Water From the North of the Bay Delta

About four years ago Judge Wagner reviewied the pumping operations to manage water from the Bay Delta in Central California in order to manage the habitat of the threatened Delta Smelt. The Judge ruled that pumping operations had to be optimized to pritrct the smelt. The State Water Contractors website reports on utilizing peak flows from the North of the Delta versus from the South that is happening now: http://www.swc.org/in-the-news/press-releases/151-did-california-miss-the-big-gulp-water-supply-moment-this-year The Northern flows would be diverted to 35 mile pipes to hook up to the distribution system south of the delta. But with ~19% of the energy costs to the state of California associated with pumping water from Northern to Southern California, there surely must be a cheaper way!

What is a Groundwater Basin?

While putting together research that I want toI do related to drought cycles and population capacity in my area I came across a link to a description and map of the groundwater basin I live on top of.  When reviewing the document I thought to myself what is a basin and how many people know what a basin actually is. So in this post I’m going to briefly describe what is groundwater basin is & why it is important.

Around Basin is an area that collects water from the watershed. What is a watershed you maybe asking? Watershed is an area that drains all water to specific point or region. The ground water basin is what underlies the watershed.

The reason why the ground water basin is important is because that is where a community receives its water from.  If you contaminate watershed then you will contaminate the groundwater basin which will negatively affect the drinking water for the community.

To sign your ground water basins tried google ing your zip code and the words “groundwater basin”. Check out California is groundwater basins here: CA Groundwater Basins