F E AT U R E

Folsom Lake became the face of California’s drought

as images of the barren lake bottom were broadcast
nationwide. Photo by Dan Brekke.

More than a Silver Bullet

Maintaining Reliable Water Supply
During Extreme Drought
Robert J. Swartz and John K. Woodling

B
y December 2015, Folsom Lake, a primary water supply
for nearly 2 million Sacramento region residents, had
hit its lowest-ever-storage, just under 14% of capacity.
Operated by the United States Bureau of Reclamation,
and used to capture American River flows, the lake is situated
in the shadow of majestic oak trees and surrounded by foothills
that lead to California’s iconic gold rush country and rugged
Sierra Nevada. In a condition more resembling a moonscape
than a lake, many wondered how long it would be before the
water levels in the nearly one-million acre-foot reservoir would
fall below the intake structures used for local supply. Conditions
were so dire that Reclamation installed portable pumps on
barges in the lake as a stand-by option to continue providing
water for public supply.

12 • Water Resources IMPACT March/April 2016

 The entire region was collectively
holding its breath when, in the second
week of December, the wet El Niño
season began to emerge. Water storage
in Folsom Lake, just weeks earlier the
poster child for California’s drought,
rose. And while these storms will
help, they will not fully remedy the
cumulative effects of California’s four-
year drought. Still, despite these driest of
times, Sacramento’s water agencies are
positioned to continue providing reliable
water supplies through long-term water
resource planning and additional short-
term actions in direct response to the
current drought.
A COMMITMENT TO
FUTURE GENERATIONS
Drought preparedness was over
two decades in the making
To understand the region’s current
drought preparedness, one must look
back more than two decades. The late
1980s and early 1990s were a period
of significant growth in the region as
well as a period of multi-year drought.
Proposals to increase diversions from the
lower American River to accommodate
growth faced prolonged legal challenges.
Additionally, an overreliance by some
agencies on groundwater as a sole source
of supply led to long-term declining
groundwater levels. These conditions
moved local leaders to join forces to
ensure water resources for all needs
were managed sustainably as the region
developed. That effort, begun in 1993,
became known as the Water Forum.
Following nearly seven years of
facilitated discussions, technical analysis,
and negotiations, 40 diverse stakeholder
groups signed the Water Forum
Agreement. This historic Agreement,
completed in April 2000, included
co-equal objectives to:
• provide a reliable and safe water supply
for the region’s economic health and
planned development through the
year 2030.
• preserve the fishery, wildlife,
recreational, and aesthetic values of
the lower American River.
The Water Forum effort continues
today, and signatories to the Agreement
actively work to meet its objectives more
Long-term monitoring in the basin shows steady declines in groundwater elevations until
modified operations began in the 1990s. Data source: California Department of Water
Resources Water Data Library, Graphic source: Prepared by Steve Irving, MWH.
than 15 years after its execution. Successes
in water conservation, conjunctive use,
groundwater management, and habitat
improvement have been realized.
The Water Forum water supply
agencies further committed to long-term
regional planning in forming the Regional
Water Authority (RWA) in July 2001.
RWA, a joint powers authority, assists its
members in protecting and enhancing
the reliability, availability, affordability,
and quality of water resources. RWA helps
members work collaboratively to plan
and secure funding to construct facilities
that allow the region to better balance its
surface water and groundwater supplies to
match weather conditions. Surface water
is used preferentially in wet periods and
groundwater is used preferentially in
dry periods.
Long term, balanced portfolio
sets the stage for effective
drought response
Two decades ago, most of the
region’s more than 20 water suppliers
relied predominantly on one source of
water as their primary supply—either
surface water or groundwater. Decades-
long overreliance on groundwater by
some agencies resulted in long-term
groundwater declines. To correct this
downward trend, some of these agencies
invested heavily in constructing facilities
and developing agreements to secure
surface water in wetter years. In these
wet years, groundwater levels are able
to recover naturally. At the same time,
agencies historically dependent on surface
water also invested in infrastructure that
added groundwater to their supply mix in
dry years.
Investments in infrastructure—
expanding the capacity to divert and treat
surface water, increasing the ability to
pump groundwater, and interconnecting
the two sources—as well as modified
operations have effectively turned the
groundwater basin into a large storage
reservoir. Since the late 1990s, an
estimated 100 billion gallons of water has
been stored in the underlying groundwater
basin. This not only arrested the long-term
declines, but groundwater levels have even
begun to gradually recover in the basin as
evidenced in long-term hydrographs. This
stored groundwater has been extremely
helpful as an alternative to surface water
during the current drought conditions.
Another long-term action that has
helped ensure reliable supply during
drought is the implementation of
RWA’s water efficiency program. This
regional program focuses on outreach
and education and partners with local
water supplier members to develop and
implement customer rebate programs.
Popular longstanding programs include
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 Effective water efficiency measures have kept water demand stable despite significant population growth.
Data source: Data collected from RWA from member local agencies.
rebates for replacing high water use toilets
and for conversion to drip irrigation
systems. Results have been dramatic. Since
2000, total water use in the region has
remained stable, despite adding 400,000
residents to the region’s population.
Short-term actions help the region
weather historic dry conditions
Although the long-term actions provide
a strong foundation for dealing with
California’s variable hydrology, additional
short-term actions were necessary to deal
with the magnitude of the recent, driest-
ever-recorded conditions. By mid-2013,
local water managers recognized that
Folsom Lake would soon begin to have
seriously low storage that could threaten
reliable water supply for both public
supply and environmental uses. Water
managers responded by developing a
multi-pronged approach to dealing
with this threat that included supply
augmentation and demand reductions to
further stretch limited supplies.
The supply augmentation
plan includes:
• Reducing reliance on surface water,
particularly from Folsom Lake
14 • Water Resources IMPACT March/April 2016
• Improving the ability to divert surface
water at low river and lake levels
• Expanding the ability to extract stored
groundwater
• Increasing interconnections between
agencies to move available water around
the region. This included installing
booster pumps to lift water from lower
parts of the region to higher elevations.
In early 2014, RWA worked with local
water providers to identify priority projects
to augment water supply and to increase the
region’s ability to move water to areas most
impacted by drought. Projects included
construction of new groundwater wells
and rehabilitation of existing wells that
increased production capacity by about 15
million gallons per day (MGD). To better
distribute water throughout the region,
a series of interconnections are being
constructed that will increase the ability to
move water between water agency service
areas by more than 50 MGD. Booster
pumps in key locations provide for water
to be moved to areas that are otherwise
dependent on gravity flow of water from
Folsom Lake. Finally, the drought response
includes improvements at two of the
region’s largest surface water diversions to
allow for continued diversions at times
of extremely low flow in local rivers.
This allows for changes in the timing of
releases from Folsom Lake to optimize
flows for habitat during dry conditions.
Demand management measures
became equally important. Due to low
storage in Folsom Lake, local water
suppliers began implementing water
shortage contingency plans as early as
December 2013. By January 2014, the
region’s suppliers adopted a common
call to their customers for voluntary
20% demand reductions. RWA also
implemented an aggressive outreach
campaign and local media maintained
extensive coverage of the dry conditions.
Customers responded by cutting water
use by some 40 billion gallons (or about
20% of total demand) in 2014 compared
to 2013. In 2015, customers responded
even further by reducing water use by 50
billion gallons (about a 30% reduction)
compared to 2013.
Hope for the best, but prepare for the
worst. Even with projections for a wet
2016, the region is prepared to continue
reliably providing water to meet its needs
should dry conditions persist. There are
 no silver bullets. Reliability is possible
due to the region’s collaborative spirit,
long and short-term planning, and a
balanced water management portfolio
focused on both supply augmentation
and demand-side reductions. ■

Rob Swartz is the manager of

technical services for RWA. Rob’s
responsibilities include the development
and implementation of the region’s
Integrated Regional Water Management
Plan. Prior to joining RWA in 2003, Rob
was with the California Department of
Water Resources where he conducted
feasibility studies for proposed
conjunctive use programs in California’s
Central Valley. Rob is a California
professional geologist and certified
hydrogeologist.

Contact Information
Rob Swartz
Manager of Technical Services
Regional Water Authority
5620 Birdcage St., Ste. 180
Citrus Heights, CA 95610
Drought response infrastructure projects in the region. These projects are partially (916) 967-7692
funded through a 2014 DWR Drought Grant. Graphic Source: Prepared by Steve Irving, MWH. rswartz@rwah2o.org

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