It’s already late May. But parts of Northern California got another blast of rain and snow this weekend, helping the state’s drought relief efforts.
A spring storm dropped rain in parts of Northern California on Saturday afternoon, but it was less severe than the one a day earlier that dumped up to 13 inches of snow on a Sierra Nevada highway and hit the Sacramento area lightning, winds gusting to 40 mph and dime-sized hail.
A spring storm dropped rain in parts of Northern California on Saturday afternoon, but it was less severe than the one a day earlier that dumped up to 13 inches of snow on a Sierra Nevada highway and hit the Sacramento area lightning, winds gusting to 40 mph and dime-sized hail.
Some arriving flights at San Francisco International Airport were delayed for up to 90 minutes on Friday. Meanwhile, traffic was snarled on Interstate 80 in the northern Sierra Nevada for hours as crews plowed as much as a foot of snow and dealt with dozens of spinouts and minor crashes.
With its tract homes, expansive lots and rural soul, Yorba Linda exemplifies the sort of sleepy suburb that would coin the motto “Land of Gracious Living.”
Recently, though, this upscale Orange County city of 66,000 has been anything but. Longtime residents are engaged in a legal brawl with their water provider, punctuated by vitriol and name-calling that some say reminds them of the 2016 presidential campaign. At issue is a $25-per-month rate hike that Yorba Linda Water District officials say was needed to keep the agency solvent after state-mandated water conservation blew a hole in its budget.
Congress could be taking another swing at modernizing the state’s water management policies to provide both short- and long-term solutions, under legislation introduced by 3rd District Congressman John Garamendi, D-Fairfield.
Whether the package introduced Tuesday will make it through Congress, however, is anyone’s guess. California lawmakers have been trying for the last three years to produce a plan that would deal with the state’s drought without success. Meanwhile, in related action, the California Farm Bureau Federation urged the U.S. Senate to take up drought legislation.
Despite the strongest El Niño event on record and the well above normal amounts of rainfall it brought to Northern California, the worst category of drought (D4 Exceptional Drought) continues to persist throughout most of San Luis Obispo and Kern counties and all of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
Since the start of 2016, nearly all the long-range models have consistently advertised that a La Niña condition — which historically produces below average rainfall for the Central Coast — will develop in the eastern equatorial Pacific this upcoming winter.
Think the drought’s over? Don’t turn on that sprinkler just yet.
On Monday, May 9, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order “making water conservation a California way of life.” In other words, drought regulations — from limits on outdoor irrigation to water use targets — will remain in effect in perpetuity throughout the State of California. “Californians stepped up during this drought and saved more water than ever before,” Gov. Brown said in a statement. “But now we know that drought is becoming a regular occurrence and water conservation must be a part of our everyday life.”
This week, California lifted some — but not all — of its statewide restrictions on urban water use. This comes as Lake Mead’s water level, affected by the same dry conditions that have devastated California, reached its lowest level on record.
Unlike several past winters, this last one was relatively wet, relieving drought conditions in the northern part of the state and allowing the state to lift some of water restrictions. Conditions in much of the southern part of the state, however, remain unimproved.
Remember that “historic” drought? The one that erased snow from the Sierra and was turning the Central Valley into a dusty bowl?
Remember how it was supposed to be permanent? How all Californians need to forever change the wasteful ways we use water because most of the state is, in fact, a desert? We remember. We’re not sure about the State Water Resources Control Board and some local water agencies, though.
A judge has upheld major provisions of a state plan that lays out a long-term strategy for managing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, rejecting most complaints included in a cluster of long-standing lawsuits.
But in a ruling Wednesday, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael P. Kenny also found that some aspects of the plan are inadequate, raising fresh questions about Gov. Jerry Brown’s controversial $15.5 billion plan to build two tunnels through the estuary.
