the shift where we’re not getting much snowpack anymore and we have to fi gure out what to do with all this extra water.
What the modeling shows is that we’ve got a lot of capability. We’ve got all this infrastructure. If we could co- operate among the different agencies, we could help Anthony’s groundwater basins quite a lot. Our above ground storage is used for a few things. One is storing water just to make sure it doesn’t fl ood people. Another is storing water for our summer and irrigation needs. Another is storing some water for the dry years as they might come. That dry year water, you can stick it in the ground, if you have good institu- tions set up to be able to do that. A lot of that also depends on the Delta. This is where the Delta fi x is huge. With climate change and sea level rise, the Delta fi x is also more and more impor- tant because those levees are going to be facing more and more risk of failure.
Hear NPR’s report on Gov. Brown and the Delta twin tunnels proposal.
Saracino: I thought Dr. Lund’s pre- liminary conclusions were fascinating in that even with the shift of runoff the existing reservoirs seemed to be capable of handling it, even within existing operational rules. What it tells me is it really warrants a detailed look in a serious way, and that requires time and money, of course. But the initial results were very intriguing and not what you’d expect, counterintuitive.
Leavenworth: I’ll be much more alarmist. I think we’re in deep, deep [stuff] as the governor would say. The chance of an extended drought either in the Sierra Nevada or in the Colorado River system is pretty large. And California is threatened by both of those and it could happen at the same time. But even if it happened separately, the impacts are enormous. I don’t think we’re even close to being prepared for that. And when you see what’s happened in the Mississippi right now where there’s even discussion of stopping cargo shipments because of the drought there you realize that as a country we’re not really taking this
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threat as seriously as we should. I think we’ve got a lot of work to do. I agree that fi guring out the Delta is really important towards preparing for that, but it’s much more than that. It affects every single water agency and every single watershed around the area.
Pitzer: What about the risks posed by fl ooding? The Sacramento region is one of the most vulnerable in the nation.
Leavenworth: Well, I’ll give California credit. We’ve passed a big bond for fl ood control and Sacramento and the people in Natomas have stepped up and paid higher taxes to try to fi x the levees out there. We do need help from Washington, D.C. And historically Washington made sure that its inter- state highways and our airports were protected from fl oods. But we’re obvi- ously in a different era now where we probably can’t count on Washington and it’s pretty alarming for those of us who decided to live in historic com- munities there in fl oodplains. We’re fortunate that our great grandfathers and great-great grandfathers built this Yolo Bypass that protects us almost every year from what would be a devastating fl ood. But we’re still taking that for granted and we haven’t done anything to try to improve that system, and that’s something that the state and local agencies really need to take a hard look at.
Saracino: I do think Stuart made a good point, and I don’t want it to be missed, that in terms of climate change, there’s really two different impacts. The primary one is the shift in hydrology. We were talking about our reservoirs being able to deal with that. The other and potentially more signifi cant one is extreme events. And that’s where you get to the fl oods and the droughts. And I don’t think you’re being more alarmist at all. I fully agree that we’re not prepared to deal with droughts and fl oods as well as we should be, Natomas being an example of that. But I just want to make the point it’s really two climate issues and