{"id":21817,"date":"2012-05-21T05:00:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=21817"},"modified":"2018-02-01T22:56:49","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T22:56:49","slug":"the-delta-racing-for-a-fix-before-the-big-one-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2012\/05\/21\/the-delta-racing-for-a-fix-before-the-big-one-hits\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Delta Disasters that Could Disrupt California’s Water Supply"},"content":{"rendered":"

Storms, quakes and creeping saltwater intrusion could all spell trouble at the tap
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
California Conservation Corps workers repairing a levee in the San Francisco Bay-Delta. The levees are a vital defense for farmland and communities but are vulnerable to sea level rise and quakes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the conclusion of her three part series, “California\u2019s Deadlocked Delta<\/a>,” KQED science reporter Lauren Sommer explores how climate change will affect the San Francisco Bay-Delta\u2019s already foundering ecosystems and further complicate management of this critical hub of California\u2019s water supply.<\/p>\n

For those who know little<\/a> about the massive estuary an hour east of downtown San Francisco, the Delta is the meeting place of two of the state\u2019s largest river systems, the Sacramento and San Joaquin. Flowing down from Sierra snowfields and lakes, the two rivers converge in this 1600-square-mile tangle of tidal marshes, sloughs and canals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As California\u2019s population and economy has grown, so has demand for water, much of which is pumped from the Delta and delivered throughout the state by way of sprawling networks of reservoirs, canals and aqueducts<\/a>. (For more on the Delta\u2019s geography and history, see the interactive map and presentation accompanying the report<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

A key challenge examined in Sommer’s report is the issue of sea level rise<\/a>, which makes the Delta\u2019s aging and subsiding 1100-mile levee system increasingly vulnerable to flooding and failure.<\/p>\n

Rising sea levels make the possibility of damaging storm surges, in which water rushes over the levees, a greater possibility. One scenario, described in a recent post by Climate Watch<\/em><\/a>, says that a concurrent rise in sea level corresponding with a storm surge and high tides could cause sea level\u00a0 rise by as much as four feet in the Bay Area by 2030. The consequences would be disastrous in the Delta. Though well inland, much of the Delta lies well below sea level (due to subsidence caused by the oxidation and subsequent erosion of the region’s characteristic peat soils<\/a> [PDF]) and its hydrology is intimately connected with that of the Bay.<\/p>\n

The threat is magnified by the risk of a major earthquake, which by most accounts the Bay Area is due for. For example, in 2009, the US Geological Survey predicted that there is a 62% chance of a 6.7-magnitude or greater earthquake striking the Bay Area<\/a> in the period between 2003 and 2032.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends on where the earthquake occurs, how intense it is and how that energy moves through the Delta,\u201d says Jeff Mount, a geosciences professor at the University of California at Davis<\/a>. He explains that earthquakes threaten the Delta\u2019s levees in one of two ways, by damaging their internal structure or by undermining the sands and peat soils under them.<\/p>\n

[module align=”left” width=”half” type=”pull-quote”]\u201cWe have to come up with solutions, otherwise events will decide them for us \u2013 and that almost never works out well.\u201d[\/module]<\/p>\n

A levee failure could result in a rush of saltwater into the Delta, a scenario sometimes referred to as the \u201cbig gulp.\u201d A recent report by the National Academies of Science<\/a> [PDF] stated that saltwater intrusion \u2013 by way of a major levee breach, or the steady creep of saltwater from rising ocean levels \u2013 could result in a decline in the volume of water available for irrigation and drinking water by as much as 25% by the end of the century. \u201cWe\u2019re in a race to mitigate all those risks. But we have one small problem \u2013 it\u2019s hugely expensive,\u201d Mount explains. \u201cThe existing bonds that have already been authorized are insufficient to really tackle this.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, as Mount concluded, the costs of not <\/em>taking action on the Delta\u2019s problems are unquestionably larger.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s the hub of California\u2019s water supply and it\u2019s the weak link in the chain,\u201d says Mount. \u201cWe have to come up with solutions, otherwise events will decide them for us \u2013 and that almost never works out well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part three of the “Deadlocked Delta” series airs Monday morning on KQED 88.5. The entire series<\/a>, including exclusive web features, is archived at the <\/em>QUEST site.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The main “switchyard” for California’s water supply is more vulnerable than most realize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[484,503],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-21817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-water","tag-sacramento-san-joaquin-delta","tag-seismic"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"yoast_head":"\nThree Delta Disasters that Could Disrupt California's Water Supply | Climate Watch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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