Following up on last week’s column regarding the state Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) February dismal snowpack reading of a paltry 25 percent of the historical average, you can bet state officials are prepping Alternative Plan D — as in Drought regulations.
While water planners are for the moment keeping their powder as dry as California’s parched landscape, that will all change instantly if March doesn’t deliver a Noah’s ark monsoon.
The odds of that occurring are pretty slim.
In the past week, various experts in water and weather science have been weighing in with their opinions on the D word. It appears a majority believe we are in for a dry year that could progress to full-blown drought.
According to Jay Lund at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences said a dry-to-drought year would adversely impact already severely drought-stricken forests and “birds and fish could suffer the worst.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at UCLA, is a researcher who focuses on atmospheric processes that cause droughts and floods.
In a recent interview with Water World, he gave his thoughts on the so-called “new weather norm” for California. It’s one of the best explanations that I’ve run across on California’s unique weather and climate complex.
“What we’ve seen recently has been a series of extremes in weather and climate in California on both sides of the spectrum. A lot of people think, ‘We just went through this severe drought, is the future of California one where it never rains again?’ There is not a lot of evidence that is the future we are headed for – a state of perpetual drought.
“California climate is a climate intrinsically of extremes. We have floods, we have droughts and interestingly we don’t have that many years in the middle. … We have this Mediterranean climate with this well-defined dry season. And that may seem strange to somebody who hasn’t spent a lot of time in California, because even that seasonal cycle is actually kind of extreme.”
“The fact is we only get precipitation for often less than half of the calendar year, and the rest of the year is defined by, arguably, an annual drought. We always have a drought for … six months of the year – it’s called summer, early fall and late spring, and the sharpness of that season cycle defines a lot of things that are important in California. It’s part of the reason why, agriculturally, we are such a productive state. …
“It also means we are vulnerable to drought because if something happens and disrupts our storm pattern during the winter, then that’s it for the full year. What that means is there are a few key things we care about in terms of what might happen for the future. We really care about those core winter months for precipitation, but we care about all the other months for everything else.”
DWR officials still hold out some hope for rain in March or April.
According to DWR official Lauren Bisnett, “We're dealing with warmer temperatures and experiencing dry conditions, but there's still time for a couple big storms that would bring us closer to average conditions,” says Lauren Bisnett, of DWR.
So while warning flags are hoisted, DWR’s position is it’s just a bit too early to declare officially we’re back in drought mode.
The official mood is it’s watch and wait time, but time is running out.
It’s also watch and wait time for wildfires. Keep in mind, there’s approximately 130 million dead pine trees statewide along with bone-dry brush, which translates to prodigious amounts of fuel as we learned from last year’s Northcoast and SoCal deadly wldfires.
So there’s a lot riding on the next two months producing above-average rainfall.
However, that scenario most likely will not play out.
Since California first started recording weather data about 150 years ago, there’s only been two occasions when heavy March-April rains brought dry early winter precipitation levels to near-average or average historical totals.
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Speaking of wildfires, liability continues to mount for the state’s Big Three electrical purveyors — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.
They’ve been preparing for battle on proposed legislation preventing electric utilities from passing costs that result from negligent practices onto customers by raising rates.
According to state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, nearly $12 billion in insurance claims have been filed due to California wildfires.
“If you treat these October and December fires as a combined incident, these insured losses represent one of the most damaging natural catastrophes in California history,” Jones said.
In a statement released by his office, he summarized the severity and unprecedented nature of these wildfires: “We no longer have a fire season in California, fires are year-round," Jones said. "The fires were unprecedented for their severity and disastrous consequences. Whole neighborhoods were wiped out.”
The fires on both ends of the state spanned 14 counties altogether, he said. In response, Jones issued a formal notice asking insurance companies to waive requirements for policyholders that they provide a detailed inventory of their losses to pay up to 100% of the claim.
Nearly all insurance providers have agreed to Jones' request, he said.
In Southern California, the fires in December were followed by a historic storm cell in January that triggered a deadly mudslide in Montecito on Jan. 9. It is too early to tally the claims from that disaster, Jones said.
But, he said, since it appears that the mudslide's “proximate cause” was the Thomas fire – which most homeowners were covered for – companies should pay out claims for mudslide damage even if they didn't have flood insurance. He issued a formal notice telling companies as much this past week.
”California law provides that when a covered peril is in effect the proximate cause of an uncovered peril, then insurers should pay claims with the uncovered peril,” he said. “If the fire is covered by the policy and is the proximate cause of the mudslide which is not, insurers should pay claims.”
It was not immediately clear when an official connection between the Thomas fire and the Montecito mudslide would be determined, but Jones said that insurers should “take appropriate steps to assess the claims” in the meantime.
It’ll be interesting watching the Big Three and the insurance industry attempt to figure out their respective game plans over wildfire/mudlside liability given the Insurance Commissioner’s pro-consumer stance. It’s a high-stakes battle with front growing wider.
(Jim Shields is the Mendocino County Observer’s editor and publisher, and is also the long-time district manager of the Laytonville County Water District. Listen to his radio program “This and That” every Saturday at 12 noon on KPFN 105.1 FM, also streamed live: http://www.kpfn.org)
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