US Drought Monitor

The US Drought Monitor is Wrong,
no way is El Dorado Hills and the American River watershed
in "Severe Drought" in 2016.

This web page is not a "normal" web page, designed for readability. It is published on sierrafoot.org, but is intended mainly to collect information for authors of the US Drought Monitor that would be more like a booklet than a simple page.

Photographic examples:

Three photos in El Dorado Hills
Clicking on a thumbnail below goes to a larger rendition with a summary description.
Three photos from Carson Pass
Clicking on a thumbnail image below goes to a larger rendition.

According to USDM both of these locations are in Severe Drought (D2).

Near the bottom of the American River watershed, at elevation 650 feet, in El Dorado Hills, at this writer's home: 0.8 miles from Folsom Lake at high water, about 3 miles from the lakeshore at 2015 record low storage.
Volunteer western redbud 8 ft high in EDH *unirrigated* area first week of July, 2016	Volunteer sweet peas 7 ft high in EDH *unirrigated* area first week of June, 2016	Trench revealing water table 6 inches below ground level in EDH *unirrigated* area first week of June, 2016

** Update: The volunteer sweet peas died back as usual at the beginning of summer,
** their next generation began sprouting on August 3, 2016 in still-unirrigated ground
** An August 18 check on the redbud, updating its early July status::
It's totally healthy, has grown well (top now about 9 ft high and it's much broader).
It still has no irrigation.

At the top of the American River watershed, around 9,000 feet
Carson Pass area, looking west over meadow and forest, toward Caples Lake 7/26/2016	Wildflowers in meadow near Lake Winnemucca 7/26/016	Some types of flowering plants are above belt-high 7/26/2016

El Dorado Hills is not in drought,
the American River watershed is not in drought.
Folsom Lake is in regulatory drought, nature provided ample water in the past year.

What the US Drought Monitor says,
beginning 6/14/2016 and unchanged on 8/2/2016

Inset shows EDH home location, rated D2 Severe Drought.
No inset: Carson Pass area also is rated D2, Severe Drought.

7/23/2016 Summary of storage in selected American River reservoirs

Reservoir	Current Storage as...
Reservoir	% of capacity	% of average	% of year-ago
American River reservoirs in CDEC Summary
Folsom Lake	55.9%	75.7%	171.0%
Union Valley	86.5%	104.6%	122.7%
Loon Lake	85.9%	96.9%	168.0%
Ice House	88.8%	98.7%	113.8%
Nimbus	92.7%	100.1%	103.7%
EID's Largest Reservoirs*
Jenkinson Lake	93%	TBD	TBD
Caples Lake	92%	TBD	TBD
Silver Lake	89%	TBD	TBD

*Data from EID web site instead of CDEC, also sampled for 7/23/2016

Folsom Lake has regulatory drought, not natural drought:
Folsom Lake capacity is 977,000 acre feet (0.977 million acre feet).
From 2/15/2016 to 7/23/2016 Folsom Lake inflow has totalled 1.690 million acre feet.
From 2/15/2016 to 7/23/2016 Folsom Lake outflow has totalled 1.744 million acre feet: 103.2% of inflow.

In terms of hydrology, Folsom Lake is in serious-to-extreme drought:
Its storage is far below average for this date and is decreasing far more rapidly than average.
If the current rate of storage depletion continues it will reach dead pool in October.
This drought is due primarily to the multiple regulatory agencies' orders, especially for fishery management.

Folsom fishery outflows are especially used to chill river water for spawning fish whose ancestral spawning areas are now blocked by dams::

Lower American River for fall-run Chinook salmon and steelhead
Sacramento River for winter-run Chinook salmon.

Folsom Dam is one of those often required to release cold water in order to conserve Shasta's cold water pool for use later in the year, for winter-run Chinook salmon. Originally fall and winter-run fish spawned above the sites now occupied by Shasta Dam and Keswick Dam. Eggs, fry, fingerlings, and smolts are especially vulnerable to warm water temperatures.

Click on this thumbnail for a large-rendition of an annotated graph of Folsom Lake storage over time in water years running from October 1 to September 30 of the following calendar year..

In general, the American river Basin and specifically El Dorado Hills are NOT in drought.
Some additional surface water hydrology metrics* for EID (El Dorado Irrigation District) reservoirs:
* as reported li CDEC, the Department of Water Resources California Data Exchange:

Jenkinson Lake, the largest EID-owned reservoir, reached 100% capacity in the first week of February. it stopped spilling in the first week of June. At the end of June it was 98% full: Storage 40,033 acre feet, capacity 41,000.
Caples Lake topped out at 99.9% full In the first week of July. On July 21st it was 92% full: Storage 20,569 acre feet, Capacity 22,340 acre feet.
Silver Lake, the smallest of these three EID reservoirs, was 100.4% full in the last week of June. On July 21st it was 89% full: Storage 7,730 acre feet, Capacity 8,640 acre feet.

** In contrast, on July 23rd Folsom Lake was 55.9% full.
** On August 8 is was 43.8% full.
Observed in a day hike in mid-June: High river flow at the confluence of Caples Creek and the Upper Silver Fork American River. River width just below the confluence appeared to be about 80 feet, generally whitewater.
Observed in a day high in the third week of June: Above-normal snow for that date on the trail running from Carson Pass to Frog Lake, Winnemucca Lake, and Round Top. Most hikers stopped stopped at Frog Lake.Exceptions were mainly two or three dozen skiers hiking back after skiing Round Top.

By reasonable metrics substantially all of the American River Basin is not in drought. The sole exception is hydrological drought for surface water stored in Folsom Lake. Folsom Lake has regulatory drought, not natural drought: Regulatory requirements to release much more water than average. The largest current regulatory requirement is intended to substitute Folsom releases for Shasta releases, in order to save water for Shasta Dam to release later for the benefit of the winter chinook salmon run.

Photos, at the El Dorado Hills Home of this web site's author

All irrigation had been turned off throughout the winter and early spring.

Photo 1, first week of July, 2016:
A volunteer western redbud, about 8 feet tall, in an unirrigated part of the back yard.

The end of one of the back yard's 3/4" drip manifolds is visible on the ground, but no distribution lines are rigged to supply water to the tree. The original plan called for a large fern garden beneath ten large trees in this back section of the lot. We abandoned the fern garden concept after experimentally planting three ferns. The low stump to the right and behind the redbud is from one of two scarlet oaks that we removed in 2015. Trees to the right of this photo include eight redwoods. All of these trees receive little if any irrigation: They rely on groundwater and are thriving.

Photo 2, first week of June, 2016:
Volunteer sweet peas, 7 feet high in an unirrigated side yard

plus assorted weeds, in the north side yard. This area has no irrigation except drip for the two crape myrtle trees and the raised garden bed. The sweet peas topped out at seven feet above ground. (The white lattice 6-foot frames originally were placed for the sweet peas to climb on, but actually the sweet peas supported the lattice.)

Photo 3, in first week of June, 2016:
Trench in unirrigated side yard, showing water table (standing water) about 6 inches below the ground surface.

This was an exploratory trench, dug to check for a possible water leak after irrigation had been restarted. Leaving the trench open for a week showed that the water table was steady about 6 inches below ground, at the depth of the visibly exposed PVC line. Irrigation testing with the trench open and extended to both left and right from the area in this photo confirmed that no leak existed: The water level was constant and attempts to empty the trench resulted in immediate seepage from the surrounding soil, refilling the bottom of the trench to the same water level.

The main source of water in this area was winter rain that saturated the side yard's clay soil. A secondary source at this trench probably was limited outflow from a slotted drain pipe that crossed over the PVC line about ten feet to the right. That slotted pipe received drainage from part of the back yard and carries it to the front-yard gutter. Drainage at the gutter gradually decreased over the last rain of the season but seepage continued for at about three weeks.

This trench also exposed part of the mesh of roots of a large redwood tree, whose trunk is about 20 feet away, in the front yard.

What about visible stress on other local vegetation, including dead trees and especially oaks?

Survivors of the past four drought years are looking much healthier in 2016, though the drought had produced serious damage to trees and vegetation by 2015. However, no matter whether the scene is home landscapes or the El Dorado National Forest, recovery in 2016 appears to be robust. This is the perception of one without the credentials and understanding of an arborist, but with two and a half decades of experience in home landscaping and dayhikes on the Sierra's west slope.

Final detail for reference: Graph of Folsom Lake storage on 7/22/2016, annotated

Folsom Lake storage graph, annotated