Over the past few months, a lot of rain has fallen in Santa Barbara County, so I asked Matt Young with Santa Barbara County what impact that’s having locally.
"We had a very wet rain year last year, more than 200% of our annual average, so we filled all of our surface water reservoirs and started to make progress filling our groundwater basins," Young said.
Lake Cachuma, Jameson, and the Gibraltar Reservoir are all full, but it’s not just water filling up the lakes.
"We have young mountains here and they are very erodible and every time it rains, a lot of sediment gets washed into all three of the basins on the Santa Ynez River," Young explained.
Siltation is a problem for the Gibraltar Reservoir, which provides 40% of the City of Santa Barbara's water. The reservoir’s capacity has decreased by 30% since 1920 due to erosion and wildfires, according to Santa Barbara County.
"There have been numerous studies done on how to remove this silt and what the cost-effectiveness would be, and the result on all these reservoirs is that it would not be cost-effective to remove it," Young said.
Lake Cachuma also experiences siltation but has a much larger capacity.
"Cachuma has also lost some of its volume over the years. Its overall capacity has diminished as it fills up, but there is still more than 193,000 acres of storage and a lot of water to be used," Young continued.
This is one reason why Dakota Corey with the City of Santa Barbara says she’s confident in the city's water reserves.
"Our water supply situation right now is great. Right now, the city has the state's most diverse water supply, allowing us to switch supplies when one supply is dwindling," Corey said.
That means that Santa Barbara has access to the state water project, groundwater, and desalination. Plus, Corey says people in Santa Barbara are very good at conserving.
"We use the same amount of water we used in 1950 even though our population has doubled since then," Corey said.
Now that the basins are full, some water needs to be released and communities like Solvang, Buellton, and Lompoc could be affected.
"Right now, the release is fairly minimal, but as releases get bigger, the federal Bureau of Reclamation and Santa Barbara County of Emergency Management issue warnings to people downstream to let them know there will be higher flows," Young said.
Although we have more than enough water now, Young stresses the importance of continued conservation.
"The last time Lake Cachuma spilled was 2011. And the next year, we began the worst drought we’ve ever had," Young said.
