
farming the Tulare Lake bed is full of stories about heroic flood prevention
efforts by the large landowners causing storm water to take out some small
guys’ operations. At least that water’s not
wasting to the ocean, right?
This drought-flood pattern is part
of California’s natural cycle, at least so far.
I’m comforted by the return of the wet half of our true nature, glad we
haven’t yet reached the point where the rains are always meager, the snowfall
non-existent, where the floods never come.
We would do well to plan for this pattern, to accommodate the extremes,
not the averages, and then try everything in our power to keep from altering
it.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a writer who once wanted to be a hydrologist. You can send her your favorite high water stories
c/o P.O Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
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