Some years, the ground near the Arroyo Pasajero Creek, which runs halfway between Sacramento and Los Angeles, is too dry to farm, while others are dangerously inundated.
A coalition of local farmers and the nearby city of Huron are attempting to turn former hemp and tomato fields into massive receptacles that can hold water as it percolates into the ground during wet years.
This project, and others like it across California’s Central Valley breadbasket, aim to contain floodwaters that would otherwise flow out to sea or cause damage to towns, cities, and crops.
Traditional water storage methods, such as damming rivers to create reservoirs, are harmful to the environment.
Water was so scarce in the Central Valley this year due to California’s historic drought that Huron was only allocated a quarter of the water it was contracted to receive from the US Bureau of Reclamation.
According to engineering consultant Alfonso Manrique, the community, one of California’s poorest, had to buy water on the open market, boosting citizens’ expenses.
The new initiative, known as a recharge system, converts idle fields into big ponds to collect water, allowing it to percolate into the permeable rock and dirt beneath, building or restoring an aquifer rather than rushing to the sea. According to Manrique, the city is constructing a new well that will be fed by the aquifer.
Capturing runoff will also aid in protecting the city of less than 7,000 people from devastating floods.
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