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California is experiencing the worst drought in its history, and the effects are being felt nationwide. Thus water issues have taken center stage in much of our reporting and the nation's.As the New York Times says, "Water has long been a precious resource in California, the subject of battles pitting farmer against city-dweller and northern communities against southern ones; books and movies have been made about its scarcity and plunder. Water is central to the state’s identity and economy, and a symbol of how wealth and ingenuity have tamed nature ..."As we continue through a fourth year of extreme drought conditions, you'll find all of our reporting on the related issues (and that of NPR and other member stations) in this centralized place.

Butte Groundwater Levels See No Change, Still At Historic Lows

According to the new data collected by the state Department of Water Resources, groundwater levels in Butte County really haven’t changed much from last spring to this spring. On average, groundwater levels only declined an inch. Compare that to the 4-foot average difference measured the year before and you might be inclined to think the new levels don’t sound too bad. But Christina Buck, water resources scientist with the Butte County Department of Water and Resource Conservation, says it’s more of a good news, bad news scenario.

“The good news is water levels didn’t fall drastically in most of our monitoring wells from 2014 to 2015,” Buck said. “The bad news is that they did fall quite a bit from 2013 to 2014 and so we’re still kind of hanging out at a, at least at the starting point of the irrigation season about where we were in 2014.”  

In 2014, Butte County was at historic low groundwater levels. Without any change in groundwater levels since then, we’re still there. Buck says half of the 127 wells monitored by Butte County and DWR are nearing or a few feet below historic drought levels. But she says that information could be a bit skewed because many of the wells aren’t old enough to have data that can be compared to previous historic droughts.

Buck said overall groundwater levels vary widely across the county. Areas seeing the greatest decline include the groundwater dependent sub-regions of Cherokee, Esquon and Durham/Dayton. Buck said the county has ramped up its monitoring frequency due to drought conditions. They’ll now be taking measurements monthly, instead of just a few times a year. 

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