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Santa Clara Valley Water District
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Santa Clara Valley Water District
The Santa Clara Valley Water District (also known as Valley Water) provides stream stewardship, wholesale water supply and flood protection for Santa Clara County, California, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
The district encompasses all of the county's 1,300 square miles (3,400 km2) and serves the area's 15 cities, 2 million residents and more than 200,000 commuters. In terms of acres, the district includes 138,000 acres, and 120,700 of those acres are lands that people have built cities, roads or cultivate farms on. Almost 2,000 pumping wells supply the districts fields, houses and businesses with a clean reliable source of water. The water district has about 150 miles of pipelines and operates 10 dams and reservoirs, three treatment plants, many groundwater recharge basins, three pump stations and an advanced water purification plant. The district's three water treatment plants can produce as much as 210,000,000 US gallons (800,000 m3) of drinking water a day.
The water that supplies the Santa Clara Valley Water District comes from various locations. Some of it comes from snowpack melt miles away. This water is brought to the county through the many infrastructure projects in California, including the Federal Central Valley Project. Santa Clara county also gets some of its water from recycled water. This water is purified to remove impurities and is used in multiple areas such as in agriculture. Santa Clara Water District has historically extracted water from under the ground in aquifers as well. Alluvial aquifers are the source of this ground water.
The district treats wastewater in stages. Solids are removed first, followed by the disinfection of water using ozone. After that, microscopic particles are eliminated and the ultimate step involves disinfection with chlorine. Chlorine kills organisms that may have survived the previous water purification stages, and helps prevent contamination from other organism after the stages are complete and while the water is transported.
There are five major watersheds in the Santa Clara Valley Water District. They include the Coyote Watershed, Guadalupe Watershed, Lower Peninsula Watershed, Uvas-Llagas Watershed, and West Valley Watershed.
The district owns many dams, including:
Over the years people have over-extracted the district's groundwater causing problems. In 1916-1934 there was a drought due to lack of rainfall; this coupled with excessive water withdrawal dropped the average water level in wells in the Santa Clara Water District by 108 feet. Excessive water consumption over many years has led to groundwater drops of more than 200 feet in some areas. When water levels in these aquifers drop below their threshold, compaction causes the aquifer to not store as much water as it originally did before overextraction. This causes further issues as there is less available water to meet the needs of the people, farm and ecosystems that rely on this water. This also led to land subsidence up to 12.7 feet between the 60-year gap from 1900 to the 1960s. Meaning that not only did water levels sink, but the ground surface sank, or subsided, too.
The Santa Clara Water District has a guide to address "climate change" as they expect the area to experience changes that will impact people and wildlife. They expect changes to occur in such things as the amount of rain received to the temperature of the air. In fact, the driest start of the year the Santa Clara Water District ever recorded was noted on 3/14/2022. They also expect severe weather events such as droughts, heat waves and even wildfires to increase. This guide is known as the CCAP, or Valley Water's Climate Change Action Plan.
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Santa Clara Valley Water District
The Santa Clara Valley Water District (also known as Valley Water) provides stream stewardship, wholesale water supply and flood protection for Santa Clara County, California, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area.
The district encompasses all of the county's 1,300 square miles (3,400 km2) and serves the area's 15 cities, 2 million residents and more than 200,000 commuters. In terms of acres, the district includes 138,000 acres, and 120,700 of those acres are lands that people have built cities, roads or cultivate farms on. Almost 2,000 pumping wells supply the districts fields, houses and businesses with a clean reliable source of water. The water district has about 150 miles of pipelines and operates 10 dams and reservoirs, three treatment plants, many groundwater recharge basins, three pump stations and an advanced water purification plant. The district's three water treatment plants can produce as much as 210,000,000 US gallons (800,000 m3) of drinking water a day.
The water that supplies the Santa Clara Valley Water District comes from various locations. Some of it comes from snowpack melt miles away. This water is brought to the county through the many infrastructure projects in California, including the Federal Central Valley Project. Santa Clara county also gets some of its water from recycled water. This water is purified to remove impurities and is used in multiple areas such as in agriculture. Santa Clara Water District has historically extracted water from under the ground in aquifers as well. Alluvial aquifers are the source of this ground water.
The district treats wastewater in stages. Solids are removed first, followed by the disinfection of water using ozone. After that, microscopic particles are eliminated and the ultimate step involves disinfection with chlorine. Chlorine kills organisms that may have survived the previous water purification stages, and helps prevent contamination from other organism after the stages are complete and while the water is transported.
There are five major watersheds in the Santa Clara Valley Water District. They include the Coyote Watershed, Guadalupe Watershed, Lower Peninsula Watershed, Uvas-Llagas Watershed, and West Valley Watershed.
The district owns many dams, including:
Over the years people have over-extracted the district's groundwater causing problems. In 1916-1934 there was a drought due to lack of rainfall; this coupled with excessive water withdrawal dropped the average water level in wells in the Santa Clara Water District by 108 feet. Excessive water consumption over many years has led to groundwater drops of more than 200 feet in some areas. When water levels in these aquifers drop below their threshold, compaction causes the aquifer to not store as much water as it originally did before overextraction. This causes further issues as there is less available water to meet the needs of the people, farm and ecosystems that rely on this water. This also led to land subsidence up to 12.7 feet between the 60-year gap from 1900 to the 1960s. Meaning that not only did water levels sink, but the ground surface sank, or subsided, too.
The Santa Clara Water District has a guide to address "climate change" as they expect the area to experience changes that will impact people and wildlife. They expect changes to occur in such things as the amount of rain received to the temperature of the air. In fact, the driest start of the year the Santa Clara Water District ever recorded was noted on 3/14/2022. They also expect severe weather events such as droughts, heat waves and even wildfires to increase. This guide is known as the CCAP, or Valley Water's Climate Change Action Plan.