[pct-l] Sierra snow pack shrinking, study says

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source:
http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2003/state/20031018040555.shtm
l

SACRAMENTO -- Global warming means epochal changes in the Sierra 
Nevada snow pack that supplies two-thirds of California’s water and 
most of the water for northern Nevada, says a study being released 
Thursday. 

The snow pack will shrink and melt earlier in the year, reducing 
runoff in the dry spring and summer, predicts the Sierra Nevada 
Alliance. The snow line will climb 500 feet within decades as 
temperatures rise. 

"We’re dealing with a situation where the problems could be very 
severe," agreed Doug Osugi, a state Department of Water Resources 
planner. One computer model predicts a temperature increase of 2.5 to 
10.5 degrees over a century, bringing "major potential impacts for 
the Sierra snow pack." 

Besides a smaller, shorter-lived snow pack, scientists fear climate 
change could bring more extremes of flooding and drought to the 400-
mile-long range, he said. The department is including a chapter on 
the issue in an updated California Water Plan slated for public 
comment later this year. 

Coupled with global warming, the environmental coalition’s report 
projects population increases in some Sierra counties from double to 
as much as five times their current level. That means increased 
pollution when government agencies or scientific bodies already have 
labeled as polluted or damaged all the 24 major Sierra watersheds 
except the Cosumnes River south of Sacramento. 

"Climate change and growth in the Sierra spell real trouble for 
California’s water supply," warned alliance executive director Joan 
Clayburgh. 

The changes already have been occurring over the last 50 years, the 
report suggests. It cites university researchers’ findings that the 
snow pack is melting earlier each year, leading to more frequent 
flooding as spring rains fall on winter runoff. 

Correspondingly, spring and summer runoff in the Southern Sierra has 
dropped 10 percent over the last century, the report says. 

"Our storage reservoirs will be in the wrong place" if the trend 
continues, said Senate Agriculture and Water Resources Committee 
Chairman Mike Machado, D-Linden. 

Clayburgh and Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee 
Chairwoman Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, warned, in statements 
accompanying the report, against building new dams to capture earlier 
runoff, a solution they said would harm the environment. 

Better to work on water conservation and protect forests and meadows 
that naturally slow and store runoff, Clayburgh said. 

Sierra water supplies two-thirds of the state’s population, irrigates 
3 million acres of California farmland and produces enough 
hydroelectricity to make up about a quarter of California’s power. 

With the Central Valley Project, the State Water Project and numerous 
other conduits piping water to California and Nevada urban areas, 
water is the Sierra’s leading export, surpassing logging, 
agriculture, grazing and tourism, says the study, which puts the 
value conservatively at $1.3 billion annually. 

Half of all the state’s wildlife and plants live in the Sierra, 
including 40 species of fish. But half the Sierra fish and amphibian 
populations are in trouble. 

The alliance, made up of conservation groups across the Sierra, 
called on state legislators to create a California Sierra Nevada 
Conservancy to increase funding and planning for the range. Gov.-
elect Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed such a conservancy as part of 
his environmental platform.

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