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Desal Investment Eases San Diego’s Water Cuts

/in /by /Water Online (Horsham, Penn.)by By Sara Jerome Quoted: Bob Yamada

After months of lobbying, San Diego is getting a break on water conservation requirements imposed by California regulators.

“In response to the recently launched Poseidon desalination plant in Carlsbad, state officials have agreed to dramatically ease water conservation goals in San Diego for almost all residential water users. The adjustments will nearly cut in half required water savings throughout the region, the San Diego County Water Authority announced [in March],” The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

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El Niño: Preparing now for disasters later

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby By Jo Scheuer

For much of this year, some of the world’s most vulnerable people have found themselves in the grip of El Niño, a profound and confounding natural disaster that brings with it severe floods, severe drought and, potentially, more intense and more frequent cyclones.

Arriving every three to seven years to warm parts of the Pacific – in turn affecting weather systems around the globe – El Niño is anything but benign, as it builds on an already changing climate and strains the ability of millions of people to cope.

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Boost in Flows Underscores Need for Delta Improvements

/in /by /Association of California Water Agencies (Sacramento)by By Tim Quinn

With a series of recent downpours sending huge volumes of water into rivers, streams and reservoirs, drought-weary Northern Californians are seeing images they haven’t seen in years.

Lake Shasta picked up about 1 million acre-feet of storage in two weeks, while the Bureau of Reclamation is making flood control releases from Folsom Reservoir, which was at near-historic lows just two months ago. Sacramento River water flowed into the Yolo Bypass for the first time since 2012, and the statewide snowpack is close to average.

 

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Want these public records? Pay $202,500

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Alia Ismay and Lauryn Schroeder

U-T Watchdog made an unusual records request to mark Sunshine Week, a nationwide push to raise awareness of government transparency issues. We asked local agencies to search official employee email accounts for 19 phrases that might indicate trouble is afoot(“Yekes,” “OMG,” “what a disaster”). The costs quoted to fulfill the requests varied widely.

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Metropolitan Water District will participate in water saving program

/in /by /MyNewsLA.com by Hillary Jackson

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and two other western water agencies will take part in a federal program that solicits ideas for water-saving devices and technologies and awards grants to develop them, officials announced Wednesday.

Also taking part in the innovative Conservation Program — a project of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — are the Central Arizona Project and Southern Nevada Water Authority. Southern California Gas Co. also participates in the program.

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Could Sites be California’s next big reservoir?

/in /by /Western Farm Pressby Todd Fitchette

California’s latest drought has made the need for additional water storage self-evident to a larger segment of the population. So much so that lawmakers were pressured into putting a new water bond on the ballot – albeit smaller than the plan approved several years earlier that lawmakers refused to let voters decide upon.

Perhaps the one project closest to the top of any list for consideration is the Sites Reservoir project, an off-stream facility hidden from view by most Californians in a quiet foothills location on the western edge of the Sacramento Valley.

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Climate Change Spells Trouble for Calif. Water

/in /by /Courthouse News Serviceby NICK CAHILL

Rising sea levels and soaring temperatures caused by climate change could exacerbate California’s water shortage and increase stress on its most important natural resources, according to a federal report released Tuesday.
Climate change could raise average temperatures in the Sierra Nevada mountain range by more than 5 degrees by the late 21st century and sea water is likely to intrude further into California’s vital freshwater holding tank – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – according to predictions by the Bureau of Reclamation. The study says global warming could cause a median sea level rise of 36 inches and flood the delta with salt water.

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New satellite helps scientists track El Nino

/in /by /ABC 7 Los Angelesby Rob Hayes

NASA scientists have a new eye-in-the-sky to help them measure El Nino.

The Jason-3 satellite has been up and running for a few weeks now and already it is snapping important images of the wet weather pattern’s effects around the globe.

From 800 miles away, the equipment has the ability to measure the height of the oceans within an accuracy of one inch.

For Southern Californians who thirst for more rain in the drought-stricken region, scientists caution not to call El Nino a flop just by what they’ve seen in their own backyards.

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Metropolitan Water District will participate in water saving program

/in /by /MyNewsLAby By Hillary Jackson

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and two other western water agencies will take part in a federal program that solicits ideas for water-saving devices and technologies and awards grants to develop them, officials announced Wednesday.

Also taking part in the innovative Conservation Program — a project of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — are the Central Arizona Project and Southern Nevada Water Authority. Southern California Gas Co. also participates in the program.

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Water outlook: From ‘doom and gloom’ to ‘pretty positive’

/in /by /The Appeal-Democrat (Marysville)by Andrew Creasey

On Wednesday morning, while facing the Yolo Bypass brimming with water, a group of water district managers, farmers and fish biologists stood atop Wallace Weir and delivered what seemed almost unthinkable at the end of February — good news about the California water supply.

A string of storms in March has inundated the North State’s major reservoirs and sent storm water surging through rivers and bypasses, transforming the tenor of talks about water supply for agriculture and cold water storage for endangered salmon from doom and gloom scenarios to cautious optimism, said Lewis Bair, general manager of Reclamation District 108.

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