San Francisco, Northern California, Welcomes Heavy Rains

October 29, 2021,

Some foods taste so delicious the day after, like freshly cooked beans, cold pizza and Thanksgiving leftovers, it doesn’t seem fitting to even call them leftovers.

They sometimes taste better than the first overs.

A good rain is similar.

The first day can range from soothing to frightening depending upon how much rain falls but the next day yields the same result.

Fresh air.

Here in Northern California, cool, crisp fresh air.

Recently we received so much rainfall that we wondered if the endless California drought is over. How much rain did we receive?

On October 23, 2021, as reported by sfgate.com, “The weather service released storm totals — looking at total rainfall across 48 hours for key locations with gauges — Monday Morning. The weather gauge in downtown San Francisco recorded a total of 4.02 inches of rain on Oct. 24, making it the wettest October day ever and the fourth-wettest day ever with records going back to the Gold Rush.”

That was wet wonderful. We really needed the water but the drought, ravaging California for years, is far from over.

The team at abc30.com educated, “The rain from Monday's storm is not expected to have a significant impact on California's statewide drought crisis, experts say. Officials say we need to have several good wet seasons in a row to recover.”

Well, having said that, we are off to a very good start.

A massive storm hit northern California over the weekend, but it would take months of steady rain to move Nor Cal out of drought status.

Good to know. To turn the needle, you have to start somewhere.

The important news source sfgate.com adds, “Lake Oroville, the state's second-largest reservoir, has already made significant gains after the storm. The lake level rose 28 feet and gained roughly 166,000 acre-feet of water after the storm, the Department of Water Resources data showed.”

Holding on to as much of those gains as possible is a major goal.

Which makes us think about water harvesting.

fciwomenswrestling.com femcompetitor.com, fcielitecompetitor.com fciwomenswrestling2.com Talento-Tec-Monterrey-Institute-of-Technology-and-Higher-Education-Mexico-City.

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) is the collection and storage of rain, rather than allowing it to run off.

Rainwater is collected from a roof-like surface and redirected to a tank, cistern, deep pit, well, shaft, or aquifer, or a reservoir with percolation, so that it seeps down and restores the ground water.

Rainwater harvesting differs from storm water harvesting as the runoff is collected from roofs, rather than creeks, drains, roads, or any other land surfaces. Its uses include watering gardens, livestock, irrigation, domestic use with proper treatment, and domestic heating.

The harvested water can also be committed to longer-term storage or groundwater recharge.

As you can see, we all can do our part to help.

Let’s think about Storm Water Harvesting, especially after the recent big one we enjoyed.

Storm water harvesting or storm water reuse is the collection, accumulation, treatment or purification, and storage of storm water for its eventual reuse.

While rainwater harvesting collects precipitation primarily from rooftops, storm water harvesting deals with collection of runoff from creeks, gullies, ephemeral streams, and other ground conveyances (pipes).

It can also include catchment areas from developed surfaces, such as roads or parking lots, or other urban environments such as parks, gardens and playing fields.

Water that comes into contact with impervious surfaces, or saturated surfaces incapable of absorbing more water, is termed surface runoff.

As the surface runoff travels greater distance over impervious surfaces it often becomes contaminated and collects an increasing amount of pollutants. A main challenge of storm water harvesting is the removal of pollutants in order to make this water available for reuse.

Good to know. Makes sense. The longer the path, the more oils, animal waste and chemical pollutants the water collects.

That’s where a water treatment plant can be very helpful.

In San Francisco, one of the water treatment plants is sfpuc.org, San Francisco Water Power and Sewer.

They share, “We provide quality drinking water and wastewater services to the city of San Francisco, wholesale water to three Bay Area counties, and green hydroelectric and solar power to our municipal departments. We strive to work in harmony with environmental and community interests, and we are dedicated to protecting and sustaining the resources entrusted to our care. We are widely recognized as a national leader for excellent service, stewardship, and innovation.

We own and operate the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System, which serves 2.7 million customers in San Francisco and wholesale through 26 Water agencies in Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties.

The system provides energy to retail electric customers, wholesale electric customers and in normal-to-high precipitations years, the SFPUC sells this energy on the California energy markets.

We are the only coastal city in California with a combined sewer system that collects and treats both sewage and stormwater (collectively referred to as “wastewater”), helping to keep pollutants from entering the bay and ocean.”

Very enlightening. We always wondered about that.

Hetch Hetchy is a valley, a reservoir, and a water system.

The glacial Hetch Hetchy Valley lies in the northwestern part of Yosemite National Park and is drained by the Tuolumne River. For thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from the United States in the 1850s, the valley was inhabited by Native Americans who practiced subsistence hunting-gathering. During the late 19th century, the valley was renowned for its natural beauty – often compared to that of Yosemite Valley – but also targeted for the development of water supply for irrigation and municipal interests.

The dam and reservoir are the centerpiece of the Hetch Hetchy Project, which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles west to San Francisco and its client municipalities in the greater San Francisco Bay Area.

Of note, Hetch Hetchy is home to a diverse array of plants and animals. Gray pine, incense-cedar, and California black oak grow in abundance. Many examples of red-barked manzanita can be seen along the Hetch Hetchy Road. Spring and early summer bring wildflowers including lupine, wallflower, monkey flower, and buttercup.

Just east of San Francisco, the major city of Sacramento, has its water supplied in part by Folsom Dam.

Folsom Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the American River of Northern California.

fciwomenswrestling.com femcompetitor.com, fcielitecompetitor.com fciwomenswrestling2.com Folsom-The-Oaked-Ridge-Own-work-wikipedia.

The dam is flanked by earthen wing dams. It was completed in 1955, and officially opened the following year.

Located at the junction of the north and south forks of the American River, the dam was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and was transferred to the United States Bureau of Reclamation upon its completion.

The dam and its reservoir, Folsom Lake, are part of the Central Valley Project, a multipurpose project that provides flood control, hydroelectricity, irrigation, and municipal water supply.

To increase Sacramento's flood protection to 200-year flood protection (meaning that the area is protected from a flood that has a 0.5% chance of occurring in any given year), the Corps of Engineers recently constructed an auxiliary spillway, which was completed in October 2017.

It enables Folsom Dam operators to increase outflows to prevent the lake level from reaching or exceeding the height of the main dam gates.

The California water eco-system is fairly complex, but after the recent heavy rainfall, we wanted to at least take a glimpse into how the system works and how we can make the most of the recent rainfall, given how California has suffered so many major devastating fires.

The good news, as of this writing, more rainfall is expected in the coming weeks.