Weathering a dry spell that’s too wet

During the California Gold Rush, pioneers crossing the prairie in covered wagons sang Stephen Foster’s 1848 song “Oh Susannah.” You remember the words: “It rained all night the day I left / the weather it was dry / the sun so hot I froze to death / Susannah don’t you cry.”

Scholars call that “nonsense verse.” But when you live in Southern California, you know that’s the way the weather is out here.

It’s officially winter, but the forecast for this past Monday was 80 degrees. Some winter this is turning out to be. After last year’s record-setting El Niño storms, we’re getting a dry La Niña winter. February is normally our wettest month, but it hasn’t rained here since early January. We usually get between 12 and 15 inches of rain during our rainy season. That’s just a smidgen more than the 10 inches a year that a desert gets. This season, we’ve had less than three inches of rain, and we’re running out of winter.

Despite the lack of rain, water is still rising in low-lying areas such as Shipley Nature Center and the rest of Central Park. Water is seeping into yards and oozing through cracks in the pavement in neighborhoods west of Graham Street between Warner and Slater avenues, and near McFadden Avenue and Goldenwest Street.

This phenomenon occurs as a result of dams on the Santa Ana River watershed, which releases stored water slowly over time. Water has been flowing steadily out of Prado Dam and down the Santa Ana River through Yorba Linda and Anaheim. This slow but steady release allows the water to sink into the ground, where it trickles into the groundwater basin.

The sandy riverbed is dry downstream, but the water still flows underground through Orange County’s mile-deep Pleistocene alluvium -- sediment deposited by flowing water during the ice ages. This alluvium built up eons ago, when the Santa Ana Mountains were eroding into their present shape. The water flowing through it eventually hits a rock or clay barrier deep underground. Since it can’t go any further, it rises to the surface. And that’s where all this rising water is coming from, and why it has become a problem.

In an attempt to alleviate the situation, the city of Huntington Beach has decided to switch from buying imported Colorado and Sacramento River water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, to using groundwater. Normally, the city uses Colorado River water during the winter because it’s cheaper than pumping and treating our own groundwater.

One of the areas where rising water is causing concern is Shipley Nature Center. The Friends of Shipley Nature Center has spent three years planting California native trees and shrubs, using normal winter-pond levels as a guideline for wetland boundaries. The pond has now expanded from its normal size of a half-acre to between nine and 10 acres.

Unfortunately, some areas on the east side were planted in oaks, and the rising water will probably kill the young oaks. Sycamores and willows, which grow naturally in wetland and riparian areas, will tolerate the high water level a lot better than oaks. Many of the newly renovated trails in the nature center are also under water.

However, for the most part, the rising water is helping our friends in their battle against invasive weeds. In general, only our native wetland plants like cattails, bulrushes, marsh fleabane and willow herb can tolerate such wet conditions. The Orange County Conservation Corps has battled weeds at Shipley since 2002, starting with arundo, or giant reed. The high water should kill many of the remaining weeds and their seeds. Only passion vine remains as a serious invasive, and the water may help to drown some of it.

While Vic is teaching, I go to Shipley one afternoon every other week with a new orientation crew from the Orange County Conservation Corps. We battle what weeds we can find. Frankly, we appear to be running out of weeds. And to that, I say hooray!

I also take the new orientation crews to Bolsa Chica to work with the Bolsa Chica Conservancy. We plant, weed, and water new plantings. In just two years we’ve made major headway in eliminating the worst invasives from the Little Mesa at Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway. We’ve installed hundreds of plants, especially along PCH. Those that were installed early in the planting season in October and November last year are doing fine because they benefited from what little rainfall we had. The upland plants installed more recently are struggling due to lack of rain. California’s native plants like to grow roots during the wet winters and make leaves during the long, dry summers. The dry winter will make it harder for them to get established, but most of them should survive.

It sure would be nice if rainfall was a bit more regular and predictable, but that’s just the way it is in this part of the world. Don’t freeze to death under the hot sun.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].

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