Five years of drought and its coattail-riding companion, the bark beetle, literally sucked the sap out of trees, allowed the beetle to zombie-ize the trees into The Standing Dead and have wreaked devastation upon the southern Sierra forests from the El Dorado to the Sequoia. Dead trees. Lots of dead trees. About 66 million of them, according to the U.S. Forest Service’s estimates revised a couple of weeks ago.
Those orange tree patches pictured aren’t harbingers of winter. They are dying or dead trees in California, most likely the result of pine beetle forest damage.
It’s hot now in much of the golden state, and as temperatures continue to rise, something else is happening: Trees are dying in unprecedented numbers. A recent U.S. Forest Service aerial detection survey revealed a record 66 million dead trees in southern Sierra Nevada. What we’re left with is a breeding ground for wildfires in a state where wildfires are already rampant—particularly this time of year.
Beaches will shrink and coastal bluffs will crumble, but most Carlsbad residents and their homes will be safe from the rising sea in the decades ahead, according to a new report by city planners.
The draft Sea Level Rise Vulnerability Assessment looks at potential hazards over two time frames — through 2050 and 2100 — and describes possible strategies to prevent flooding, erosion and property damage. The California Coastal Commission requires the assessment for all cities with a Local Coastal Program.
As offshore wind farms gain momentum in the U.S., the industry predicts a clean-energy bonanza from the West Coast’s steady and powerful breezes that may go a long way to help the state meet its ambitious clean energy mandates.
But reaping the wind off California’s coast must first overcome not only economic and political challenges but also requires technology that is still being developed.
Hundreds of firefighters continued to battle a wildfire in the Sespe Wilderness north of Ojai on Sunday with no containment in sight.
The Pine fire started Thursday morning about 11 miles north of Ojai. As of Sunday morning, the fire had consumed 1,590 acres and was threatening 50 structures, said Helen Tarbet with the Los Padres National Forest. The area’s “very remote and steep and rugged terrain” has made it difficult for the more than 350 fire personnel to get a handle on the blaze, Tarbet said. The fire could be partially contained by Sunday night.
The effort to increase water storage along the San Joaquin River took a step forward Friday.
Local and state representatives signed an agreement allowing them to coordinate and complete feasibility studies for the proposed Temperance Flat Dam and Reservoir project, which would significantly increase water storage capacity in the Valley. Temperance Flat would have an initial double effect, said Tulare County Supervisor Steve Worthley, president of the San Joaquin Valley Water Infrastructure Authority.
Abrahm Lustgarten, a reporter for ProPublica, has written a new story about one of the largest dams in the US, Glen Canyon, and a recent push to open up its gates. It’s a remarkable development, he says, given how important the Colorado River dams — Glen Canyon, with its reservoir, Lake Powell, and Hoover with Lake Meade — have been for the development of the West.
In the early 1900s, the US government started building dams up and down the Colorado River to harness its water and distribute it far outside the river’s natural course — hundreds of miles into Arizona and California.
As if California’s water supplies weren’t already sufficiently imperiled, a bill that would have taken a small step toward groundwater regulation unfortunately has now stalled.
Sen. Lois Wolk’s Senate Bill 1317 would have slowed the speed at which new wells are drilled, and denied permits for wells in critically overdrafted basins until groundwater regulations begin to take effect in 2022. But it ran into opposition from agricultural interests and local government agencies.
Our community has done an outstanding job of reducing water use, and we thank you for embodying all of our water savings slogans: Brown became the new green. Rain or shine, you kept saving water. You fought the drought, inside and out.
Coachella Valley water agencies are sending the wrong message to customers who’ve spent the last year struggling to conserve this most precious resource.
All six of the area’s water suppliers have told state officials they’re officially shooting for a zero percent conservation rate compared to 2013, the benchmark year the state has been using to rate progress on that front.Though this is disappointing, no one should be surprised.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
