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Chula Vista Man Appointed to California Fish and Game Commission

/in /by /ABC10 (San Diego)

Gov. Jerry Brown Friday announced the appointment of a Chula Vista man to the California Fish and Game Commission.

Peter Silva, 63, has been president and chief executive officer at Silva-Silva International since 2011. He served as assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2009 to 2011, senior policy advisor at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California from 2005 to 2009 and vice chair at the State Water Resources Control Board from 2000 to 2005.

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Free Landscaping Videos Bring Water Savings

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by By Karla Peterson Quoted: Joni German
When newcomers to the San Diego County Water Authority’s WaterSmart landscaping program tackle the prospect of giving their yards a water-saving makeover, their first questions aren’t about what they should tear out and what they should plant instead. It turns out their first questions are much more basic. Primal, even.
“Who can do this for me? Who can I hire? Can I really do this myself?” said Joni German, assistant water resources specialist for the San Diego County Water Authority.
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California Water Storage Projects Receive Awards

/in /by /civil + structural ENGINEER (Fayetteville, Ark.) Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The Emergency & Carryover Storage Project (E&CSP) in San Diego is one of the most important infrastructure projects constructed in the United States in the last century. In the naturally dry and arid regions of southern California, 80 percent of the water is imported from hundreds of miles away from more abundant resources in Northern California and the Colorado River.  This leaves all of southern California, especially the San Diego region, susceptible to disruptions in the water delivery system, namely from earthquakes, statewide system failures, or extreme droughts and other water shortages.

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Drought-Ridden L.A. Tries Rainmakers to Tap Storm Clouds

/in /by /Scientific American (Washington, D.C.)by David Biello

Los Angeles has officially stopped trying to make it rain—for now. During three separate storms in the past two months, contract workers for the L.A. County Department of Public Works ignited 25 special flares in the hills above Pasadena, sending columns of glittering smoke into the clouds to give them a literal silver lining that could boost precipitation.

The efforts mark the first time since 2002 that the parched metropolis has seeded clouds in an attempt to enhance rainfall; it is currently enduring a nearly five-year-long drought with this winter’s rainfall at just 40 percent of the usual amount.

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California Drought Eases, But It’s Far From Over

/in /by /WBUR (Boston)

The El Nino rains have brought some relief to drought-stricken California. The U.S. Drought Monitor is reporting that the percentage of the state in exceptional drought is half of what it was at the beginning of the year – 21 percent versus 44.8 percent in January. At least one water district has decided to loosen its water usage restrictions.

But Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, says water scarcity is a chronic condition in California and the drought is far from over.http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2016/05/05/california-drought-eases

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When in drought: the California farmers who don’t water their crops

/in /by /The Guardian (San Francisco)by Charlotte Simmonds

There’s something different about Will Bucklin’s grape vines. At first it’s hard to notice, but a drive through northern California’s Sonoma Valley, past waves of green, manicured vineyards, makes it clear. The black ribbon of PVC irrigation pipe that typically threads the vines is curiously absent here – because Will doesn’t water his crops.

Bucklin’s Old Hill Ranch, purchased by his stepfather Otto Teller in 1980, claims to be the oldest-rooted vineyard in the area. Teller fell in love with the vineyard because it was one of the few that still “dry-farmed”.

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Report Finds Unsafe Water May Affect 24 Percent of California Public Schools

/in /by /Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)by By Amy Quinton

Water supplies in many California public schools have repeatedly exceeded safe drinking standards. The report from the Community Water Center looked at nearly 7,000 public schools around California. It found between 2003 and 2014, up to 24 percent of the schools had water that violated safe standards.

“Bacterial and arsenic violations were the most common types of violations impacting schools, but they were also followed by the pesticide DBCP, disinfectant byproducts, and nitrates,”says lead author Jenny Rempel with the Community Water Center.

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BLOG: California Groundwater Regulation Hangs on a Few Words

/in /by /Circle of Blue by By Brett Walton

California’s attempt to exert tighter control over groundwater use, the purpose of a landmark 2014 state law, was designed to be a compromise between state authority and local oversight.

The tension dogged the writing of the law two years ago, and is playing out again as the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) drafts the regulations that will put the law into practice. The regulations in question are those that the state will use to evaluate groundwater sustainability plans, the 20-year planning documents required of local management agencies by the 2014 law.

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More Thunderstorms Due; Lake Oroville Could Keep Rising

/in /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby By Dan Reidel

Thunder and lightning hit the north valley this week and flashing, booming skies could continue through Saturday evening.

“There’s an unsettled pattern, we do have a large trough of low pressure over the West Coast right now,” said Karl Swanberg, a forecaster with the National Weather Service’s Sacramento office. “These enhanced features, they just rotate around the low pressure, so you get little waves of energy bringing a chance of showers and in your area, thunderstorms.”

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Long-Term Drought Persists In California

/in /by /Capital Public Radio (Sacramento)by By Ed Joyce

The U.S. Drought Monitor released May 5 shows some minor improvement in California drought conditions. But looking ahead to the dry season shows drought persisting for a fifth consecutive year in the Golden State.

In California, some moderate drought was removed in the northern portion of the state. The extreme northwest portion of the state accounts for the 4.27 percent of California where there is no drought. But 96 percent remains abnormally dry, with 89 percent in moderate, 74 percent in severe, 49 percent in extreme and 21 percent in exceptional drought.

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